The best best EVER is The Princess Bride. Both the book and the movie are awesome. But William Goldman very wisely heavily adapted his own book. While it has obvious similarities he changed the screenplay in significant ways in order to make the movie as great as it is.
While the author may not agree with me, I really liked The Shining in both forms.
The First Wives Club was a FANTASTIC book that was made into an appalling movie. Really if you're going to make a movie from a book that is partially about a middle aged woman coming to terms with realizing she's a lesbian, you probably shouldn't edit that part out. The movie really made no sense once it was turned into a chick flick instead of a really dark really hard core revenge piece. This was no rom com vehicle for 4 middle aged actresses. And thus it bombed. The same author did a book called Flavor of the Month. It's also really interesting and REALLY bizarre. I'd love to see it on film, but it will never happen because of the subject matter.
Of course, the most recent example, and a favorite book of mine is Team of Rivals by our favorite Tri Delta Doris Kearns-Goodwin, and the movie Lincoln. It's only loosely based on her book, but I still loved both pieces.
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"Traveling - It leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller. ~ Ibn Battuta
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