Looking for a good book to cozy up with for the winter break? We've rounded up a selection of titles that have provided the source material for nine current series —including The Other Black Girl, Daisy Jones & the Six and American Born Chinese — as well as the second incarnation of Shōgun, debuting in 2024.
Here are several novels and shows you should add to your queue — and to your bookshelf.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Doubleday)
Adapted into the Apple TV+ series starring Brie Larson and Lewis Pullman, Garmus's debut novel centers on a 1960s California scientist, Elizabeth Zott (Larson), whose career in the lab is cut short by her sexist male colleagues. Pivoting to deploy her skills as a chemist in the kitchen, Elizabeth becomes the host of a cooking show — infused with messages of female empowerment. Like the character she created, Garmus is an inspirational figure — this book was published in 2022, when the author was 65.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Scribner)
A splashy adaptation of All the Light We Cannot See recently aired on Netflix, with the limited series starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti. The chapters of this intricately crafted historical novel, which won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2015, alternate between the coming-of-age stories of Marie-Laure LeBlanc (Loberti), a blind girl living in Saint-Malo, France, and Werner Pfennig, an orphaned German boy. Their lives and futures become intertwined during World War II as they struggle to be a source of good and light for each other in the darkest of times.
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (Atria Books)
This underrated Hulu series, based on Zakiya Dalila Harris's debut novel and on the author's experience in the publishing world, is as riveting and tense as the source material. Both the show and the novel center on Nella (played by Sinclair Daniel), the only Black employee at a New York City-based publishing company. Nella feels less alone when the company hires Hazel (Ashleigh Murray), but Nella soon feels anxious when she receives threatening messages that force the editorial assistant to uncover whether Hazel is friend or foe.
The Changeling by Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)
Adapted into a series for Apple TV+, The Changeling stars LaKeith Stanfield and Clark Backo as book dealer Apollo Kagwa and librarian Emma Valentine, respectively. When Emma and Apollo wed and have a baby, their fairy tale love turns into a mind-bending crisis for the couple — Emma becomes convinced her child isn't really hers, and Apollo is plagued by recurring dream-like visions he thought we long behind him. Expect to have more than a few nightmares after reading this darkly gripping fable.
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice (Ballantine Books)
AMC adapted this popular Anne Rice book into the series Mayfair Witches, which stars Alexandra Daddario, Tongayi Chirisa, Jack Huston and Harry Hamlin. Delving into witchcraft and the occult, the first book in Rice's Lives of the Mayfair Witches trilogy starts with a dramatic rescue. Rowan Mayfair (Daddario), a neurosurgeon who has no idea that she comes from a long line of witches, finds the body of a man, Michael Curry, who has drowned and brings him back to life, igniting a love story and a quest that uncovers shocking secrets.
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Random House Publishing Group)
Written in the style of an oral history, this wildly entertaining novel (and limited series from Amazon Prime Video) goes beyond sex, drugs and rock and roll to tell the layered story of a fictional band that rises to superstardom during the 1970s before crashing and burning. Fans of Fleetwood Mac will undoubtedly pick up on the fact that the book's main characters— Daisy Jones (Riley Keough) and Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin) — were inspired by Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.
Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed (Vintage)
This book, and Hulu's recent adaptation of it, is a compilation of "Dear Sugar" advice columns from the online magazine The Rumpus, which were written anonymously by Cheryl Strayed until she revealed her identity in 2012. That was the same year her fame-making book, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, was published. Via "Dear Sugar," Strayed elevated the advice column format, writing thoughtful, honest essays in response to questions from readers about everything from love to money.
The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave (Simon & Schuster)
Adapted into the Apple TV+ limited series starring Jennifer Garner, Angourie Rice and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, this thriller turns newlywed bliss into a suspenseful mystery. Freshly wed and living on a houseboat in Sausalito, woodturner Hannah (Garner) and her tech bro husband, Owen (Game of Thrones star Waldau) are seemingly living an ideal life until Owen disappears. All Hannah finds, other than her marriage upended, is a note from her husband that reads: "Protect her."
The note refers to Owen's 16-year-old daughter, Bailey (Angourie Rice), who can't stand her new stepmom. But the two are forced to work together to find out why Owen is missing and who would take him.
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (Macmillan)
This Disney+ series from May 2023 stars Ben Wang, Sydney Taylor, Jimmy Liu and Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan. At first, it appears as though the three storylines in this graphic novel are unrelated. But author Gene Luen Yang cleverly braids them together while also giving a platform to the Chinese experience. When Jin Wang (Ben Wang) transfers to a new school, he discovers he is only one of two Asian-American students. Jin's life event intersects with a character from a 16th-century Chinese fable and Danny (Josh Duvendeck), a white kid, who is embarrassed by his cousin, a caricature of racist Chinese stereotypes. Both the book and the series received high praise from critics, with the series holding a 96 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Shōgun by James Clavell (Dell)
James Clavell's sprawling novel will have its second adaptation air on FX in 2024; the first aired on NBC in 1980 and starred Richard Chamberlin. The story centers on English sailor John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), who finds himself marooned on a Japanese island in 1600. He and his crew are taken prisoner by a powerful lord played by Hiroyuki Sanada and used as pawns during a violent feudal war. At more than a thousand pages, this historical opus, published in 1975, tells an epic story that has been in development at the network since 2018.
