The best book to tv adaptations

Love these TV shows? Find out what books sparked their creation!

Daisy Jones & the Six

Prime Video

Based on the best-selling novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six was a band on top of the world. Rising from obscurity to fame and selling out Chicago’s Soldier Field, they soon after decided to call it quits. Decades later, the band members agree to tell the truth about their sudden dispersing.  

prime video daisy jones and the six

The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power 

Prime Video 

J. R. R. Tolkien’s creation of middle earth was brought to our screens twenty years ago for the first time and cemented itself in cinema history. The novels are loved all around the world and fans were overjoyed when Prime Video announced they were making a TV series with the biggest budget ever known.  While Rings of Power is set thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the writers of the show based the series on the classic tales, as well as their appendices by Tolkien. It begins in a time of relative peace with some familiar and new characters as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. 


This is Going to Hurt 

BBC iPlayer 

This is Going to Hurt was written by the British comedy writer Adam Kay, and was published in 2017 by Picador. The nonfiction book is a collection of diary entries written by Kay during his medical training in the mid noughties. From diary to screen, the adaptation is available to watch on BBC iPlayer, and follows the story of the junior doctor in his chaotic job in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.  


Bridgerton 

Netflix 

Bridgerton is an easy read and an easy watch if you’ve had a particularly hard week at work. The book series consists of eight Regency romance novels by Julia Quinn, and first came to our shelves in the year 2000. Following eight siblings of the noble Bridgerton family, we see them navigate London high society in search of love, adventure and happiness. Similar to the novels, the Netflix series focuses on one Bridgerton per season, and is a must-watch for fans of period dramas or 50 Shades of Grey! 


Everything I Know About Love  

BBC iPlayer 

Everything I Know About Love is another series on BBC iPlayer, but did you know it was based on the best selling memoir by British journalist Dolly Alderton? Probably, is the answer. It’s all about the adventures of a woman navigating her 20s with friends from university, including bad first-dates, heartaches, humiliations, and the question of whether platonic love can survive romantic love...  


Anatomy of a Scandal   

Netflix  

Anatomy of a Scandal was one of the other huge book to TV adaptations of the past year. Written by Sarah Vaughan, the story centres on a high-profile marriage that begins to unravel when the husband is accused of a serious crime. Sure of her husband’s innocence, Sophie desperately tries to protect her precious family from the lies threatening to ruin them.  


The Power 

Prime Video 

The Power is a 2016 science fiction novel by British writer Naomi Alderman, about women who develop the ability to release electrical jolts from their fingers. In turn, they become the dominant sex. The series on Prime Video focuses on a group of teenage girls who develop this power. The book won the Baileys Women’s Prize for fiction.


Shadow and Bone 

Netflix 

shadow and bone
Shadow & Bone, Netflix


If you haven’t heard of Shadow and Bone yet, you must have been under a rock! Currently dominating the Netflix space, this sinister fantasy series is about a young soldier who has a mysterious power that could unite her world, and is based on the young adult fantasy adventure novel written by Israeli-American author Leigh Bardugo.  


The Queen’s Gambit 

Netflix 

the queen's gambit
The Queen's Gambit, Netflix


A favourite among many, The Queen’s Gambit was a massive hit on Netflix last year, but did you know it was originally a novel by Walter Tevis, published in 1983? The story follows the life of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon, with themes of adoption, feminism, chess, drug addiction and alcoholism. 


Little Fires Everywhere 

Prime Video 

reese whitherspoon in little fires everywhere
Little Fires Everywhere, Prime Video


Little Fires Everywhere is the must-see series on Prime Video that follows the intertwined fates of two families who are brought together when their children befriend each other. The 2017 series followed the American novel by author Celeste Ng, and it is her second novel which takes place in Shakar Heights, Ohio, which is where Ng grew up.  


Lucifer  

Netflix 

lucifer praying
Lucifer, Netflix & Prime Video


Our favourite devil in disguise actually originated from the DC Universe, and is of course an adaptation of the Biblical fallen angel. Being one of the most powerful beings in the DC Universe, the real question we should be asking is who’d win in a fight? Lucifer or Superman? Move over Batman! If you haven’t seen Lucifer yet, check our the first four seasons on Prime Video and the fifth on Netflix! 


Lupin  

Netflix

lupin
Lupin, Netflix


Based on the French fictional gentleman thief Arsene Lupin, by French writer Maurice Leblanc in 1905, Lupin appeared in 17 novels and 29 novellas over the years with a total of 24 books. But the series we know and love could have been called Lopin, had the name not changed due to a local politician of the same name protesting the original character’s name Arsene Lopin!  


The Pursuit of Love 

BBC iPlayer 

the pursuit of love
The Pursuit of Love, BBC iPlayer


Brand new miniseries drama The Pursuit of Love is an adaptation of the novel by Nancy Mitford which was first published in 1945, and is the first novel in a trilogy about an upper-class English family focused on the romantic life of Linda Radlett, and narrated by her cousin, Fanny Logan. The television adaptation stars Lily James and Emily Beecham, alongside Dominic West and Freddie Fox.   


The Killing 

BBC iPlayer 


If you’re a fan of the crime series The Killing, did you know there are novels based on the original screenplay? David Hewson wrote a trilogy of novels with reimagined twists and turns so there are plenty of surprises and more to explore if you loved the drama. The TV show follows the police investigation of the murder of a young girl, interlocking three suspenseful stories.  


Luther 

UKTV Play 

luther
Luther, UKTV Play


Another TV to book adaptation, Luther has a tie-in novel called Luther: The Calling by Neil Cross, and is a prequel to the television series about a passionate detective who ends up befriending a psychopath and a murderer, and end up solving crimes together.  


Honourable mention:  

House of the Dragon 

Not available on Freesat, we’re positively bereft. 

If you’re a lover of Game of Thrones, you’ve probably already watched House of the Dragon. But if not, the HBO series is based on the popular book by author George R. R. Martin, Fire and Blood, which was released in 2018, and charts the historry of House Targaryen from the arrival of King Aegon I Targaryen (Aegon the Conqueror) in Westeros all the way to the early days in the reign of King Aegon III Targaryen. The series stars Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen, as well as Milly Alcock as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen.