In 2015 my Psychotronic Book Club was responsible, arguably, for hosting the first ever “Birdbox” challenge, a phenomenon which has become commonplace after the huge success of the Netflix film of the same name.
Based on the Josh Malerman cult horror novel, BBC news has reported instances of individuals driving cars blindfolded and other dangerous acts taking place behind a blindfold. Due to the success of the film we decided to revisit the book for another discussion. Our book club did not do anything as drastic as running down stairs blindfolded, but instead we conducted our entire discussion in darkness. This was a strange experience, but the pupils stayed on point and were excellent at expressing themselves.
Usually our book clubs avoid discussing films, however, on this occasion we had fun looking at the differences and flaws between the two mediums. Everyone loved the book, where something unknown in the light makes people go mad (hence the need for blindfolds) but the film had its fans too. Ultimately we agreed that it was a very difficult book to turn into a film and that that even though it was far from perfect, it was a very good version of an amazing book.
Coming soon for future reading…
We will be discussing Alden Bell’s post-apocalyptic horror novel The Reapers are the Angels and have been given an unpublished horror novella by Cliff McNish Fabio’s Monster to read and comment on and feed back to the author. Do get in touch if you would like a copy of the novella by email. The Reapers are the Angels can be picked up from the library.
Mr Jones (Senior Librarian)