Claire Messud's novel

I 2nd Confederacy of Dunces. I once heard a rumor of it being made with Phillip Seymor Hoffman, but have no idea how accurate that is.

Others I'd nominate:

Any of Allan Furst's WWII novels.

The Brothers K by David James Duncan

The Human Factor by Graham Greene (actually pretty much any thing by him that hasn't been filmed)

The Sparrow and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell

Dennis Lehane's PI novels, one is being filmed, directed by Ben Afleck! so I'm in denial about that one, it doesn't exist:-)>

Am I the only person who never "got" Confederacy of Dunces? I'll grant that it has a virtuoso opening, but can't remember a thing about it except how much I loathed the main character.

I'm not the biggest fan of Catcher in the Rye either but suppose it would be high on most lists.

And actually, it would rightly be the CBC's job to film anything by Davies, since he was one of ours... :-) But the CBC is too busy doing glowing miniseries on commie Prime Ministers and eugenicist provincial premiers...>

I loved Robertson Davies' The Rebel Angels.

I also loved Gillian Bradshaw's The Beacon at Alexandria. I think it's my favorite classically-themed historical novel, and certainly my favorite of her novels.

Has anyone ever made a movie of Kingley Amis' Lucky Jim?

Then there are David Lodge's academic novels -- Changing Places, Small World, etc.

(Anyone sense a theme here?)>

The Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman's "Apologia Pro Vita Sua."

Oh, you were thinking of something people might actually go see? :) Well, in that case, it's an easy call. William Godwin's brilliant, and almost totally unknown "Caleb Williams.">

I loved A Secret History as well, in part because I was immersed in Greek history and literature at the time.>

Ditto on EWK re any Furst, Mary Doria Russell, (her realist WWII in Italy one as well) and the Lehane with the sociopathic clowns (!)

Add Tim Powers' Declare-- the Cambridge spies (especially Kim Philby), Islam , the fall of the Soviet Union, demons (djinns) and Catholicism. Best novel by far from an undervalued writer.>

Trouble is, it was John Huston, not "they", who did Wise Blood. Was there anyone else in film literate to do so many good adaptations?-- that one, Joyce's The Dead, The Man Who Would Be King?>

"Film rights to The Secret History were sold to director Alan Pakula; but Pakula died in 1998, and the project plans lapsed until Gwyneth Paltrow expressed interest. The film is now reportedly in production at Miramax under the actress, with Paltrow's brother Jake set to direct."

That is from what first came up via Google, circa 2003.

Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. And Benson's The Lord of the World.>

"Heat" is terrific. It doesn't need to be a movie; it needs to be a "Northern Exposure"-type dramedy. Please HBO!>

Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy would be great, I agree.

I never got "Confederacy of Dunces" either, I must admit, but perhaps I should give it another try.

"An Instance of the Fingerpost," a historic murder mystery set in Restoration England, written by Ian Pears, would make a fabulous movie.

The book has four different narrators, one of whom is the murderer, and each of whom fingers someone different. It deals with science and medicine, politics, war and revolution, the oppression of women, crime and punishment, and university politics. What could be better?>

Pace Rod's vote of confidence, I'm even less of a reader of contemporary fiction than he is. Not one of my suggestions is a "book" in the strictest sense.

-- I'd like to see the right film-maker see what he could make of Sophocles's ANTIGONE (the IMDb sez the only theatrical film version was an early-60s Greek film with ... duh ... Irene Papas). Tragedy isn't a popular cinematic genre, so it's hard to say who'd have the best sensibility -- Ang Lee wouldn't be a bad choice; Ingmar Bergman would be best, but he's probably too old now; Segio Leone is dead. You'd need to open up ANTIGONE, though, and get in quite a bit more back story. The play as it is doesn't have enough filmable drama. Pasolini made an interesting MEDEA (and a dreadful OEDIPUS REX) and Cacoyannis gathered the cast-to-end-all-casts for THE TROJAN WOMEN.

-- My favorite music is THE BARBER OF SEVILLE overture, and a couple of Italian Tito Gobbi films from the post-war decade, it has never been theatrically filmed. You'd need opera singers of course, and that would hamper the film commercially (no movie stars) and artistically (operatic acting generally doesn't "film" well). But Pasolini managed to cast Maria Callas as Medea and get a good and restrained (yes, really) performance from her, so it's not in principle impossible. Opera films have been few, though Bergman made a great film out of THE MAGIC FLUTE (and Kenneth Branagh has one playing at Toronto this year).

-- Since comics are all the rage, I'd like to see a film made of the Bash Street Kids from the Beano (if you don't know what I'm talking about, move along). As long as the right plot was cooked up (don't redeem them or make them heart-warming, please) ... and the film-maker was able to preserve the surreal, anti-realistic "cartoon" quality of the image frames, with all the crammed detail.>

I just thought of another one -- Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz. Though perhaps it would be too sprawling to be made into a movie.

Has anyone ever tried to make a movie of Asimov's Foundation Trilogy? Again, it might be too sprawling.

You know, for all the film adaptations of Homer and other stories from Greek myth and literature, I don't recall any attempts to film the Aeneid. Perhaps it would be too hard to do, since it would be hard to do it without all that stuff about Roman destiny.>

anon, only if "Till We Have Faces" is filmed by somebody like Peter Jackson.>