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
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 USA...

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

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip
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
Now a major motion picture starring Renee Zellwegger and Hugh Grant! "130 lbs. (how is it possible to put on 4 pounds overnight? Could flesh have somehow solidified becoming denser and heavier (repulsive, horrifying notion)); alcohol units 2 (excellent) cigarettes 21 (poor but...

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
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

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
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * John Irving's classic novel about a troubled doctor, the conflicted young orphan he mentors, and what it means to be of use in the world--the basis for the Academy Award-winning film starring Tobey Maguire, Michael Caine, and Charlize Theron ...

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 Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the...

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.
Ebook
The unforgettable, heartbreaking love story from a New York Times bestselling author about a young socialite and the boy who once stole her heart--now an iconic motion picture starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. At thirty-one, Noah Calhoun, back in coastal...

The Notebook (2004) dir. Nick Cassavetes

The help
Stockett, Kathryn.
Paper Book
A Main Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club -- Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. Aibileen is a wise, regal black maid raising her seventeenth white child. Minny, Aibileen's best friend, can cook like nobody's business but can't mind her tongue. It...

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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