Entertainment
6 Must-Read Books Behind TV’s Biggest Prestige Dramas
Television adaptations used to be a high-stakes bet that greatness could survive the leap from page to screen. What’s left to the imagination in a novel is rendered real in a series, so the odds are stacked against exceeding reader expectations. But as we’ve moved away from faithful, event-style minis and TV movies and towards expansive, multi-season adaptations, those stakes have changed; it’s now a bet that greatness can be the foundation for a prestige drama to build a new story of its own.
None of it is possible, however, if you don’t start with a truly great book. From domestic, spy, and legal thrillers to speculative, hard, and dystopian science fiction, these must-read novels are standouts in their respective genres, and more than a few spent time on the bestseller charts. Each one now acts as the basis for a prestige drama series, and in every single instance, the read is just as good as the watch.
1
‘The Leftovers’
By Tom Perrotta
Set three years after a rapture-like event that caused 2% of the population to vanish, The Leftovers doesn’t seek to explain what’s now called the Sudden Departure. Instead, through the lens of the increasingly fractured Garvey family, it focuses on the immense psychological weight carried by those left behind in the small fictional New York town of Mapleton, which has been paralyzed by grief, trauma, and confusion. It’s an exploration of the human propensity to seek meaning in the face of unanswerable questions and how, whether by pushing normalcy and clinging tight to the remnants of bureaucracy, mitigating unbearable guilt by joining nihilist cults, or blindly following charismatic prophets who claim to have all the answers, we cling tight to any narrative that might help us survive.
After HBO optioned The Leftovers for television, author Tom Perrotta actively sought out Lost mastermind Damon Lindelof to be his partner and co-creator. The first season of The Leftovers is based on the source material, adopting its gritty, bleak tone and adding a pinch of magical realism. It’s in the latter two seasons, widely praised for their surreal, darkly humorous execution, where you really feel Lindelof’s presence; the show leaves Mapleton and the book behind, and explores the broader global implications of the Sudden Departure in increasingly insane and unbelievably compelling ways. Though the novel arguably remains the best version of the original story, it’s what the show does beyond that story that makes it one of the best prestige dramas in modern HBO history.
2
‘The Night Manager’
By John le Carré
The Night Manager was legendary spy novelist John le Carré‘s first book after the Cold War, marking a significant shift away from the gritty world of espionage and geopolitical conflict and a headlong dive into corporate imperialism, unchecked capitalism, and institutional corruption in the power vacuum left behind by war. Centered on luxury hotel night manager and former soldier Jonathan Pine, it follows his recruitment by British intelligence to infiltrate the inner circle of untouchable billionaire arms dealer and all-around bad guy Richard Onslow Roper and bring him down. It’s a high-stakes thriller set in a moral gray area, exposing increasingly blurred lines between good and evil and pitting two stunningly rich characters against one another amid a dangerous game of deception.
The first season of The Night Manager, starring Tom Hiddleston as Pine and Hugh Laurie as Roper, was a BBC and AMC co-production and fairly true to its source material, beyond streamlining some of the more exotic locations of the novel, modernizing the timeline from the end of the Cold War to the Arab Spring, and casting the brilliant Olivia Colman to replace Pine’s original male intelligence handler. The most significant divergence, however, was the ending, which paved the way for creator David Farr to extend the story beyond the book and bring it back as a BBC and Prime Video co-production for a new installment nearly a decade after the first. If the explosive, table-flipping new adventures of Pine and Roper are anything to go by, the third and final season could be the best one yet.
3
‘Dark Matter’
By Blake Crouch
Dark Matter is rooted in the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics, which proposes that every possible outcome of an event actually does take place, but unfolds in parallel universes that branch off from our own. For Jason Dessen, the biggest decision of his life was walking away from his career as a quantum physicist to start a family. In a parallel universe, Jason2 made the opposite decision; he’s spent the last 15 years completing his work on a box capable of interdimensional travel, but deeply regrets the sacrifice he made to get it done. Jason2 decides to use his box to kidnap Jason and take his place, depositing him in his lonely universe so he can live the life he wished he’d chosen – but Jason refuses to give up, stopping at nothing to claw his way through the multiverse, facing off against alternate versions of himself to get home to his beloved wife and son, in a thrilling, action-packed journey that also serves on a meditation on identity, love, and what could’ve been.
Author Blake Crouch served as an executive producer on Wayward Pines, co-writing several episodes of the series based on his beloved trilogy of the same name, but opted to become showrunner when adapting Dark Matter for Apple TV. The first season saw stars Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Connelly, and Alice Braga navigate the events of the novel as written, and the second will feature a brand-new story centered on Jason and his family hunting for an alternate-free new home in the multiverse. According to Crouch, the television-first storyline was built to unfold across two seasons, so while it’s still far too early to know if it’ll get a green light for a final outing, it’s all but guaranteed there will be another killer cliffhanger waiting for us when the final episode later this year.
