10 Book-To-Screen Adaptations You Should Read! 

Adapting books to screen has always been a thing and it is not ending soon. As a reader seeing some of my favourites on screens, it can be so exciting till I realize they don’t do justice to the book, but for non readers this can be another way to get them to hop on the wagon without actually reading the book.

A non-reading friend once said “any book that is worth reading should have a movie”. Over time the argument has been “the book or the movie, which is better? ” However, I think we are forgetting that both categories can be appreciated independently of each other, they are both works of art and should be appreciated in their respective genres. 

Here are ten books to screen adaptation that you should totally check out;  

1. Anatomy of a Scandal

Sophie Whitehouse has a gorgeous house, two darling kids, and a charming, prosperous husband. She lives the “ideal” life, to put it another way. However, everything changes the night her husband James returns home and admits to having an affair. Her tidy, organised environment abruptly becomes chaotic.

She married a man, but did she ever really know him? James’s admission is only the tip of the iceberg, it turns out. He is charged with a serious offence. However, the reality is far more horrifying than anyone could have imagined. Is James a guilty offender or a victim of a poisonous agenda?

In this gripping tale of love, retaliation, and deception, no one has pure intentions, but some individuals have deeper secrets than others.

2. The White Tiger 

Balram Halwai, was born and raised in Laxmangarh a remote village in Bihar India. His father was a rickshaw puller. Balram was removed from school at a very young age despite being intelligent enough to work in a tea shop to pay off his father’s debt. He later moved on to learn driving with the intention of liberating his family from poverty, after his driving school he lands a job as a chauffeur with “The stork”( who collects taxes without any legal rights from the fishermen and boaters) to drive his son Ashok who just returned from the states. 

Realizing the immense wealth, corruption and opportunity around him and also being aware that he can never attain the height of his masters because of the existing caste system ingrained in his society, he makes the life uttering decisions that the only way to break free is by murdering his master. Taking advantage of his master’s trust, he kills him and escapes to Bangalore; changes his name to Ashok Sharma and opens a taxi company.

The white tiger is a satire written in an epistolary form over seven nights to the Chinese premier Wen Juno’s. The book is written in a first person narrator, he writes the letter in response to a statement he hears on the radio, “Mr Jonas is on a mission: he wants to know the truth about Bangalore.”

The white tiger attacks the economic disparities, class discrimination and struggle, injustice, poverty, inequality and subaltern consciousness, marginalization in an Indian society through the life of Balram Halwai.

3. The Last Letter From Your Lover

Jennifer has no recollection of who she is or of the vehicle collision that led her to a London hospital in 1960 when she wakes up there. Her narrative alternates between the circumstances leading up to the tragedy and her attempts to return to a life she does not recognise and ultimately decides she does not desire.

She discovers a passionate letter written to her by a lover she can’t recall hidden away in nooks of her house as she looks for tiny hints of her old life. Jennifer also learns the truth about her marriage to the powerful and affluent Laurence; their lavish parties and lavish property are really a front for their sad union and meaningless lives.

Moyes jumps the plot forward forty years to 2003 and introduces us to Ellie, a young reporter in London, while Jennifer tries fruitlessly to find a shot at a life that might not exist anymore. struggling to maintain her profession while having an unfulfilling romance with a married boyfriend.

In her own life, Ellie is lost. She discovers a tragic letter in the newspaper’s archives while conducting research for a story for the newspaper’s anniversary edition. struck by the letter’s beauty and eager to make an impression on her editor. Ellie makes the decision to find the woman who is the recipient of the letter. Ellie drastically changes Jennifer’s life and her by stitching together what’s left of this long-lost love.

4. All The Bright Places

Theodore Finch (sometimes known as “Finch”) and Violet Markey are the two separate voices Niven uses to tell the tale. First encounter occurs while both of the protagonists are considering suicide at the top of their high school bell tower. Brilliant Finch had battled suicide thoughts for a long time despite being shunned by most of his peers, being mistreated by his father, and having untreated bipolar disease. Violet, who was formerly a high-functioning cheerleader, honour student, and all-around model kid, is experiencing survivor’s guilt as a result of the fatal vehicle accident that claimed the life of her sister Eleanor the year before. Violet is talked down off the ledge by Finch using soothing, therapeutic words. 

Violet reciprocates by doing the same for Finch. Finch does not refute the widespread belief that Violet scaled the tower to save him, which is understandable considering his lifetime struggles. To complete the prerequisites of their US geography course, the two protagonists team up in an odd way and travel to their home state of Indiana.They become friends and then lovers throughout this period. Finch assists Violet in getting over her trauma and motivates her to go back to living. Violet tries to help Finch as his state of mind changes from mania to sadness, but Finch feels helpless and kills himself in the end.

5. Tenants of The House

 Tenants of the House is a skillful portrayal of the nasty sides of Nigerian politics, exposing the conspiracies, deceit, and “win at any costs” drives that fuel the political and legislative systems of the nation. The author’s experiences as a member of the nation’s House of Representatives are fictionalised in the book. It shows a strident voice of a country in desperate need of political renovation and rebirth with suspenseful grasp.

    6. Swallow

 In the 1980s in Lagos, the government’s War Against Indiscipline and austerity measures are in full swing. A succession of unfortunate events leads Tolani, a bank secretary, to be persuaded by her roommate Rose to consider drug trafficking as a way to make a living. Tolani’s subsequent struggle with temptation forces her to reconsider her morality—and that of her mother Arike’s—as she embarks on a turbulent journey of self-discovery.

7.  Conversation with Friends

A sharply witty book about two college students who form an odd, unanticipated bond with a married couple. Frances, who is twenty-one years old, is calm and very perceptive. She spends her time on a life of the intellect and to Bobbi, her closest friend and fellow combatant. She is a college student and aspiring writer. The two young ladies, who were lovers in high school, now perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where a journalist named Melissa sees potential in them. Frances is reluctantly drawn into Melissa’s circle and is captivated by her elegant house and tall, attractive husband.

8. Pachinko

PACHINKO follows a single Korean family through many generations, starting in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the treasured daughter of a humble but proud family, whose unwanted pregnancy threatens to bring them all to disgrace. After being dumped by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young minister who has tuberculosis offers to marry her and take her to Japan.

9. Persuasion

In the novel Persuasion, Anne Elliot and Captain Frederick Wentworth, whom she had been convinced not to marry eight years before, get a second chance at love. Wentworth returns from the Napoleonic Wars with prize money and the respectability of a naval position in society. He is now a qualified suitor, acceptable to Anne’s aristocratic father and his circle, and she realizes how strong her love for him still is.

10. Redeeming Love

When she was just eight years old, the ethereally beautiful but terribly tormented Angel was sold into prostitution. She managed to flee the abuser when she was 18 and made it to California, but she quickly fell back into prostitution out of need and is now the most expensive and sought-after whore in the brothel where she works. Angel doesn’t believe in love after witnessing her mother yearn for the father who never loved her and through years of being taken advantage of by men. Her only goal is to make enough money to construct a little home in the woods where she can go to seclusion. Michael Hosea then enters her life and offers her so much more, but she is afraid to accept.

Last week, we covered inspiring quotes from Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings”.