This Academy Award season read the stories that inspired the film adaptations.

These Oscar-winning films have won over critics worldwide. It begs the question - Was the book better? Find your next read from the big screen.

The Must-See Epics Based on a Book

Ben Hur

by Lewis Wallace

Ben-Hur is better known as a film than as a novel. Rich in social parallels, Ben-Hur is both a great historical epic and a window into late nineteenth-century literature.

Gone with the Wind

by Margaret Mitchell

Since its original publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel heralded by readers everywhere as The Great American Novel.

The Godfather: 50th Anniversary Edition

by Mario Puzo

A #1 New York Times bestseller in 1969, Mario Puzo's epic was turned into the incomparable film of the same name, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Doctor Zhivago

by Boris Pasternak

First published in Italy in 1957 amid international controversy, Doctor Zhivago is the story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution.

The sci-fi movie based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert stars Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken, Javier Bardem, and more. A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Lawrence of Arabia)

by T E Lawrence

When T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom first appeared in 1922 it was immediately recognized as a literary masterpiece. In writing his extraordinary account of the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918 and his own role in it, T.E. Lawrence sealed his place in history and legend as Lawrence of Arabia.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

by C S Lewis

Four adventurous siblings step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia. This land is frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change . . . and a great sacrifice.

The Lord of the Rings

by J R R Tolkien

This collector's box brings together all three books in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.

Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

by Ladislas Farago

Patton is America's most famous general and was an enigmatic figure. Victory during World War II was impossible without Patton, and returning to the field, his army was responsible for one of the most crushing advances in the history of warfare.

The Bridge Over the River Kwai

by Pierre Boulle

Boldly advancing through Asia, the Japanese need a train route from Burma going north. In a prison camp, British POWs are forced into labor. The bridge they build will become a symbol of service and survival to one prisoner.

Fight Back the Tears with These Novels

Little Women

by Louisa May Alcott

Little Women is the triumphant novel by Louisa May Alcott that has inspired nearly all who've read it. The inspiration for several major motion pictures, miniseries, plays, and more, discover the fantastical adventures set about by the memorable March sisters the world has come to love.

Terms of Endearment

by Larry McMurtry

Terms of Endearment is the Oscar-winning story of a memorable mother and her feisty daughter and their struggle to find the courage and humor to live through life's hazards and to love each other as never before.

The Whale

by Samuel D Hunter

Set in Moscow, Idaho, The Whale tells the story of a 600-pound obese man who hides from the world and stays in his apartment. He cannot stop eating, to the detriment of everyone around him, including his estranged daughter.

On the Waterfront

by Budd Schulberg

Building on his Academy Award-winning screenplay of the classic film, Budd Schulberg's On the Waterfront is the story of ex-prizefighter Terry Malloy's valiant stand against corruption on the New Jersey docks.

Schindler's List

by Thomas Keneally

During the Holocaust at the German concentration camp near Plaszow, thousands of Jews lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis. More than a thousand others would have been counted among the dead if not for a womanizing, heavy-drinking, German-Catholic industrialist and Nazi Party member named Oskar Schindler.

Still Alice

by Lisa Genova

Still Alice is a major motion picture starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kate Bosworth, and Kristen Stewart and follows a woman who slowly loses her thoughts and memories to Alzheimer's disease.

Spine-Chilling Tales

Dracula

by Bram Stoker

Dracula has had a long-lasting influence on the gothic genre. It continues to scare and entertain readers who are brave enough to explore the world of bloodthirsty vampires.

The Silence of the Lambs

by Thomas Harris

Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs is a classic of suspense and storytelling and the basis for the Oscar award-winning horror film starring Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling and Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Misery

by Stephen King

Paul Sheldon is a bestselling novelist who has finally met his number-one fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes, and she is more than a rabid reader. Annie becomes his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house.

