Top Ten Tuesday: Recently Read Books That Should be Movies or TV

I messed up and did THIS week’s topic LAST week, so I’m doing last week’s this week–got it? Only with a twist. The topic is supposed to be: Movies/TV Shows That Would Have Made Amazing Books (Submitted by Sabrina @ Notes From a Paper Plane Nomad).This is a pretty hard topic. If you delve deeply into movie credits many, many have started in books or short stories or an idea by a writer. I don’t have any streaming beyond the lamentable Prime, so I could be woefully out-of-date on this. I watch mostly things on Youtube like huge cleaning job videos, street food videos, odd PBS or similar series. I won’t give Netflix a dime since the red haired Prince and his awful wife got a contract with them. Not a dime.

Click to read my April Showers post

Anyway, I tweaked the topic! Here are a few books I’ve read/listened to recently that would make a great movie or tv show. Probably they are already filming–I didn’t check.

For Streaming Services

1

Unless it’s RFK, Jr., you can’t go wrong with a series that has a Kennedy tie-in. This one has it galore. Ari Onassis, Jackie Kennedy and her sister, Lee Radizwill, and, the Diva herself–Maria Calais. Opera was never better.

Diva: A Novel by Daisy Goodwin

2

This story of bored wives at a 40’s or 50’s Nevada divorce ranch was practically written to be a t.v. show!

The Divorcees: A Novel by Rowan Beaird

3

How cool would it be to see if any of the women in the t.v. show China Beach could be included in cameos as officers or something when (and it is definitely WHEN) they make this book into a series?

The Women: A Novel by Kristin Hannah

4

This great Mom-daughter road trip novel would be a fun short series. Elvis music, lots of characters along the way! A real hoot!

A Thousand Miles to Graceland: A Novel by Kristen Mei Chase

(Typing this I couldn’t help humming along to Paul Simon’s Graceland)

5

While I didn’t love this one, it would be great t.v. and though they’d likely cast it with 30-something actors instead of the correct age. Or maybe they’d get Jane Fonda and Sally Field? Probably move it to California anyway.

The Weekend: A Novel by Charlotte Wood

6

I DNF-ed this. I just couldn’t get into it. I don’t think it’s a bad book, just wasn’t for me. I should just quit with celebrity book club picks I supposed. This is a “Read With Jenna Bush” book. Nothing wrong with that–it just wasn’t for me. I was really looking forward to it, too.

The Great Divide: A Novel by Cristina Henriquez

For PBS

7

I started this one on audio, but without visuals for all the fashion references I lost interest. She is a fascinating person and is one of the few authors who can pull of my list of ridiculous phrases like “through the lens of…” or “informed by” and probably even throws “agency” in there but she’s a Social Work professor so….. And, for once, I was very glad to hear the author confess to her privileges of being white, well off, having a supportive partner, and living in possibly the world’s best place to continuously re-invent herself. Try that in rural Ohio and yes, you could become a truck driver or reinvent yourself as a manufacturing engineering tech or a nurse, but nothing like she’s done in NYC.

Her fashion is what makes her and it needs to be seen. The designers she’s found and the way she pulls her personal style together would be fascinating t.v. I would definitely watch it. I’d love to have sat in on that class she talked about in creating a fashion business, too.

How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon  by Lyn Slater [link is to Amazon]

8

Four bored women coming together through an ad to take a castle in Italy for a vacation? Perfect t.v. Add in the phrase “costume drama” and you’ve got a PBS blockbuster! I was torn between this book and Illyrian Spring–either would do, but ultimately decided on this one.

Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim

That’s All I’ve Got This Week!

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That Artsy Reader Girl