Can Movies Make You More Excited to Read?

Lindsay McMahon (0:00)

This is the All Ears English Podcast. Can movies make you more excited to read?

Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American host Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer. Coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com/subscribe.

Aubrey Carter (0:46)

The All Ears English Podcast Movies that get made into books or vice versa are a common conversation topic at a party or when you're socializing. Listen in today to learn how to give your opinion in English when a book becomes a movie.

SPEAKER_3 (1:08)

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Aubrey Carter (2:03)

Hello, Lindsay. How are you today?

Lindsay McMahon (2:05)

Hey, Aubrey. I am just fresh off going to the movies. I went to see The Odyssey last two weekends ago. I took a little bit of a Friday afternoon off and went to the movies.

Aubrey Carter (2:17)

Definitely a good one to see in theaters. Hopefully, a lot of you out there listening were able to experience it either in IMAX or just, I didn't do the IMAX, I just did a regular, but like theater screen.

Lindsay McMahon (2:26)

Yes.

Aubrey Carter (2:27)

It's such movies like that that are big and loud and impressive, are fun to see in the theater.

Lindsay McMahon (2:32)

Yes, very fun to see. Today, we're talking about one particular movie, but one quick question before we get into what movie we're going into today.

Has a film ever made you want to actually read the book? Have you ever watched a movie and then felt, oh, I need to read the book now?

Aubrey Carter (2:48)

Yes. Usually, it's the opposite, right? Often, we read the book first and then want to see the film if there is one. But this happened to me with Project Hail Mary. I hadn't read the book yet. The Martian, both by the same author, I hadn't read the books, saw the film first, and then had heard it was a book. I'm like, okay, I have to read the book.

SPEAKER_4 (3:04)

Yes, for sure. What about you?

Lindsay McMahon (3:06)

Is that ever happened? It's happened a few times, I guess, but it's interesting. I think sometimes reading books is magical because you get to create the image in your head.

So I do think it's better to start with reading the book and then seeing the movie. Read the book first, absolutely.

Aubrey Carter (3:21)

Otherwise, you just have what you saw in the film in your mind and you're not able to be as creative, right?

Lindsay McMahon (3:26)

Exactly, exactly. So what are we talking about in today's episode?

Aubrey Carter (3:30)

Yeah, so I saw this article in The Guardian about the film that you saw. We both saw The Odyssey, and a lot of you probably saw it a couple of months ago, but what's fascinating is this article was titled, Nolan's film could make The Odyssey the most sought after book in the US.

And it was fascinating. It shared some details about how the film boosted book sales by several thousand percent. That was impressive numbers. And I loved this. A lot of us had to read it in high school or college. Did you, Lindsay, did you read that book? Yeah, of course.

Lindsay McMahon (4:05)

I think in high school. So, yeah, it's been a while.

Aubrey Carter (4:09)

I have a feeling listeners out there, a lot of you say, you may have read The Odyssey when you were younger. But I'm so curious, I think this is interesting how a lot of people buying this book probably read it when they were younger and then wanted to read it again after watching the film. Or maybe they hadn't read it. And this was the first time they were like, oh, I want to read this book.

Lindsay McMahon (4:27)

Or maybe they read the book again a second time before going to the movie, too. That could also be what happened.