#1: Atonement by Ian McEwan

This is the first book I’ve read by McEwan and although I had heard compelling reviews of his writings, I found this hard grasp. The story is one of love, war, guilt, and age that takes the reader through six decades of somewhat constant torment. His descriptions of the characters and their settings are lengthy and profoundly visual. However, I found the number of actual events in the book to be few. This, in turn, led me to wonder how the book was made into a film. There is little dialogue and the creative use of third person narration would be difficult to translate onto a screen.  

I will see the film version of Atonement not to relive the story, but to simply see how it is done. 

Update: I saw the movie and while I would venture to say I liked it better then the book, I felt like it almost told a different story altogether. There was humor where I hadn’t seen it before and it didn’t touch on all of the themes I found important. But altogether, the acting and the cinematography were perfect. Plus, there was an excellent five minute tracking shot during the scene at Dunkirk.