If you're an avid reader, you're going to love the 2009 holiday movie season.

Among the fictional creations that are coming to the big screen in the next couple of months are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective-beyond-peer Sherlock Holmes (played by Robert Downey Jr. this time), as well as those that are featured in the books "Push" (by Ramona "Sapphire" Lofton) "The Lovely Bones" (Alice Sebold), "The Road" (Cormac McCarthy) "Fantastic Mr. Fox" (Roald Dahl), as well as a period drama that was written by British novelist Nick Hornby, "An Education."

Oh, and LDS author Stephenie Meyer's human, vampiric and other beastly creatures are returning to the big screen as well, with the second book in her four-volume Twilight saga, "New Moon."

However, the movie to beat this year might be the science-fiction thriller "Avatar," which was directed by some kind of famous and successful guy named James Cameron.

In addition to those movies, holiday releases include films that feature:

ANIMATION IN ALL FORMS

"Fantastic Mr. Fox" is clay-animated, "Planet 51" is computer-generated and "The Princess and the Frog" is done in the old-fashioned "2D" style.

PULSE-POUNDING THRILLS

Joining "Avatar" and the apocalyptic thriller "2012" are the heist film "Armored" and the revenge-thriller "Ninja Assassin."

ROMANCE AND YUKS

Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin fight for Meryl Streep's heart in "It's Complicated," while Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker try to reconnect in "Did You Hear About the Morgans?"

Frequent-flying George Clooney is just trying to connect with someone — anyone — in "Up in the Air."

By the way, a few movies — among them the art-house features "Broken Embraces," "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" and "Me and Orson Welles" — will be opening before the end of the year, as well. However, their releases are being "platformed," so they can qualify for Academy Award consideration. (That means they'll see them early in the major cities before the show up here.)

Those that do trickle out eventually, as well as other January-March releases, will be featured in our Early 2010 Movie Preview, which will run in January.

e-mail: jeff@desnews.com