Which films and tv shows have you liked so much that you were inspired to read the book(s) it was based on? I imagine that I'll see a lot of responses with "Game of Thrones".


My very short list:


Dune (the David Lynch film from 1984)

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Green Mile

Almost everything with Stephen King’s name in or on it LOL

Off the top of my head...

Childhood’s End (SciFi miniseries.)

The Expanse.

The 3 Narnia films.

The Golden Compass.

LOTR Trilogy, The Hobbit Trilogy.

Master & Commander.

Forrest Gump.

Gone With the Wind.

"Flight of the Intruder"

"The Hunt for Red October"

The Expanse series
Dresden Files series...excellent as audio books read by James Marsters, they should restart the show with him
Dune
The Color Purple
The World According to Garp
Hotel New Hampshire
Hunt for Red October
Clear & Present Danger
Rainbow Six...due to the game...on a tv
The Hobbit, after the old animated movie, lead to LOTR also
Accidental Tourist...I have NO idea why
A Walk in the Woods
Hound of the Baskervilles
Count of Monte Cristo...ugh, got the unabridged and never finished
I Am Legend
2001, 2010, 2061

Sometimes you read before the movie comes too, but I’ve since decided you’re less disappointed if the movie comes first, then improve things with the book.
The Martian
Enders Game

More on deck waiting on Kindle.
The Right Stuff and a couple others

Some coming out soon that I’ve read
Altered Carbon...Netflix movie coming in Feb!
John Rain books, Rain Fall aka A Clean Kill in Tokyo...tv mini series with Keanu called Rain in the works, based on the character.

True. In my case the vast majority of what I read is military history so I've never had a situation where I read the book before I saw the film or tv show adaptation.

Well, I inadvertently read "Leviathan Wakes" over last Summer. Actually, I had purchased it a couple of years ago and tried a couple of times to get into it but just couldn't.

Forced myself into it last Summer and I am glad I did. Only after reading it did I find out that it is the basis for the SyFy series "The Expanse."

So I tried watching the first episode of "The Expanse" but was very disappointed in it. Nowhere near enough detail and development. I suppose that's normal for book conversions for TV or movies.

This series (of books) now numbers six or seven volumes, I think. I've read the second book ("Caliban's War", also very good), and have taken a break. The books are l e n g t h y, but well worth the read. And I'm sure the series

will get bigger and bigger budgets since it has been so well received, and therefore have more substance. I know this is the reverse of what the original question asked but therein is the danger of reading a book first

and then missing out on the tons of detail and development available in the original story which cannot possibly crammed into a couple of hours long movie or even a series.

I also read Volumes one and two of the "Fire and Ice" (aka "Game of Thrones") back when they were first released. I then had to wait for over a year for volume 3 to be released, which, after the wait, I just could not get into after the first two.

Also read "The Hunt For Red October" before it was a movie, which I think was done really well, with the notable exception of Sean Connery's pathetic attempts at speaking Russian - horrible!

Sorry to be so long winded. I could go on a bit but I'm sure you've had enough!

With the Expanse, I find that the show writing is very good at fleshing out the story more and showing concurrent events better than the books. That’s rare! Sure they add drama and some of the space battles are shrunk down so the average viewer gets whats happening, but they develop things overall well with the series and characters in mind instead of strictly following the books. The books tend to introduce characters and then have little or nothing to do with them later, so it’s nice seeing smoother transition on the show.
The characters on the show season 1 & 2 you don’t recognize from the first book are in the next books.

Hostile Waters. (K219 leak off the Eastern Seaboard of the US, 1985)
We Were Soldiers Once and Young.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Malkovich/Close/Pfeiffer, and book in translation)

Mostly I read the books before seeing the movie or series...

Recommendations this way around:
I Claudius
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (BBC TV series - not the film)
Smiley's People


Unfortunately most movies fall short of their source material if it is well written.

Both "Hunt for Red October" and LOTR are on my reading list. I'll get to them some day.....

Forrest Gump.
Fight Club.
The Cloud Atlas.
Dexter.

I have to say that Dexter the book is really different from Dexter the series. In the book, he's completely dark and void of all emotion and empathy, absolutely nothing there.

The producers of the show probably figured that tv audiences want to find at least some shred of redeeming quality in a main character. If they don't, they'll most likely tune out.

Flight of the Intruder is the only one I can remember. I'm pretty sure the book came free with the PC game of the same name (Microprose-1990).

However usually I read the book(s) first and then get really disappointed with the film

If I know that there is a movie, I will try to watch it first since, as you said, the reverse can be disappointing. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between.

EDIT: It occurred to me that I was ruined for many Sci-Fi/Fantasy movies since I was an avid reader of those types of books when I was very young. I read Tolkein, Herbert, Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, etc. long before anyone thought of making one of their books into a movie.

Speaking of Arthur C. Clarke, David Fincher and Morgan Freeman were trying really hard to get funding for a film adaptation of "Rendezvous with Rama" but that project died. Maybe one day.

Hionestly, I can't really recall last time I actually read a book after watching the movie.

I'm a real bookworm so in most cases I've read the book long before it's been filmed.

One of my favorites.

FYI, if you like audiobooks, I saw that The Right Stuff comes out 2/6. Dennis Quaid narrates, which is pretty fitting.

Not sure 2001: A Space Odyssey qualifies, as the film and book were effectively the same project.

I can think of only two where I felt that Hollywood might be glossing over some deeper philosophy which required reading the books.
These were 'Starship Troopers' and 'Contact'
It turned out that the movies were more enjoyable and the books didn't really add anything of note..

Even then, there are several differences between the film and the novel.