Book adaptations is a topic I’ve been known to wax poetic about. (Now, some might say I “rant,” but I think there’s poetry in there.) For instance, if you have at least half an hour, I'll be happy to explain why the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice is the only adaptation of that novel you should ever watch. (Which you can do right now on Kanopy!)

I’m also oddly passionate about why the movie version of Children of Men shouldn’t have made fundamental changes to the PD James novel, even though I don’t especially like the book. And boy, do I have a dissertation’s worth of thoughts on why Call Me by Your Name (book and movie) are both brilliant, but tell entirely different kinds of stories.

But I shall save those discussions for another day. Today I’m looking at a few wonderful books turned into movies you can check out on Kanopy either before or after you read the book in Libby. (I would never tell you which order you have to do this in. I’m not one of those “read the book first” purists.)

Better than the book

The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
🎧 Audiobook
🎬 TV series: The Forsyte Saga: Season 1

I know it’s one of those things you’re never supposed to admit, but sometimes the adaptation is better than the book. The fact I feel this way about The Forsyte Saga shouldn’t keep you from checking out John Galsworthy’s series of Forsyte novels, though, as they have been beloved by many. But I find the two TV seasons starring Damian Lewis and Gina McKee sweepingly romantic in a way I did not find the books.

It’s the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, and the Forsyte family is one of the dominant forces in London real estate and business. When one of their own runs off with the governess to become a starving artist and the most buttoned up of the family marries a penniless pianist, the family is in for generations of tribulations.

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
🎧 Audiobook
🎬 Film: The Hunt for Red October

The Tom Clancy book is a classic cold war thriller. For readers who want their military fiction full of obsessive detail, Clancy is your man. But if that level of detail can be a bit much for you, the stories still shine through in the film adaptations, none more so than The Hunt for Red October.

Alec Baldwin was the first (and in my opinion, the best) actor to take a stab at Jack Ryan, the Marine turned CIA analyst. Here he has to figure out if a rogue Soviet submarine captain, played deliciously by Sean Connery, is trying to defect, and if so, how he can help. Honestly, every time I watch this movie, I wonder why there can’t be more thrillers this good.

Crime

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
🎧 Audiobook
🎬 TV mini-series: And Then There Were None

No one has ever topped Christie when it comes to great mysteries, and I think I’m not alone in saying that none of her other books tops this one. And Then There Were None is not just one of the most clever locked-room mysteries ever written, it’s a meditation on justice and relative evil.

The 2015 TV adaptation magnificently captures Christie’s story of ten strangers brought to Soldier Island for what’s supposed to be a house party, but turns into the individual murder of each of the guests. I particularly like the way the TV adaptation handles the final reveal, a small change that’s perfect for the camera as opposed to the page.

City of God by Paulo Lins, translated by Alison Entrekin
🎬 Film: City of God

The novel and film are inspired by the life of a photojournalist who grew up in the Rio de Janeiro suburb known as the City of God in the 1960s and 1970s. Young Rocket struggles to navigate a safe path through the gangs and drug dealers, while just trying to find a girlfriend and get a career that might take him from the dangers of his neighborhood.

Fernando Meirelles’s stylish film is considered by many a modern classic, and if you’ve never seen it or read the novel, now is the time—there’s a new HBO series, City of God: The Fight Rages On, which picks up Rocket’s story later in his life.

True stories

Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington
🎬 Film: Rabbit-Proof Fence

Proving that truth can be even stranger than fiction, Rabbit-Proof Fence tells the story of three mixed-race girls in Australia in the 1930s and their amazing journey. At the time, the British policy was to remove mixed-race children from Aboriginal villages to raise them in a western manner. But Molly, along with her sister Daisy and their cousin Gracie, decide to run away from their orphanage and return to their village by following the rabbit-proof fence nearly 1,600 miles across the outback. The remarkable story was first recorded in the biography, Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, written by Molly’s daughter.

Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden
🎧 Audiobook
🎬 Film: Black Hawk Down

The 1993 Battle of Mogadishu is an event I understood very little before reading Mark Bowden’s bestselling book and seeing Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning film. Both book and movie closely examine the key members of the U.S. Army involved in the battle, from commander General Garrison down to the Ranger privates. How did their mission to help feed starving people turn into the longest sustained firefight the American military had been involved in since Vietnam? The answers are complex, and the stories moving. And with the extra space a book allows that a movie does not, Bowden also spends a good deal of time with the Somalis and what it was like for them during the fateful battle.

Oscars

With this year’s Oscars about to be handed out, I want to finish up with some great books-to-Kanopy choices that were nominated or won Best Adapted Screenplay!

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
🎧 Audiobook
🎬 Film: Hugo

The magic of movies and creativity are on splendid display in both Martin Scorsese’s movie and Brian Selznick’s children’s novel. Poor Hugo finds himself orphaned and living in a Paris train station all alone after his uncle goes missing. Without telling anyone, he continues his uncle’s job of maintaining the station’s clocks while also studying the drawings and designs in the journal his father left him. But then Hugo’s life becomes entangled with the old man who owns the station’s toy shop, which leads him to discovering the clockwork magic of an automaton and a nearly forgotten pioneering filmmaker.

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
🎧 Audiobook
🎬 Film: A Room with a View

Howards End by E. M. Forster
🎧 Audiobook
🎬 Film: Howards End

And finally, we end with the E. M. Forster adaptations made by the brilliant Merchant Ivory filmmaking team that won their screenwriter, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, her two Academy Awards. I’ve always thought these two movies are perfect examples of how to adapt a novel, both capturing the details and the heart of the source material.

A Room with a View is a swooning romance, where young Lucy Honeychurch is set to marry the fussy Cecil. That is until she is swept off her feet by the quirky and passionate George Emerson on a trip to Italy. The cast could not be better—featuring Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Daniel Day Lewis, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Denholm Elliot, to name only a few.

Howards End is just as beautifully written and adapted, but it’s a darker meditation on wealth and class. On one end of the economic spectrum are the Wilcox family, rich industrialists, and at the other, the poor clerk, Leonard Bast, who longs for more. In the middle are the Schlegel sisters, a couple of fanciful intellectuals who are part of the Wilcoxes’ world, but who desire to help men like Leonard. Good intentions, however, might not be enough for any of them to make a difference. Again, the cast is amazing, with Helena Bonham Carter joined by Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave, and Emma Thompson giving an Oscar-winning performance.

And those are just a few of the great book adaptations you can read today in Libby and then watch on Kanopy.

Although, I could certainly keep going.

For instance, the new Musketeers duology is an incredibly fun retelling of Dumas’s classic. And I will rewatch the miniseries adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South with very little prompting. But I will stop now. Because I have a strong urge to go start The Third Man.

*Access to films may vary.

RELATED READ: How to get started streaming films for free with Kanopy