Jaws

by Peter Benchley

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The shark-versus-man classic that inspired the blockbuster Steven Spielberg movie

Rebecca

by Daphne Du Maurier

This novel has remained consistently in print since it was first published in 1938. It has frequently been adapted for television, radio, theater, and film. Most notably in 1940 by Alfred Hitchcock, whose Rebecca received the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The Exorcist

by William Peter Blatty

Originally published in 1971, The Exorcist remains one of the most controversial novels ever written. Soon after its publication, The Exorcist became a wildly popular motion picture, garnering ten Academy Award nominations.

Must-Read Before You Watch

All Quiet on the Western Front

by Erich Maria Remarque

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.

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read. Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South. Read about the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred

Midnight Cowboy

by James Leo Herlihy

The basis for the Oscar-winning buddy film. "There is no questioning the rampant power achieved through shriveling, shattering scenes" (Kirkus Reviews).

Cool Hand Luke

by Donn Pearce

"An impressive novel . . . the most brutal and authentic account of a road gang that we have had."--New York Times

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

by Ken Kesey

The movie won all five major Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Director, and Screenplay.

From Here to Eternity

by James Jones

It is one of the most important American novels to come out of World War II, a masterpiece that captures the honor and savagery of men.

How Green Was My Valley

by Richard Llewellyn

The international-bestselling winner of the National Book Award and the basis for the Academy Award-winning film directed by John Ford.

The Hustler

by Walter Tevis

The legendary novel from the bestselling author of The Queen's Gambit about an ambitious pool shark who discovers what it takes to make the big time. The basis for the acclaimed film starring Paul Newman.

The Lost Weekend

by Charles Jackson

The classic tale of one man's struggle with alcoholism, this revolutionary novel remains Charles Jackson's best-known book--a daring autobiographical work that paved the way for contemporary addiction literature.

It is 1936, and on the East Side of Manhattan, a would-be writer named Don Birnam decides to have a drink. And then another, and then another, until he's in the midst of what becomes a five-day binge. The Lost Weekend moves with unstoppable speed, propelled by a heartbreaking but unflinching truth. It catapulted Charles Jackson to fame, and endures as an acute study of the ravages of alcoholism, as well as an unforgettable parable of the condition of the modern man.

Your Favorite Male Lead Actors

The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge

by Michael Punke

A thrilling tale of betrayal and revenge set against the nineteenth-century American frontier, The Revenant is the astonishing story of real-life trapper and frontiersman Hugh Glass. Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the movie adaptation.

12 Years a Slave

by Solomon Northup

Solomon Northup wrote his memoir in 1853. He tells his story of being born free in New York, then kidnapped and made a slave for 12 years. Finally, he was freed and reunited with his family.

The Old Man and the Sea

by Ernest Hemingway

The last novel Ernest Hemingway saw published, The Old Man and the Sea has proved itself to be one of the enduring works of American fiction.

A Beautiful Mind

by Sylvia Nasar

The inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly and directed by Ron Howard. This is the powerful biography of math genius John Nash, who overcame serious mental illness and schizophrenia to win the Nobel Prize.

No Country for Old Men

by Cormac McCarthy

One day, a good old boy named Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a bodyguard of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law can contain.

Giant

by Edna Ferber

The basis for the classic film starring James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson, Giant is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber's sweeping generational tale of power, love, cattle barons, and oil tycoons, set in Texas during the first half of the twentieth century.

Different Seasons (Shawshank Redemption)

by Stephen King

This gripping collection begins with "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," in which an unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge. The story is the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominee The Shawshank Redemption.

Forrest Gump

by Winston Groom

The modern classic that inspired the beloved movie starring Tom Hanks.

Dances with Wolves

by Michael Blake

Ordered to hold an abandoned army post, John Dunbar found himself alone, beyond the edge of civilization. Thievery and survival soon forced him into the Indian camp, where he began a dangerous adventure that changed his life forever. Relive the adventure and beauty of the incredible movie starring Kevin Costner.

