Brought to book Tolerance project celebrates World Book Day The Extended Edition. Part 1 What is World Book day
Introduction
Hello there and welcome to the Tolerance project’s small contribution to World Book Day this time in an extended version the blog has been split into 2 parts the first chapter of the blog will look at the history of World Book day and the following books . Dr No by Ian Fleming Jaws by Peter Binchley.
Part 2 of the blog will answer the question what's the difference between a book and a novelization as we look at the novel versions of the Good The Bad and the ugly Star Wars and an officer and a Gentleman plus a few others that should be considered part of the Tolerance project library
Background
World Book Day, also known as World Book and Copyright Day or International Day of the Book, is an annual event organized by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to promote reading, publishing, and copyright.
The first World Book Day was celebrated on 23 April in 1995, and continues to be recognized on that day. A related event in the United Kingdom and Ireland is observed in March. On the occasion of World Book and Copyright Day, UNESCO along with the advisory committee from the major sectors of the book industry, select the World Book Capital for one year. Each designated World Book Capital City carries out a program of activities to celebrate and promote books and reading. In 2023, Accra (the capital of Ghana) was designated as the World Book Capital.
The original idea was conceived in 1922 by Vicente Clavel, director of Cervantes publishing house in Barcelona, as a way to honour the author Miguel de Cervantes and boost the sales of books. It was first celebrated on 7 October 1926, Cervantes' birthday, before being moved to his death date, 23 April, in 1930.The celebration continues with great popularity in Catalonia, where it is referred to as Sant Jordi's Day or The Day of Books and Roses.
In 1995, UNESCO decided that the World Book and Copyright Day would be celebrated on 23 April, as the date is also the anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, as well as that of the birth or death of several other prominent authors. (In a historical coincidence, Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same date—23 April 1616—but not on the same day, as at the time, Spain used the Gregorian calendar and England used the Julian calendar; Shakespeare actually died 10 days after Cervantes died, on 3 May of the Gregorian calendar.)
How the day is celebrated in other countries ?
Spain
In Spain, Book Day began to be celebrated since 1926 every October 7 the date that Miguel de Cervantes was believed to have been born. But, it was considered more appropriate to celebrate this day in a more pleasant season for walking and browsing the books in the open-air. Spring was much better than fall. So in 1930 King Alfonso XIII approved the change of celebration of the Book Day on April 23, the supposed date of the death of Cervantes.
Sweden
In Sweden, the day is known as Världsbokdagen ("World Book Day") and the copyright aspect is seldom mentioned. Normally celebrated on 23 April, it was moved to 13 April in the year 2000 and 2011 to avoid a clash with Easter.
United States
In Kensington, Maryland, the International Day of the Book is celebrated with a street festival on the Sunday closest to 26 April.
India
World Book Day is also celebrated in India on 23 April every year. It is commemorated in many parts of India to encourage & aware of people for reading & publishing books.
From the Bookshelf to the big screen The Books
From the many Spoofs featured in the Tolerance film 2 of them were adapted from books by well known writers and brought to the big screen the first was Dr No by Ian Fleming first published in 1958 as part of his James Bond series of books.
Dr. No is the sixth novel by the English author Ian Fleming to feature his British Secret Service agent James Bond. Fleming wrote the novel in early 1957 at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica. It was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape on 31 March 1958. The novel centres on Bond's investigation into the disappearance in Jamaica of two fellow MI6 operatives. He establishes that they had been investigating Doctor No, a Chinese operator of a guano mine on the fictional Caribbean island of Crab Key. Bond travels to the island and meets Honeychile Rider and later Doctor No.
The novel began as a 1956 screenplay for the producer Henry Morgenthau III for a proposed television show entitled Commander Jamaica. When those plans foundered, Fleming adapted the ideas as the basis for a novel, provisionally titled The Wound Man. The book's eponymous villain was influenced by Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories.
