Fantastic Mr. Fox – DaneCobain.com

Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach – Fantastic Mr. Fox: The Official Screenplay | Review

Title: Fantastic Mr. Fox: The Official Screenplay

Author: Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 176

Rating 2/5

I’m sure this is great and all if you liked the movie, but I haven’t seen it and I have read the book maybe a half dozen times. Because of that, I just took issue with the fact that they only used the concept and didn’t even try to base the actual story line of the movie on the book.

It also annoyed me that the characters kept cussing, literally. They’d repeatedly say things like, “Oh cuss, pass me that cussing spanner, will you?” I understand that they had to make it kid-friendly, but they could have just bypassed it completely instead of turning it into a cringe-fest.

All in all, I wouldn’t recommend reading this one unless you have some good reason for reading it. Otherwise, it’s kind of a waste of time, and I almost regret picking it up. Almost a DNF.

Click here to buy Fantastic Mr. Fox: The Official Screenplay.

Lucy Jones – Foxes Unearthed | Review

Title: Foxes Unearthed

Author: Lucy Jones

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 312

Rating: 5*/5

Lucy Jones – Foxes Unearthed

Disclaimer: While I aim to be unbiased, I received a copy of this for free to review.

First off, let me start by saying that this is a beautiful book. Photos of the cover don’t do it justice, because it feels slightly three-dimensional and is printed on the perfect paper. The interior layout is well-done too, and each of the different chapters are separated by gorgeous illustrations that just make it that little tiny bit nicer.

As for the book itself, it’s a stunning piece of non-fiction that investigates the British public’s perception of foxes, one of the most controversial animals in the country. From fox hunting – and the people who try to sabotage them – to Roald Dahl’s depiction of Fantastic Mr. Fox to the foxes we see in the media, the ruthless scavengers who maul babies and stuff.

Jones covers both sides of the fox debate – although there are really three sides: the hunters, the farmers and the public – and while the book has a tone that shows that the author is on the side of the foxes, I think it does a pretty decent job of remaining relatively impartial. I think it’s a good summarisation of the public debate about foxes as a whole.

Overall, I couldn’t exactly recommend this to a typical reader, but if you like to read non-fiction, love foxes and/or want to reconnect with mother nature, there aren’t many better books on the market. For my part, I loved it – I gave it a 5/5. But I love foxes, and I think they’re beautiful. There’s a fox that occasionally pops out to say hello outside my house, when I’m smoking a cigarette at one in the morning. I don’t feed it – I just look at it and watch it.