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, Andr
Paper Book
Now a Major Motion Picture from Director Luca Guadagnino, Starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet, and Written by Three-Time Oscar(tm) Nominee James Ivory The Basis of the Oscar-Winning Best Adapted Screenplay A New York Times Bestseller A...

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
In seventeenth-century Delft, there's a strict social order -rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, master and servant -and all know their place. When Griet becomes a maid in the household of the painter Johannes Vermeer, she thinks she knows her role: housework, laundry, and the care of his six...

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
Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit. The classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops...

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
The #1 bestselling book that defined the 20th century--now updated for the 25th Anniversary! Meet Bridget Jones--a 30-something Singleton who is certain she would have all the answers if she could: a. lose 7 pounds b. stop smoking c. develop Inner Poise...

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

Fried green tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Cafe
Flagg, Fannie.
Paper Book
A folksy, funny and endearing story of life in a small town in Alabama in the Depression and in the 1980s. However, the novel's laughter and tears are interrupted by a strange murder and a still stranger trial.

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 great American writer...Highsmith's writing is wicked...it puts a spell on you." --Entertainment Weekly Patricia Highsmith's story of romantic obsession may be one of the most important, but still largely unrecognized, novels of the twentieth century. First published in...

Carol (2015) dir. Todd Haynes

The cider house rules : a novel
Irving, John
Paper Book
First published in 1985, The Cider House Rules is John Irving's sixth novel. Set in rural Maine in the first half of this century, it tells the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch--saint and obstetrician, founder and director of the orphanage in the town of St. Cloud's, ether addict and abortionist. It is...

The Cider House Rules (1999) dir. Lasse Hallström

Never let me go
Ishiguro, Kazuo
Paper Book
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER * From the acclaimed, bestselling author of The Remains of the Day comes "a Gothic tour de force" (The New York Times) with an extraordinary twist--a moving, suspenseful, beautifully atmospheric modern classic. One of The New York Times's 10...

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
The basis for the blockbuster motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island by New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane is a gripping and atmospheric psychological thriller where nothing is quite what it seems. The New York Times calls Shutter...

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.  After the sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only...

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
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * THE BASIS FOR THE FILM ADAPTATION DIRECTED BY SPIKE JONZE AND STARRING NICOLAS CAGE AND MERYL STREEP The "eccentric, illuminating, [and] hilarious" (New York Daily News) true story of...

Adaptation (2002) dir. Spike Jonze

Oil! : a novel
Sinclair, Upton
Paper Book
The classic novel that inspired the Academy award-winning film, There Will Be Blood. Penguin Books is proud to now be the sole publisher of Oil!, the classic 1927 novel by Upton Sinclair. After writing The Jungle, his scathing indictment of the meatpacking industry,...

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 than a...

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 "For me, [The Joy Luck Club] was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish...

The Joy Luck Club (1993) dir. Wayne Wang


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