From ‘Addicted’ to ‘Gone Girl’ to ‘X-Men’: 40 Books Adapted into Movies in 2014

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Books

by Tom Clancy

The first published book to feature Jack Ryan was The Hunt for Red October and he would later be a featured in Patriot Games, The Cardinal of the Kremlin, Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fear, Debt of Honor, Executive Orders, The Bear and the Dragon and Red Rabbit while also being featured in the John Clark series of novels including Without Remorse and Rainbow Six.

To my knowledge Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit isn’t based on any specific book, but more of a jumping off point for the character and a prequel of sorts to Clancy’s novels. The links below are Kindle bundles of all the books featuring the character.

CLICK HERE TO BUY BOOKS 1-6 and HERE FOR BOOKS 7-12

Unbroken

by Laura Hillenbrand

Angelina Jolie directs this adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand’s novel with a screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen. Oh, have I said enough to get you interested in the movie? Well check out the synopsis below and you may also find yourself wanting to read the book.

Here’s the book synopsis:

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.

In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.

CLICK HERE TO BUY IT

Vampire Academy

by Richelle Mead

I told myself I would feature as many as I could and here is another adaptation making its way to the big screen. The short of it tells us the film centers on Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch), a Dhampir (human/vampire) whose legacy is to protect the Moroi from bloodthirsty, immortal Vampires, the Strigoi. Mmmmm… okay?

Here’s the book synopsis:

St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school–it’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They’ve been on the run, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s–the very place where they’re most in danger. . . . Rose and Lissa become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi–the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires–make Lissa one of them forever.

CLICK HERE TO BUY IT

Wild

by Cheryl Strayed

I mentioned Nick Hornby earlier, well he adapted Cheryl Strayad‘s memoir for the screen with Dallas Buyers Club helmer Jean-Marc Vallée directing and Reese Witherspoon in the lead role, telling the story of Strayad’s 1,100-mile solo hike undertaken as a way to recover from a recent catastrophe.

Here’s the book synopsis:

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe “and built her back up again.

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State “and to do it alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than an idea, vague and outlandish and full of promise. But it was a promise of piecing back together a life that had come undone.

Strayed faces down rattlesnakes and black bears, intense heat and record snowfalls, and both the beauty and loneliness of the trail. Told with great suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild vividly captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

CLICK HERE TO BUY IT

Winter’s Tale

by Mark Helprin

Based on Mark Helprin’s 1983 novel, Winter’s Tale serves as the feature directorial debut of Akiva Goldsman who also wrote the screenplay. It would appear the best description is a romantic, sci-fi, fantasy as it tells of a burglar (Colin Farrell) who falls for an heiress (Jessica Brown Findlay) as she dies in his arms and when he learns that he has the gift of reincarnation, he sets out to save her.

Here’s the book synopsis:

A bestseller that takes readers on a journey to New York of the Belle Epoque, where Peter Lake attempts to rob a Manhattan mansion only to find the daughter of the house at home. Thus begins the love between the middle-aged Irishman and Beverly Penn, a young girl who is dying.

CLICK HERE TO BUY IT

X-Men: Days of Future Past

by Chris Claremont and John Byrne

If I’m not mistaken, this is the series of comics X-Men: Days of Future Past will be based on though I’m not familiar enough with the comics to know what, if anything, has been changed. I’ll leave that to you.

Here’s the book synopsis:

Collects Uncanny X-Men #138-143. Re-live the legendary first journey into the dystopian future where Sentinels stalk the Earth, and the X-Men are humanity’s only hope…until they die! Also featuring the first appearance of Alpha Flight and the return of the Wendigo.

CLICK HERE TO BUY IT

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