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Is reading a hobby?
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Tom - as it should be. One of my pet gripes is when films are trashed for being 'unfaithful' to the source material. films adaptations are different to the books because, simply, they ARE films, not books. They are a different medium. aspects of a story which may be gripping in a novel just don't work on film.
This is especially true in adaptations of comic books (or graphic novels if you want to change the title of the genre to make you feel better). They cant keep it exactly as the fanboys want because it'd be childish, mysogynistic nonsense (I'm generalising). The very worst comic adaptations, like dick tracy, spawn etc are actually pretty accurate adaptations. which is why they stink.
Ok, you ask, then why adapt it at all? why not write an entirely different story. good question. Money I guess. a film adaptation of a successful novel has a read-made target audience. And, also, there just aren't many good (script) writers around.
there are several good adaptations of stephen king novels - misery, stand by me, shawshank. they are excellent because they are nothing like the books. King is a terrible writer but he does have good ideas.
Shawshank is very faithful to the source material, other than the character Red is is white Irish with ginger hair hence his name and not Morgan Freeman. They even make a joke about that in the film. Stand by Me is very faithful to the source material as well, as is The Green Mile. The poor adaptations of Kings work tends to be his more fantasy horror stories, rather than those more grounded stories.
Fans of the source material will attack adaptations for two reasons. One is as you state is differences made to fit the story to film constraints, which is absurd. The second reason is changes made that ruin the story. See the Lord of The Rings final film that has a horrific final hour of viewing with a million endings and cuts the sacking of the Shire, something that is integral to the entire story.
I'd also argue that by far the best comic book film in many a year Avengers Assemble, worked brilliantly as it wasn't embarrassed about it's source and embraced it's comic book origins.
Then you have something like The Walking Dead. which has deviated from source dramatically with mixed results. Season one was very faithful to the graphic novel and was excellent. Season two totally deviated and was very poor. Season three continues to deviate, but is once again excellent. Game of Thrones will be interesting to see how it unfolds as season one was almost a carbon copy of the first book, while they made a few changes from source in season two. That story could do with some alteration for TV, as there is a great story hidden in some awful writing by George R. R. Martin.
It is all a bit like comparing paintings to photographs. You don't compare because the eye and the imagination with both mediums have a different purpose, neither is supposed to be a copy of the other.
Stephen King books have gradually deteriorated in quality. He has the skill in building a picture and tension but his endings since the early 90s have been pretty dire. Also reading is not a hobby, it is much more important, it is one of life's essentials
Reading is whatever you need it to be. I read for work - this is not a hobby. I read because of work - this isn't a hobby but to me a necessity. However I read because I enjoy reading. I'm banging out all the Sharpe books at the moment and I love it - I do this because I want to.
A Hobby is something you do to relax. I cant think of anything better than reading a book
The Latin of hobby is an activity that one enjoys doing in their spare time.
So yes philosophically speaking reading is a hobby
I wonder what Simon Quinlank would make of all this discussion about hobbies.
Re: listing hobbies in a CV. Is this bad practice, really? The only time I'm put off is when someone insists on capitalising every word, which makes me think that they have a specific interest in Reading, Berkshire. Now THAT might not be quite so attractive to a prospective employer. (I suppose they might be a town planner or something.)
I think it depends how much experience you have on your CV already (which in part may be dictated by common practice for your industry). Mine fills two pages with academics and work experience, and prospective employers would be more interested in knowing the details of the projects I've headlined than discovering that I like reading and running.
Going slightly off-topic here, the best bit of extra-curricular activity I remember reading in a CV was from a guy who held the world record for the longest skid in a car. He drove a Subaru Impreza in a constant sideways skid around a mini roundabout till the tyres wore out!