Dr. No was the first of Fleming's novels to face widespread negative criticism in Britain; Paul Johnson of the New Statesman dismissed the book as one of "Sex, Snobbery and Sadism". When released on the American market it was received more favourably. Dr. No was serialised in the Daily Express, first in an abridged story form and later as a comic strip.
Publication history
Dr. No was released on 31 March 1958 in the UK as a hardcover edition by the publishers Jonathan Cape.A paperback edition was issued by Pan Books in February 1960; over 115,000 copies were sold that year. The first American edition was published in June 1958 by Macmillan under the name Doctor No. The largest boost in sales of the novel came in 1962 with the release of the film adaptation. In the seven months after the picture's release, 1.5 million copies of the book were sold. In 1964 the novel was serialised in France-Soir for the French market, which led to increased sales of Bond works in that country; 480,000 French-language copies of the six Bond novels were sold that year. Since its initial publication the book has been issued in numerous hardback and paperback editions, translated into several languages and has never been out of print.
The Screenrant website published an article ranking all 14 James Bond books wrote by Ian Fleming Dr No came at number 9 in their list this is what they said about Dr No
The James Bond books are generally considered to be more grounded and realistic than their cinematic equivalents. Nonetheless, Dr. No is the 007 book series at its silliest. After a fellow MI6 agent disappears in the Caribbean, Bond is sent to investigate and soon comes face to face with the titular villain, an ingenious scientist working with the Russians. The overall plot of Dr. No is fairly standard, but certain elements, such as Dr. No dying among a mound of bird poop and Bond wrestling a giant squid, make the novel hard to take seriously.
We will be covering the Bond books Thunderball and Casino Royale in future blogs
Further watching
to watch a video which looks at the relationship between the James Bond films and the books click here
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water along comes Jaws
Jaws is a novel by American writer Peter Benchley, published in 1974. It tells the story of a large great white shark that preys upon a small Long Island resort town and the three men who attempt to kill it. The novel grew out of Benchley's interest in shark attacks after he learned about the exploits of Montauk, New York shark fisherman Frank Mundus in 1964. Doubleday commissioned him to write the novel in 1971, a period when Benchley worked as a freelance journalist.
Through a marketing campaign orchestrated by Doubleday and paperback publisher Bantam, Jaws was incorporated into many book sales clubs catalogues and attracted media interest. After first publication in February 1974, the novel was a great success, with the hardback staying on the bestseller list for 44 weeks and the subsequent paperback edition selling millions of copies the following year. Reviews of the novel were mixed, with many literary critics finding the prose and characterizations amateurish and banal, despite the novel's effective suspense.
Film producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown read the novel before its publication and purchased the film rights, selecting Steven Spielberg to direct the movie adaptation. Jaws, the motion picture was released in June, 1975 and omitted all of the novel's several subplots and focused primarily on the shark and the characterizations of the three protagonists. Jaws became the highest-grossing movie in history up to that time, becoming a watershed film in motion picture history and the first summer blockbuster film.
The title and the book cover
Shortly before the book went to press, Benchley had still not chosen a title. Benchley had many working titles during development, many of which he called "pretentious", such as The Stillness in the Water and Leviathan Rising. Benchley regarded other ideas, such as The Jaws of Death and The Jaws of Leviathan, as "melodramatic, weird or pretentious".
Congdon and Benchley brainstormed about the title frequently, with the writer estimating about 125 ideas raised The novel still did not have a title until twenty minutes before production of the book. The writer discussed the problem with editor Tom Congdon at a restaurant in New York:
We cannot agree on a word that we like, let alone a title that we like. In fact, the only word that even means anything, that even says anything, is "jaws". Call the book Jaws. He said "What does it mean?" I said, "I don't know, but it's short; it fits on a jacket, and it may work." He said, "Okay, we'll call the thing Jaws.
For the cover, Benchley wanted an illustration of Amity as seen through the jaws of a shark. Doubleday's design director, Alex Gotfryd, assigned book illustrator Wendell Minor with the task.
