Stone Reader

Stone Reader is unlike any other documentary I've seen. It is funny, passionate, engaging, and challenging. Part home movie and part detective story, Stone Reader follows Mark Moskowitz on his search for the author of a favorite book. Along the way we have the opportunity to look inside the world of literature from the perspective of authors, publishers, agents, and book-lovers. I can't think of another film that explores the world of literature with such unflinching honesty. The interviews with industry pros are riveting. But this film is about more than books--it's about the way books mark our journey through life--the way they shape our thinking and force us to reevaluate ourselves. And for those who write, it's about the rigors and challenges of the creative process: the desire to achieve something great and lasting versus the grim realities of the commercial publishing business.

If you love books (even a little) you must see Stone Reader. You'll learn a lot--I promise. But Stone Reader is a really good _film_, so even if you're not a "big reader" you'll find this film thoroughly entertaining. It's a window into a world that we haven't seen before...definitely worth a look.

I am not avid reader, but I enjoy watching the film. Mark Moskowitz is actor, director, producer, and screenwriter of the film Stone Reader. Moskowitz talks about various books through his youth in the film, that he remembers reading, but one book he wonders. What happen to the author after writing one book (The Stones of Summer by Dow Mossman)? Moskowitz searches for Mossman through the film and asks why stop after writing one book. An journey of a forgotten book that you never forget.

The quest to find the author of a well reviewed but now long forgotten and long out of print novel is the crux of this documentary. This is a do it yourself affair as director Mark Moskowitz chronicles his personal quest to find the author of The Stones of Summer, a book he read 30 years after buying it.

This is a film that any avid or compulsive reader can relate to, especially if one has ever fallen in love with an author and sought to find out everything about the person who has just touched their lives. I'm just not certain that many o us would go to the lengths that Moskowitz goes to to get his man.

For me there are two problems with the film, first is the fact that for a good portion at the beginning of the film we don't really know what is driving the quest. Yes, its a good book, but why that book? Repeatedly we're told that no one has read it and as things unfold we aren't even given a synopsis of "the grail", we're just told that its a great book as we see Moskowitz buy and hand out copies of the book to his friends. There is a lot of talk about books other than Stones of Summer, which would be fine, but they are better defined than the book at the center of our tale.

The second problem is that Moskowitz, while he seems to be a nice guy didn't seem like some one I'd want to hang out with. Granted the film is about his obsession, but thats all it seems to be about at times and I never really warmed to him as a person, which hurts since the movie, ultimately is about him.

My recommendation is to find a library and borrow it. You may like it, you may not. If you aren't a book person I'd stay away since the "fan" aspect seems more rooted in things literary than in universal themes.

The Stone Reader is a documentary film based on a man's quest to find a book writer which whom he is absolutely amazed by. This book writer, Dow, wrote a single book, `The Stones of Summer,' and then disappeared and never wrote again. This man is search of Dow is confused why Dow would write this book which received excellent reviews would just stop writing after only producing one book. This documentary is different from most documentaries a person would normally watch. Most documentaries teach an audience about a certain event or person. This film elaborates on a person, but it's really not about the person per say. The film focuses on the quest or dream of a man to find this amazing writer and the process of which he does it, but most of the time the audience is actually learning about the writer and how he was unknown to the world even though he accomplished something great. What I mean by this is that the camera is following the man on the quest, but the whole time everyone, including himself, is talking about Dow. The thing that is interesting about this film is the way that everything filtered together. Being a documentary, the producer can't predict how the thing is going to end or how other things will come together. During this time of searching for Dow, this man travels everywhere talking to people who reviewed the book, people that went to college with Dow, and even individuals that helped put the book into production, but none of these people knew who Dow was and many of them never read or even heard of his book. So this man was running into a bunch of dead ends. Finally, he gets a hold of Dow's writing professor just to talk, not even mentioning Dow's name. So the two are talking about his students, this is all taking place in Iowa I might add and that Dow was a student here at the university, but the professor describes on of his students who he sent to get psychiatric help and it happened to be Dow who was still living in Iowa. If only the man would have started his search from where Dow started, his quest could have been accomplished with less hassle, but then the documentary would have been a lot shorter and less interesting.

I saw The Stone Reader at an advanced screening and thought it was wonderful. Finally, a movie made by someone who understands the magic of books. Moskowitz (sp?) talks a lot about the indication of a good book being that you feel like the author is just sitting there talking to you. It's so true, and what Moskowitz may not realize is that he accomplishes the same thing through his film. It drags in places and the camera work is a bit jumpy, but the content more than makes up for it. Thoroughly enjoyable, I'd recommend it to anyone who's ever loved a book.