Your Favorite Lead Female Actors

Women Talking

by Miriam Toews

The basis of the Oscar-winning film from writer/director Sarah Polley, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, with Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand. Based on real events, Toews's masterful novel uses wry humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.

Emma

by Jane Austen

From what acclaimed novelist Jane Austen wrongly suspected was the least-liked of her protagonists comes a character unlike any other. Emma is the story of a fiercely independent young woman who defines the boundaries of what a conventional lady was supposed to resemble in 19th century Britain.

Million Dollar Baby

by F X Toole

This hard-hitting collection of powerful and moving tales based on the experiences of the late, great fight manager and cutman Jerry Boyd is the basis for the Oscar-winning motion picture starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman.

The Hours

by Michael Cunningham

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that became a motion picture starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman.

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett

The #1 New York Times bestselling novel and basis for the Academy Award-winning film. It is 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.

Room

by Emma Donoghue

The award-winning bestseller became one of the most talked about and memorable novels and movies of the decade. Held captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her precocious young son finally gain their freedom, and the boy experiences the outside world for the first time.

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris & Mrs Harris Goes to New York

by Paul Gallico

The delightful, uplifting story of Mrs. Harris, an ordinary woman whose life is transformed by one beautiful dress. Now a motion picture starring Lesley Manville and Isabelle Huppert.

Mrs. Miniver

by Jan Struther

Jan Struther was asked to contribute a series imagining the life of an "ordinary" woman, although her definition of "ordinary" was doubtless a reflection of her own background. Mrs Miniver has both a town and a country house, with servants in both.

Nomadland

by Jessica Bruder

Employers have found a cheap labor source in older Americans who move around a lot. These people often don't have enough money from social security and struggle to pay their mortgages. They have started living on the road in RVs, trailers, and vans, forming a community of nomads.

Sing Along with These Heartwarming Musical Hits

Anna and the King of Siam

by Margaret Landon

The bestselling book that inspired the musical play and film The King and I

Pygmalion

by George Bernard Shaw

Of all of George Bernard Shaw's plays, Pygmalion has been the most enduring. Based on the Greek Classical myth, this work is both extremely witty and psychologically penetrating. Composed in five acts, the play examines social and ethical issues and the inherent flaws of human interactions.

Mary Poppins

by P L Travers

This classic novel continues to enchant readers of all ages! A day with Mary Poppins is a day of magic and make-believe come to life.

Gigi, Julie de Carneilhan, and Chance Acquaintances

by Colette

Perhaps Colette's best-known work, Gigi is the story of a young girl being raised in a household more concerned with success and money than with the desires of the heart.

Oliver Twist

by Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist begins in a workhouse north of London where a young orphan named Oliver lives a brutal and impoverished life and is subjected to a series of torments as he is handed off to an undertaker to work as a mourner at funerals. After a succession of maltreatments, Oliver runs away to London for a better life.

The Story of the Trapp Family Singers

by Maria A Trapp

With five Academy Awards, The Sound of Music, based on the lives of Maria, the baron, and their singing children, is as familiar to most of us as our own family history.

Courtrooms, Cops, Crimes, and Corruption Book-to-Screen Adaptations

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

by Stieg Larsson

ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME

Mystic River

by Dennis Lehane

This New York Times bestseller is a gripping, unnerving psychological thriller about the effects of a savage killing on three former friends in a tightly knit, blue-collar Boston neighborhood.

In the Heat of the Night

by John Ball

"They call me Mr. Tibbs" was the line immortalized by Sidney Poitier in the 1967 Oscar-winning movie adaptation of In the Heat of the Night, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award and was named one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.

All the King's Men

by Robert Penn Warren

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE - The fully restored original text of the classic, ever-relevant story of a backcountry lawyer whose idealism is overcome by his lust for power--American literature's definitive political novel.

Kramer vs. Kramer

by Avery Corman

The best-selling, groundbreaking novel adapted into the Academy Award-winning Best Picture starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, winner of ﬁve Academy Awards.

