Thick and thin

At the Guardian, Woody Allen lists his top five books, which includes Machado de Assis's Epitaph of a Small Winner.

I just got this in the mail one day. Some stranger in Brazil sent it and wrote, "You'll like this". Because it's a thin book, I read it. If it had been a thick book, I would have discarded it

I was shocked by how charming and amusing it was. I couldn't believe he lived as long ago as he did. You would've thought he wrote it yesterday. It's so modern and so amusing. It's a very, very original piece of work. It rang a bell in me, in the same way that The Catcher in the Rye did. It was about subject matter that I liked and it was treated with great wit, great originality and no sentimentality.

I'd be interested to know when he read the book; did any subsequent W.A. films bear a trace of its influence?

Two questions

How many feature films have been based on or inspired by (and most importantly, titled after) non-character-driven nonfiction books?

I wondered about this after seeing the ads for He's Just Not That Into You.

The only other one I thought of was Woody Allen's "Everything you always wanted to know about sex *But were afraid to ask"...

Which leads to my second question—what other movies have asterisks in their titles?!

Notes on Kamp

Postscript to "Potatohead Blues," from Citizen Truth:

When discussing the origins of food retailer Dean & DeLuca in The United States of Arugula, David Kamp quotes that Woody speech, talking about how he was the man "to articulate the ascent of the 'lifestyle' ethos." Kamp then presents a response by Joan Didion that was in the NYRB. She wrote that the monologue proved the existence of "a subworld of people rigid with apprehension that they will die wearing the wrong sneaker, naming the wrong symphony, preferring Madame Bovary." He gives her credit for noting the beginnings of a new, intensely status-hungry class in America, but notes that she "was being inordinately doomy and apocalyptic." (pp 216-217)

"Potatohead Blues"

From Woody Allen's Manhattan:

Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing... and Willie Mays, and... the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, and... Louie Armstrong's recording of "Potatohead Blues"... Swedish movies, naturally... Sentimental Education by Flaubert... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra... those incredible apples and pears by Cezanne... the crabs at Sam Wo's... Tracy's face...