Book to Film

Read the book before you watch the movie!

Updated June 30, 2025
South Pasadena Public Library
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Call me by your name
Aciman, Andre.
Paper Book
Call Me by Your Nameis the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during...

Call Me by Your Name (2017) dir. Luca Guadagnino

American Prometheus : the triumph and tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Bird, Kai.
Paper Book
THE INSPIRATION FOR THE ACADEMY AWARD®-WINNING MAJOR MOTION PICTURE OPPENHEIMER * "A riveting account of one of history's most essential and paradoxical figures."--Christopher Nolan #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * The definitive biography of J. Robert...

Oppenheimer (2023) dir. Christopher Nolan

The Da Vinci code : a novel
Brown, Dan
Paper Book
DISCOVER THE #1 WORLDWIDE BESTSELLING PHENOMENON, WITH MORE THAN 85 MILLION COPIES SOLD--AND DON'T MISS DAN BROWN'S NEW THRILLER, THE SECRET OF SECRETS! "Blockbuster perfection . . . a gleefully erudite suspense novel." --The New York Times "A pulse...

The Da Vinci Code (2006) dir. Ron Howard

Nomadland : surviving America in the twenty-first century
Bruder, Jessica
Paper Book
The inspiration for Chloé Zhao's 2020 Golden Globe award-winning film starring Frances McDormand. "People who thought the 2008 financial collapse was over a long time ago need to meet the people Jessica Bruder got to know in this scorching, beautifully written, vivid, disturbing...

Nomadland (2020) dir. Chloé Zhao

Girl with a pearl earring
Chevalier, Tracy.
Paper Book
The New York Times bestselling novel by the author of A Single Thread and At the Edge of the Orchard Translated into thirty-nine languages and made into an Oscar-nominated film, starring Scarlett Johanson and Colin Firth Tracy Chevalier transports...

Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) dir. Peter Webber

Do androids dream of electric sheep?
Dick, Philip K
Paper Book
A masterpiece ahead of its time, a prescient rendering of a dark future, and the inspiration for the blockbuster film Blade Runner One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years By 2021, the World War has killed millions,...

Blade Runner (1982) dir. Ridley Scott

The name of the rose
Eco, Umberto.
Paper Book
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME * A spectacular best seller and now a classic, The Name of the Rose catapulted Umberto Eco, an Italian professor of semiotics turned novelist, to international prominence. An erudite murder mystery...

The Name of the Rose (1986) dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud

Like water for chocolate : a novel in monthly installments, with recipes, romances, and home remedies
Esquivel, Laura
Paper Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico blends poignant romance, bittersweet wit, and delicious recipes. This classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner,...

Like Water for Chocolate (1992) dir. Alfonso Arau

Erasure : a novel
Everett, Percival
Paper Book
Percival Everett's blistering satire about race and publishing, now adapted for the screen as AMERICAN FICTION, directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright and Tracee Ellis Ross Thelonious "Monk" Ellison's writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has...

American Fiction (2023) dir. Cord Jefferson

Bridget Jones's diary : a novel
Fielding, Helen
Paper Book
'Helen Fielding is one of the funniest writers in Britain and Bridget Jones is a creation of comic genius' Nick HornbyBridget Jones's Diary was first published in 1996 and applauded by critics from Salman Rushdie to Jilly Cooper. A number one best-seller, Helen Fielding's book has sold over fifteen...

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) dir. Sharon Maguire

Fried green tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Flagg, Fannie.
Paper Book
Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who's in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who's telling her life story. Her tale includes two more women--the irrepressibly...

Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) dir. Jon Avnet

Team of rivals : the political genius of Abraham Lincoln
Goodwin, Doris Kearns.
Paper Book
Winner of the Lincoln Prize Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Abraham Lincoln's political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become...

Lincoln (2012) dir. Steven Spielberg

Conclave
Harris, Robert
Paper Book
The best-selling author of Enigma and Fatherland turns to today's Vatican in a ripped-from-the-headlines novel, and gives us his most ambitious, page-turning thriller yet--where the power of God is nearly equaled by the ambition of men. The pope is dead. Behind the...

