If you like to know what you're getting into before watching a movie, then you know how important it is to read the book before watching the movie adaptation. And the year 2017 will serve up wonderful films based on literary ideas. Here are 13 must-read books before they become movies.
Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures
The extraordinary true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped lead to some of America's greatest achievements in space. A story essential to understanding race, discrimination, and achievement in modern America.
Dennis Lehane, Live by Night
The crime novel focuses on the year 1926 and Prohibition in the USA (the ban on the sale and public use of alcoholic beverages). This led to the illegal production of alcohol and the flourishing of criminal groups, especially the American mafia. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police chief, climbs the ladder of organized crime, which takes him from Boston to Cuba, where he encounters dangerous characters fighting for their piece of the American dream.
More: Movie Trailer: Live By Night (2017)
W. Bruce Cameron, A Dog's Purpose: A Novel for Humans
A delightful, insightful, emotional and often quite witty story takes us on a journey through human relationships through the eyes of a dog, while also stopping at the unbreakable bond between man and his best friend.
More: Movie Trailer: A Dog's Purpose (2017)
EL James, Fifty Shades Darker
The dark secrets that torment Christian Gray were too much for Anna Steele, so she broke off her relationship with a young entrepreneur and devoted herself to a career in a publishing house. But the lust for Gray is too strong and wandering in her mind, so she can't resist him when he suggests that they renew their relationship, this time on a different basis. Soon, more of her wounded and demanding Fifty Shades Master's troubled past begins to be revealed to her than she could have ever suspected.
More: Second movie trailer: Fifty Shades Darker (Fifty Shades Darker 2017)
Deborah Moggach, Tulip Fever
Sophie's husband Cornelis is one of the lucky ones who got rich from tulips. To celebrate, he hires a young artist to paint him with a beautiful young bride. But as the portrait is created, so does the passion between Sophia and the painter; and ambitions, desires and dreams give birth to complex deception and reckless risk.
Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall
People say "live each day like it's your last" but we never actually consider that it might really be our last day. We will never know when it will happen. We fail to tell our family that we love them, and we also fail to say goodbye to them. But what if you could live your last day over and over again? Could you make it perfect?
Diane Ackerman, The Zookeeper's Wife
A historical novel about World War II, the Holocaust, humanity and sacrifice, a true story in which two zookeepers in Warsaw save hundreds of people from the Nazis.
More: Movie Trailer: The Zookeeper's Wife (2017)
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Raquel J. Palacio, Wonder
August Pullman was born with a severe facial deformity. He did not go to school until the age of ten, but had lessons at home due to many demanding operations and long convalescence. Entering the fifth grade of elementary school, his only wish now is to be considered ordinary by his classmates. But his new classmates can't ignore his strange face. In addition to Augustus, who talks very wittily about himself, his family and the world around him, his sister Via, her boyfriend Justin, new classmate Jack, her friend Summer and Via's friend Miranda reveal their thoughts about this talented boy.
Dave Eggers, The Circle
Mae Holland is hired by the world's most powerful Internet company and feels that she has been given the biggest opportunity of her life. The Circle connects users' personal email, social media, banks and purchases with a universal operating system, creating a single online identity. What begins as an engaging story of a woman with ambitions and ideals soon becomes a tense novel where questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy and the limits of human knowledge arise.
More: Movie Trailer: The Circle (2017)
Stephen King, The Dark Tower
In the first book of this amazing series (there are eight books in it), Stephen King introduces us to Roland, the last Gunslinger. Roland learns both good and evil on his journey. Despite being a loner, he confronts the Man in Black, intrigues Alice, and befriends a child from Earth, Jake.
Stephen King, It
We meet a group of friends who did a very big and beautiful thing in their childhood. A supernatural force lurks beneath their homes in Derry, Maine. This force comes to life every 30 years and rushes to its prey - children. He lives on their fear, flesh and introduces himself as the clown known as Pennywise. Children overcome fear, but the force does not destroy. They vow to return years from now to finish what they started. Children grow up, have new lives, get married, follow their dreams, but one day this force returns and the friends are reunited with the goal of destroying evil in Derry.
Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow
Dominika Egorov, a former prima ballerina, is a trap for a young CIA operative and wants to uncover a traitor to the Russian intelligence service. She is sucked in by Putin's Russia, a country she loves and 'spits out' at the same time, as betrayals begin to unravel.
Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express (Murder on the Orient Express)
Detective Hercule Poirot boards a train from Istanbul to Paris. Soon, Samuel Rachet, who turns out to be no ordinary passenger - like many others on this train - is murdered on it.
