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, André
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
THE #1 WORLDWIDE BESTSELLING PHENOMENON, WITH MORE THAN 85 MILLION COPIES SOLD "Blockbuster perfection . . . a gleefully erudite suspense novel." --The New York Times "A pulse-quickening, brain-teasing adventure." --People While in...

The Da Vinci Code (2006) dir. Ron Howard

Nomadland : surviving America in the twenty-first century
Bruder, Jessica
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social...

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

Blade runner : (Do androids dream of electric sheep?)
Dick, Philip K.
Paper Book
Here is the classic sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, set nearly thirty years before the events of the new Warner Bros. film Blade Runner 2049, starring Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, and Robin Wright.   By 2021, the World War has killed millions,...

Blade Runner (1982) dir. Ridley Scott

The name of the rose
Eco, Umberto.
Paper Book
Now available from HarperVia in a deluxe paperback edition featuring never-before-seen illustrations by the author, the beloved internationally bestselling historical mystery about a brilliant monk called upon to solve a series of baffling murders in a fourteenth-century Italian abbey ...

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
Ebook
Percival Everett's blistering satire about race and publishing, now adapted for the screen as the Academy Award-winning AMERICAN FICTION, directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright Thelonious "Monk" Ellison's writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript...

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
One of the most influential books of the past fifty years, Team of Rivals is Pulitzer Prize-winning author and esteemed presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin's modern classic about the political genius of Abraham Lincoln, his unlikely presidency, and his cabinet of former political...

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

Carol
Highsmith, Patricia
Paper Book
Now a major motion picture. 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 1952 and touted as "the novel of a love that society forbids," the book soon became a cult...

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
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
An international bestseller and the basis for the hugely successful film, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of the defining works of the 1960s. In this classic novel, Ken Kesey's hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who...

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

Crazy rich Asians
Kwan, Kevin.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The international sensation and blockbuster Hollywood rom com. * "A Pride and Prejudice-like send-up about an heir bringing his Chinese-American girlfriend home to meet his ancestor-obsessed family." --People   ...

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.  "A story to make you believe in the soul-sustaining power of fiction."--Los Angeles Times Book Review  ...

Life of Pi (2012) dir. Ang Lee

Twelve years a slave
Northup, Solomon
Paper Book
The official movie tie-in edition to the winner of the 2014 Academy Award for Best Picture, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, and Lupita Nyong'o, and directed by Steve McQueen   New York Times bestseller "I could not believe that I...

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 nbsp; A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean's wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower--the...

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...

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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