4
‘Big Little Lies’
By Liane Moriarty
Liane Moriarty is the reigning queen of the beach read, known for suspenseful thrillers laced with scathing wit and truth. A sharp suburban satire framed by a mysterious death, Big Little Lies exposes the dark, painful reality hidden behind the facade of perfection, and explores the dangerous toll of the lies we tell ourselves and others to survive. The novel begins with the aftermath of a fatal school trivia night, then recounts a school year through the eyes of three Australian mothers who each carry a dark secret whose trauma and shame threaten to unmake them. As their lives become increasingly intertwined, the web of lies they’ve built to get by begins to unravel, leading to one fateful night where a bond built on schoolyard parenting and shared secrets becomes a solidarity for mutual survival.
When the legendary David E. Kelley adapted Big Little Lies for HBO, he opted to remove the lighthearted aspects of the novel in favor of a darker, more high-end feel, relocating the setting from a fictional Australian beach town to the more opulent Monterey, California. Beyond these tweaks, the first season remained tight to the source material except for the ending, which was changed to allow the show to return. In its second season, the leading trio of Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, and Shailene Woodley began exploring a world beyond the page, officially cementing a legacy beyond a book adaptation and becoming a cultural phenomenon. And the trio’s journey doesn’t end there, as 11 years after the first book, Moriarty is releasing a follow-up novel, Big Little Truths, and seven years after the second season of Big Little Lies ended, it’s officially set to return for Season 3.
5
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
By Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood‘s 1985 classic The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t just one of the best sci-fi books of all time; it’s one of the best books written in the last century, period. Set in a near-future dystopian era after radical extremists known as the Sons of Jacob staged a violent coup to overthrow the United States, the country is now a totalitarian theocracy known as the Republic of Gilead, where a fertility crisis has led to women being stripped of their rights by the patriarchal dictatorship and forced into reproductive servitude. The story follows a Handmaid forced into subjugated surrogacy, Offred, as she goes about her daily duties in service to the elites while trying to cope with her memories of a failed escape to Canada with her family, attempting to survive in this new world while engaging in small, secret acts of resistance.
The first season of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale follows the book down to its ambiguous ending, changing only small details and replicating the iconic final scene in its entirety. From that moment on, however, it’s a whole new story – showrunner Bruce Miller went on to build an expansive universe that spanned five additional seasons, with Elisabeth Moss appearing as June “Offred” Osborne throughout its full run. 34 years after the original novel was published, in 2019 Atwood released a sequel, The Testaments, while working closely with the production team to ensure the sanctity of their respective worlds, enabling Hulu to craft a spin-off series that follows the television canon while using the second book as a framework. The Testaments, which sees Ann Dowd return to the role of Aunt Lydia alongside two new characters, Agnes (Chase Infiniti) and Daisy (Lucy Halliday), was just renewed for a second season.
6
‘Presumed Innocent’
By Scott Turow
When Presumed Innocent was published in 1987, it set a new standard for modern legal thrillers. Unfolding in first person through the lens of flawed, obsessive, and deeply unreliable chief deputy prosecutor Rusty Sabich, the story opens with the discovery of the brutal murder of prosecutor Carolyn Polhemus. After Rusty is appointed to lead the investigation, he decides to withhold an all-consuming affair with Carolyn that ended badly in an attempt to save his fragile marriage, but soon comes to regret that fact; he’s been framed, and all the evidence points directly at him, so he’s charged with her murder and is put on trial. Real-life defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Scott Turow deftly navigates the inner workings and loopholes of the legal system to build a portrait of institutional realism around our unreliable narrator, who remains detached and defensive even after going from accuser to accused, making us question everything that happens from start to finish and making for an unbelievably propulsive, twisty read.
Apple TV’s Presumed Innocent is another David E. Kelley adaptation, and its first season made some significant departures from the book and the 1990 Harrison Ford movie of the same name; the original culprit is reframed as a red herring and blame is placed on someone entirely new, subplots were built out to make it sustain eight episodes, and Jake Gyllenhaal, who made his first television appearance playing Rusty, delivered a character that was far more aggressive, vocal, and violent. The series, much like the novel before it, will also break new ground in adaptations: positioned as an anthology, the next season will keep the iconic novel’s name but leave its story behind entirely, adapting Jo Murray’s novel Dissection of a Murder, with new stars Rachael Brosnahan and Matthew Rhys.
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