CASINO ROYALE
Ian Fleming (paperback)
Not content to keep James Bond at the card table, Royale's scripting trio fleshes out Fleming's plot with an origin story, a Madagascar jaunt, and Daniel Craig in a snug swimsuit.
Last Word
The film's darker take on 007 is a headier cocktail of grit, sex, and suspense. — Hannah Tucker

A GOOD YEAR
Peter Mayle (paperback) The '04 novel's vineyard-inheriting stockbroker (Russell Crowe) gets a fuller romance and more childhood flashbacks. Screenwriter Marc Klein also de-emphasizes a secondary plot about a mystery wine.
Final Word
Mayle's sensuous prose is a higher vintage. — Michelle Kung

FAST FOOD NATION
Eric Schlosser (paperback) Schlosser adapts (with director Richard Linklater) his 2001 nonfiction exposé of fast-food corporations, inventing characters and (potentially real) scenarios.
Final Word
The book's stories of gross-out animal slaughters and corporate shadiness are more absorbing. — MK


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