My round-up of Back to School reading materials included quite a few movie trailers, mostly because I was too lazy to photograph each and every book, but also because the stuff I was recommending happened to have been adapted into some pretty terrific movies. This got me thinking about just how frequently I see a movie trailer and make the decision to read the book its based upon; the answer is constantly. I love movie trailers and I love books, but I feel very meh about movies themselves. It's actually the perfect solution because a movie trailer should give you enough information to make an informed decision about whether or not a book is worth your time. Thus, Book Trailers, a recurring post on great movie trailers and the excellent books they inspired me to read.

The movie trailer for the recent adaptation of The Great Gatsby inspired a lot of discussion and enthusiasm in my book club, although we never got around to reading the book officially. I was inspired to re-read the very short novel, and managed to squeeze it into a weekend before I saw the movie in theaters. The movie is okay, but really long and certainly flawed, so do yourself a favor and watch the trailer, which is short and pretty perfect, and then read the book, which is also coincidentally, short and perfect. Most people read it in high school and then forget about it but it's short enough and important enough that it deserves to be read again and again.

I was already planning on discussing Maureen Corrigan's So We Read On in a Books on Books post, but I might as well plug it here. It's a compelling look at the novel and its author in historical context, as well as an informed analysis of significance, written by someone who has read it more than 50 times.