Books Made into Oscar-Nominated Films

Before they were nominated for Academy Awards, these stories were books. Which do you prefer, the book or the movie?

Updated March 17, 2025
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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...

306.362 N819 2013

Little women : an annotated edition
Alcott, Louisa May
Paper Book
Little Women has delighted and instructed readers for generations. For many, it is a favorite book first encountered in childhood or adolescence. Championed by Gertrude Stein, Simone de Beauvoir, Theodore Roosevelt, and J. K. Rowling, it is however much more than the "girls' book" intended...

813.4 AL19L 2013

A long way home : a memoir
Brierley, Saroo.
Paper Book
First it was a media sensation. Then it became the New York Times bestseller and #1 international bestseller A Long Way Home. Now it's Lion, the major motion picture starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, and Rooney Mara--nominated for six Academy Awards! This is the...

362.734 B766 2014

Nomadland : surviving America in the twenty-first century
Bruder, Jessica
Paper Book
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 security comes up short, often underwater on...

331.398 Bruder 2017

Capote : a biography
Clarke, Gerald
Paper Book
From instant celebrity at age 23 to overweight, alcoholic loner in his 50s, Truman Capote streaked across the middle of this century on a comet of genius, self-destruction, and fame. Drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews with Capote and with nearly everyone who knew him, and with exclusive...

813.54 C17yc

Black Panther. Book 1A nation under our feet
Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Paper Book
MacArthur Genius and National Book Award-winner T- Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me) takes the helm, confronting T'Challa with a dramatic upheaval in Wakanda. When a superhuman terrorist group that calls itself The People sparks a violent uprising, the land famed for its incredible technology...
Room : a novel
Donoghue, Emma
Paper Book
The award-winning bestseller that became one of the most talked about and memorable novels of the decade, Room is "utterly gripping...a heart-stopping novel" (San Francisco Chronicle).   Held captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her...
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...
Extremely loud & incredibly close
Foer, Jonathan Safran
Paper Book
ANew York Times Bestseller * NamedA Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post Book World, Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch,andRocky Mountain News   Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an...
Underwater wild : my octopus teacher's extraordinary world
Foster, Craig (Filmmaker)
Paper Book
From the creators of the Academy Award-winning documentary My Octopus Teacher, an immersive journey into the underwater world that inspired it--and holds transformative lessons for us all Craig Foster and Ross Frylinck regularly dive together in the awe...

577.78 Foster 2021

Killers of the Flower Moon : the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI
Grann, David
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, from the author of The Wager and The Lost City of Z, "one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."--New York...

970.3 Osage Grann 2017

Travelling to infinity : my life with Stephen
Hawking, Jane
Paper Book
Professor Stephen Hawking is one of the most famous and remarkable scientists of our age and the author of the scientific bestseller A Brief History of Time, which has sold more than 25 million copies. In this compelling memoir, his first wife, Jane Hawking, relates the inside story of their...

530.092 H313yh 2014

Seabiscuit : an American legend
Hillenbrand, Laura.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of the runaway phenomenon Unbroken comes a universal underdog story about the horse who came out of nowhere to become a legend. "Fascinating . . . Vivid . . . A first-rate piece of storytelling, leaving us not only...

798.4 H557 2003

Alan Turing : the enigma : the book that inspired the film The Imitation Game
Hodges, Andrew.
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The official book behind the Academy Award-winning film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the British mathematician Alan Turing (1912...

510.92 T846yh 2014

Les misérables
Hugo, Victor
Paper Book
Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful and tactile cloth. This beautiful clothbound edition of Victor Hugo's tale of injustice,...
Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race
Lee Shetterly, Margot.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller -WINNER OF ANISFIELD-WOLF AWARD FOR NONFICTION -WINNER BLACK CAUCUS OF AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION BEST NONFICTION BOOK -WINNER NAACP IMAGE AWARD BEST NONFICTION BOOK -WINNER NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES,...

510.92 L516 2016

The big short : inside the doomsday machine
Lewis, Michael
Paper Book
When the crash of the U. S. stock market became public knowledge in the fall of 2008, it was already old news. The real crash, the silent crash, had taken place over the previous year, in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine, and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and...

330.973 L587

The blind side : evolution of a game
Lewis, Michael
Paper Book
The young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story will one day be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. When we first meet him, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday,...
Moneyball : the art of winning an unfair game
Lewis, Michael
Paper Book
Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. Following the low-budget Oakland Athletics, their larger-than-life general manger, Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts, Michael Lewis has written not only "the single most influential baseball...

796.357 Lewis 2003

The King's speech
Logue, Mark.
Paper Book
It's the eve of World War II, and King Edward VIII has abdicated the throne of England to marry the woman he loves. Never has the nation needed a leader more. But the new monarch, George VI--father of today's Queen Elizabeth II--is painfully shy and cursed with a terrible stammer. How can he inspire...