The image was eventually vetoed for sexual overtones, compared by sales managers to the vagina dentata. Congdon and Gotfryd eventually settled on printing a typographical jacket, but that was subsequently discarded once Bantam editor Oscar Dystel noted the title Jaws was so vague "it could have been a title about dentistry". Gotfryd tried to get Minor to do a new cover, but he was out of town, so he instead turned to artist Paul Bacon.
Bacon drew an enormous shark head, and Gotfryd suggested adding a swimmer "to have a sense of disaster and a sense of scale". The subsequent drawing became the eventual hardcover art, with a shark head rising towards a swimming woman.
Despite the acceptance of the Bacon cover by Doubleday, Dystel did not like the cover, and assigned New York illustrator Roger Kastel to do a different one for the paperback. Following Bacon's basic concept, Kastel illustrated his favourite part of the novel, the opening where the shark attacks Christine Watkins.
For research, Kastel went to the American Museum of Natural History, and took advantage of the Great White exhibits being closed for cleaning to photograph the models. The photographs then provided reference for a "ferocious-looking shark that was still realistic.
After painting the shark, Kastel did the female swimmer. Following a photoshoot for Good Housekeeping, Kastel requested the model he was photographing to lie on a stool in the approximate position of a front crawl. The oil-on-board painting Kastel created for the cover would eventually be reused by Universal Pictures for the film posters and advertising, albeit slightly bowdlerized with the woman's naked body partially obscured with more sea foam.
Publication History
Benchley says that neither he nor anyone else involved in its conception initially realized the book's potential. Tom Congdon, however, sensed that the novel had prospects and had it sent to The Book of the Month Club and paperback houses. The Book of the Month Club made it an "A book", qualifying it for its main selection, then Reader's Digest also selected it. The publication date was moved back to allow a carefully orchestrated release. It was released first in hardcover in February 1974, then in the book clubs, followed by a national campaign for the paperback release.
Bantam bought the paperback rights for $575,000, which Benchley points out was "then an enormous sum of money". Once Bantam's rights lapsed years later, they reverted to Benchley, who subsequently sold them to Random House, who has since done all the reprints of Jaws.
Upon release, Jaws became a great success. According to John Baxter's biography of Steven Spielberg, the novel's first entry on California's best-seller list was caused by Spielberg and producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, who were on pre-production for the Jaws film, buying a hundred copies of the novel each, most of which were sent to "opinion-makers and members of the chattering class". Jaws was the state's most successful book by 7 p.m. on the first day. However, sales were good nationwide without engineering. The hardcover stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for 44 weeks – peaking at number two behind Watership Down – selling a total of 125,000 copies. The paperback version was even more successful, topping book charts worldwide, and by the time the film adaptation debuted in June 1975 the novel had sold 5.5 million copies domestically,] a number that eventually reached 9.5 million copies.
Worldwide sales are estimated at 20 million copies. The success inspired ABC to invite Benchley for an episode of The American Sportsman, where the writer swam with sharks in Australia, in what would be the first of many nature-related television programs Benchley would take part in.
What about the other 3 Jaws films were they turned into books ?
Peter Binchley never returned to Jaws though the other three films in the series were novelised by Hank Surls who novelised both Jaws II and Jaws The Revenge Jaws III was novelised by Ken Ryan,
Of the 3 books Jaws II stands out because Hank Surls novelised a first draft /unused version of the script meaning that the book was totally different to what was seen on cinema screens.
You can read about these novelisations of Jaws II III and 4 be reading parts 2 and 3 of the Tolerance blog Jumping the shark
Further Reading
To read an article from the website Movieweb about the 10 biggest differences between the book by Peter Benchley and the Jaws film click here
Many changes had to be made to Peter Benchley's Jaws to make it the greatest shark movie of all time.
Next week what is the difference between a book and a novelisation
Notes I would like to thank the following websites for their help in completing the first part of this blog Wikipedia for all the background material Google images for the pictures Movieweb for their article on Jaws and differences between the book and the film
Pictures
· World Book day logo
· Dr No Book cover
· Jaws Book cover
· Writer of Jaws Peter Benchley
Jaws 2 book cover