Dead Man Walking

by Helen Prejean

Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon star in this adaptation directed by Tim Robbins.

The French Connection

by Robin Moore

The gripping account of an extraordinary international narcotics case, as it unfolds on the streets of New York City.

Academy Award-Winning Movies with Romance

A Room with a View

by E M Forster

Known to many through Merchant Ivory's lush 1985 film adaptation, which won multiple awards including the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, the novel provides an even richer experience.

If Beale Street Could Talk

by James Baldwin

A stunning love story about a young Black woman whose life is torn apart when her lover is wrongly accused of a crime – "a moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless" (The New York Times Book Review).

Atonement

by Ian McEwan

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.

Out of Africa

by Isak Dinesen

The movie with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

The English Patient

by Michael Ondaatje

This adaptation won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress for Juliette Binoche.

These Feature Films hosted an All-Star Cast

Around the World in Eighty Days

by Jules Verne

A classic tale of adventure by renowned French author Jules Verne.

Grand Hotel

by Vicki Baum

A famous hotel in 1920s Berlin represents the whole world in this famous book. It was made into a movie in 1932, starring Greta Garbo and John Barrymore, and won an Oscar.

Ordinary People

by Judith Guest

This novel inspired Robert Redford's Oscar-winning film starring Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore.

Foreign Favorites

Foster

by Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan's piercing contemporary classic Foster is a heartbreaking story of childhood, loss, and love.

Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

Life of Pi is at once a realistic, adventure and a tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction.

Peek into the Past with these Academy Award-winning book-to-screen Adaptations

Amadeus

by Peter Shaffer

Amadeus won eight Oscars, including Best Picture. Amadeus is a must-have for classical music buffs, theatre lovers, and fans of historical fiction.

The Cider House Rules

by John Irving

"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

Cimarron

by Edna Ferber

This book is the basis for the Academy Award-winning major motion picture.

Gentleman's Agreement

by Laura Z Hobson

The film version won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Director.

Glory for Me (The Best Years of Our Lives)

by MacKinlay Kantor

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and basis for the movie - "The Best Years of Our Lives."

Memoirs of a Geisha

by Arthur Golden

In "Memoirs of a Geisha," we enter a world where appearances are paramount. In this place, a girl's virginity is sold to the highest bidder. Women are taught to charm influential men, while love is dismissed as an illusion.

Is it true that classic books make the best films?

Howards End

by E M Forster

E.M. Forster's Howards End is a masterpiece, a brilliant study of family, wealth, romance, and secrecy. It captures the depravity of the English aristocracy without losing what sets it apart the undeterred sense of humanity.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

by Lewis Carroll

One moment Alice is sitting along the banks of a river admiring the wind, the next she is tumbling down a rabbit hole. Far away from the life she was used to, Alice's adventures in the fantastical, and oh-so-strange, Wonderland is delightfully bizarre and tremendously entertaining.

Mutiny on the Bounty

by Charles Nordhoff - James Norman Hall

Mutiny on the Bounty is a thrilling story set in the South Pacific. It revolves around betrayal and survival. This captivating tale appeals to readers of all ages.

Sense and Sensibility

by Jane Austen

Set in London at the turn of the 18th century, The Dashwood family is on the verge of financial ruin after the death of their father. Forced to pack up their belongings and relinquish their comfortable lifestyle, Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters, move in with their distant relatives the Middeltons, at Barton Park. There, they must each adapt to a new, more sensible way of life.

The History of Tom Jones

by Henry Fielding

The History of Tom Jones is Henry Fielding's greatest work and one of literature's earliest examples of a fully realized protagonist, with both virtues and vices on abundant display.

The Great Gatsby

by F Scott Fitzgerald

Adapted into several influential films and adored by generations of readers and writers, The Great Gatsby is not only Fitzgerald's crowning achievement but one of the finest novels ever written.

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