Conclave (2024) dir. Edward Berger

The price of salt
Highsmith, Patricia
Paper Book
A chance encounter between two lonely women leads to a passionate romance in this lesbian cult classic. Therese, a struggling young sales clerk, and Carol, a homemaker in the midst of a bitter divorce, abandon their oppressive daily routines for the freedom of the open road, where their love can...

Carol (2015) dir. Todd Haynes

The cider house rules : a novel
Irving, John
Paper Book
"AN OLD-FASHIONED, BIG-HEARTED NOVEL . . . with its epic yearning caught in the 19th century, somewhere between Trollope and Twain . . . The rich detail makes for vintage Irving." --The Boston Sunday Globe "The Cider House Rules is filled with people to love and to feel for. . . ....

The Cider House Rules (1999) dir. Lasse Hallström

Never let me go
Ishiguro, Kazuo
Paper Book
Shortlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize, 'Not since The Remains of the Day has Ishiguro written about wasted lives with such finely gauged forlornness.' - Sunday Times

Never Let Me Go (2010) dir. Mark Romanek

One flew over the cuckoo's nest
Kesey, Ken.
Paper Book
Ken Kesey's bracing, inslightful novel about the meaning of madness and the value of self-reliance, and the inspiration for the new Netflix original series Ratched One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Boisterous,...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) dir. Miloš Forman

Crazy rich Asians
Kwan, Kevin.
Paper Book
Crazy Rich Asians is the outrageously funny debut novel about three super-rich, pedigreed Chinese families and the gossip, backbiting, and scheming that occurs when the heir to one of the most massive fortunes in Asia brings home his ABC (American-born Chinese) girlfriend to the wedding of...

Crazy Rich Asians (2018) dir. Jon M. Chu

Shutter Island
Lehane, Dennis.
Paper Book
A female patient has escaped from a Massachusetts mental institition, leaving behind encoded clues about mind control, eugenics and CIA drug trials. The investigating officers fear that they have stumbled into something far more dangerous than the usual missing person scenario.

Shutter Island (2010) dir. Martin Scorsese

Life of Pi : a novel
Martel, Yann.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE The international bestseller and modern classic of adventure, survival, and the power of storytelling is now an award-winning play.  "A story to make you believe in the soul-sustaining power of fiction."--Los Angeles Times Book...

Life of Pi (2012) dir. Ang Lee

Twelve years a slave
Northup, Solomon
Paper Book
Now the major motion picture that won the 2014 Academy Award for Best Picture, starringChiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, andLupita Nyong'o, and directed by Steve McQueen Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives,Twelve Years a Slaveis a harrowing memoir about...

Twelve Years a Slave (2013) dir. Steve McQueen

The orchid thief
Orlean, Susan.
Paper Book
In Susan Orlean's mesmerizing true story of beauty and obsession is John Laroche, a renegade plant dealer and sharply handsome guy, in spite of the fact that he is missing his front teeth and has the posture of al dente spaghetti. In 1994, Laroche and three Seminole Indians were arrested with rare...

Adaptation (2002) dir. Spike Jonze

Oil!
Sinclair, Upton
Paper Book
Upton Sinclair's searing indictment of fossil fuels that predicts our current warming planet while imagining a greener and more inclusive future A Penguin Classic Perhaps most well-known today as the inspiration for Paul Thomas Anderson's film There Will Be...

There Will be Blood (2007) dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

The notebook
Sparks, Nicholas.
Paper Book
Experience the unforgettable, heartbreaking love story set in post-World War II North Carolina about a young socialite and the boy who once stole her heart -- one of PBS's "Great American Reads". Every so often a love story so captures our hearts that it becomes more...

The Notebook (2004) dir. Nick Cassavetes

The help
Stockett, Kathryn.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestselling novel and basis for the Academy Award-winning film--a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't--nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. Aibileen is a...

The Help (2011) dir. Tate Taylor

The Joy Luck Club
Tan, Amy.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Amy Tan's modern classic that examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters--now with a new preface "For me, [The Joy Luck Club] was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading...

The Joy Luck Club (1993) dir. Wayne Wang


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