TOP TEN TUESDAY | BOOKS THAT SHOULD BE ADAPTED

I’ve really been enjoying series based on books – Big Little Lies, Small Island, Little Fires Everywhere – they’re great, even better if you’ve read the book. Sometimes when you’re reading you can almost see what the book you’re reading would look like on the screen, but rarely do the ones you most want to see end up in production. Here’s my wish list – are you paying attention, Netflix and Amazon?

              

I think Vigilante would be a great mini-series. There’s so much that could be added to it, so much detail that could be developed, peripheral characters that could be expanded upon and plot lines that could easily be added. I’d love to see a show about a normal mom who also happens, in her spare time, to be a bit of a hero.

There’s so much potential in City of Girls – the story is rich and textured, the time period could be a great set to build, and the theatre means that the visuals could be stunning. It spans enough years that a mini-series could add a lot of detail and stretch out pretty much indefinitely.

I loved that there are so many very different characters and their stories in Middle England. And given that it’s the third book in a trilogy, I imagine drawing from all three would provide a lot to work with. I’d love the social commentary it could provide and the different perspectives on British life. I’d hope that it would be further expanded to add more diversity and experiences. It’s exactly the type of show I’d love to watch.

I didn’t love The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t perfect. That said, I do think it could make a very charming show. With the right casting and proper adjustments to the script I think some more depth could be added and it could be a wonderful show for book lovers!

              

Because Girl, Woman, Other is set up as a series of interconnected stories about different characters in different time periods, I feel like it would be a great series. There’s the potential to do one or two episodes per character, and even to revisit some of them or add new ones along the way!

Washington Black is the only one on this list I haven’t finished entirely yet, but based on the part I read and everything I’ve heard about it from other people, it seems like an exciting plot with lots of visual potential and some great and complex characters and relationships. I’d love to see this one on screen – even as a movie would be fine by me!

An American Marriage is another that could easily be stretched out and provides the potential for multiple settings and storylines. It’s also one that I think deals with some important issues that are particularly relevant right now (though in my opinion they’ve never not been relevant and important) so I think it would be a great movie or TV show.

Life Among the Savages is an older book, yet the themes and concerns are still almost as relevant today. It could either be produced as a period drama and set in the 1950s, or it could be updated and set today. The stories, with some minor tweaks, could fit into either time period – which is one of the reasons I loved it so much! It’s not one story, more a collection of anecdotes from Jackson’s family life, so it would be easy to divide up into a mini-series (and there’s a second book, so there’s lots to draw from!).

    

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep is a book I want a sequel to! I kind of want a TV series because, aside from being based in a time and place I would love to watch on screen, I want to know what would have happened next!

Station Eleven has been on my mind a lot lately since it’s a post-apocalyptic novel about a pandemic that basically halted the world as we know it. I don’t think now is necessarily the time for it, but at some point it could definitely be adapted into a great series, going back and forth in time to before and after the pandemic and different places and groups of people (kind of like The Walking Dead, only a little less blood).

That’s it for this week! What do you guys think? Would you watch any of these? Which books are you most interested in seeing on screen?

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.