941.084 L829yL 2010

Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West : a novel
Maguire, Gregory.
Paper Book
The New York Times bestseller and basis for the Tony-winning hit musical, soon to be a major motion picture starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande With millions of copies in print around the world, Gregory Maguire's Wicked is established not only as a commentary on...
Life of Pi : a novel
Martel, Yann.
Paper Book
NOW ON BROADWAY 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  After the...
Atonement : a novel
McEwan, Ian
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness that provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from the acclaimed Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author. ...
The master of disguise : my secret life in the CIA
Mendez, Antonio J.
Paper Book
From the author of Argo comes an unforgettable behind-the-scenes story of espionage in action. In the first ever memoir by a top-level operative to be authorized by the CIA, Antonio J. Mendez reveals the cunning tricks and insights that helped save hundreds from deadly situations. Adept at...

327.1273 Mendez, Antonio Mendez 1999

War horse
Morpurgo, Michael.
Paper Book
An unforgettable tale of war, redemption, and a hero's journey. War Horse joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content! It is 1914, and Joey, a farm horse, is sold to the army and thrust into the...
A Beautiful Mind : The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash
Nasar, Sylvia.
Paper Book
**Also an Academy Award-winning film starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly--directed by Ron Howard** The powerful, dramatic biography of math genius John Nash, who overcame serious mental illness and schizophrenia to win the Nobel Prize. "How could you,...
Desolation island
O'Brian, Patrick
Paper Book
Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon Stephen Maturin sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy--and a treacherous disease that decimates the crew. With a Dutch man-of-war...
True grit
Portis, Charles.
Paper Book
A #1 New York Times bestseller, Charles Portis's True Grit is "an epic and a legend" (Washington Post), a story of danger and adventure in the Old West--the basis for two award-winning films, the first starring John Wayne in his only Oscar-winning role, as...
The revenant : a novel of revenge
Punke, Michael.
Paper Book
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A thrilling tale of betrayal and revenge set against the nineteenth-century American frontier, Michael Punke's The Revenant is the astonishing story of real-life trapper and frontiersman Hugh...
The silver linings playbook
Quick, Matthew
Paper Book
'The Silver Linings Playbook' is the riotous and poignant story of how one man regains his memory and comes to terms with the magnitude of his wife's betrayal.
All quiet on the western front
Remarque, Erich Maria
Paper Book
The masterpiece of the German experience during World War I, considered by many the greatest war novel of all time--with an Oscar-winning film adaptation now streaming on Netflix.   "[Erich Maria Remarque] is a craftsman of unquestionably first rank."--...
Push : a novel
Sapphire
Paper Book
An electrifying first novel that shocks by its language, its circumstances, and its brutal honesty, Push recounts a young black street-girl's horrendous and redemptive journey through a Harlem inferno. For Precious Jones, 16 and pregnant with her father's child, miraculous hope appears and the world...
The reader
Schlink, Bernhard.
Paper Book
Already an acclaimed & best-selling work of fiction in Europe (currently being translated into fourteen different languages worldwide), The Reader is both a literary surprise & a moral challenge: a riveting, provocative, & deeply moving novel about a young boy's erotic awakening in a passionate,...
Black Klansman : race, hate, and the undercover investigation of a lifetime
Stallworth, Ron
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times Bestseller! The extraordinary true story and basis for the Academy Award winning film BlacKkKlansman, written and directed by Spike Lee, produced by Jordan Peele, and starring John David Washington and Adam Driver. When detective...

322.42 Stallworth 2018

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...
Women talking : a novel
Toews, Miriam
Paper Book
The internationally bestselling novel based on real events. Now a major motion picture from writer/director Sarah Polley, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, with Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand. "This amazing, sad, shocking, but touching novel, based on a real...
The fellowship of the ring : being the first part of The lord of the rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The Fellowship of the Ring is the first volume in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure tale, The Lord of the Rings. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven...
The return of the king : being the third part of The lord of the rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The awesome conclusion to The Lord of the Rings--the greatest fantasy epic of all time--which began in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read ...
The two towers : being the second part of The lord of the rings
Tolkien, J. R. R.
Paper Book
The middle novel in The Lord of the Rings--the greatest fantasy epic of all time--which began in The Fellowship of the Ring, and which reaches its magnificent climax in The Return of the King. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The...
Brooklyn : A Novel
Tóibín, Colm
Paper Book
From the award-winning author of The Master, a hauntingly compelling novel--by far Tóibín's most accessible book--set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s about a young woman torn between her family in Ireland and the american who wins her heart. Eilis Lacey has come...
The nickel boys : a novel
Whitehead, Colson
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * This follow-up to The Underground Railroad brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. * "One of the most gifted novelists in...
Winter's bone : a novel
Woodrell, Daniel.
Paper Book
Daniel Woodrell's modern classic is an unforgettable tale of desperation and courage that inspired the award-winning film starring Jennifer Lawrence.  Ree Dolly's father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose...

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