From the runaway hit YOU to spine-tingling family drama Haunting of Hill House, Netflix, like many of us, knows that inspiration for television and film can be found between the pages of our favorite books. Here are some of the awesome books that now have series adaptations you can stream on Netflix—and a few even have new seasons on the way!
Now Streaming on Netflix: 10 Series Adaptations You Can Watch Now
Prison revolts, inmates murdering guards, drug smuggling—many may have a hard time believing this hit Netflix series in based on Piper Kerman’s memoir, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. And although a fictionalized version of the author stars in the show, the series has departed from the events of her memoir. The final season, which will premiere this summer, is sure to bring this series to an electrifying close.
I didn’t really get into Orange Is the New Black till the second season when the stories began to feel more like fiction and less like reality. Maybe that’s because I prefer novels over memoirs. But Piper Kerman’s look at her own life behind prison walls has inspired the most diverse, relatable, and compelling cast of women to come along in years.
When the Lifetime thriller You was picked up by Netflix, it took on a brand new life—becoming a meme factory and illuminating sect of problematic Joe Goldberg fans. The entire first season is now available to binge on Netflix. Season two will likely draw inspiration from HIDDEN BODIES, Caroline Kepnes's second Joe Goldberg novel in which Joe leaves behind any memories of Beck and moves to the West coast on a quest for true love. Unfortunately for Joe, it's not that easy to keep the hidden bodies of his past hidden forever.
Joe is a charming, dangerous antihero whose obsessive quest for the perfect girl takes him to extreme lengths. HIDDEN BODIES is not for the faint of heart—Joe is American Psycho level crazy and self-obsessed—but you’ll be turning pages late into the night.
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It’s been two years since the first season of Mindhunter dropped on Netflix. While we anxiously await the second season of this thrilling crime drama, we’re revisiting the riveting source material. During his 25-year career with the Investigative Support Unit, Special Agent John Douglas became a legendary figure in law enforcement as he pursued some of the most notorious and sadistic serial killers of our time.
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Season three of A Series of Unfortunate Events begins with Violet and Klaus Baudelaire barreling down the slippery slope of a mountain side as their baby sister, Sunny, is carted off by their wicked former guardian, Count Olaf. What happens next in this final season is too dismal to put into words. The best advice I can offer as this series of unfortunate events comes to a close: Look away.
Imagine a world where physical death is a mere blip in one's lifetime. That's the imagined-future of Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs series, where consciousness can be downloaded into new bodies and one can essentially live forever. In its rollicking first season, Altered Carbon begins with Takeshi Kovacs waking up 250 whole years after his death to help a titan solve his own murder. And then, well, calamity, confusion, chaos ensues. Marvel Cinematic Universe favorite Anthony Mackie is slated to join season two. Though the plot is still unknown, we'll be all caught up (on the series and the books) when it drops later this year.
Manju and Radha are brothers living Mumbai slum with a strict and obsessive father who is raising them to be star cricket players. Filled with unforgettable characters from across India’s social strata, SELECTION DAY is bighearted and completely immersive novel.
In her book SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT, award-winning chef Samin Nosrat distills decades of professional experience into just four simple ingredients—salt, fat, acid, and heat. In the mouthwatering Netflix series of the same name, we get to follow Nosrat on international journeys—to Japan, to learn more about soy sauce and miso (salt), and Italy to see how olive oil is made (fat)—as she explores these vital ingredients at the heart of a great dish.
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Following the Crains as they come to terms with their splintering family and the awful events that took place during their short stay in a haunted home, the popular Netflix series is only loosely based Shirley Jackson’s classic horror novel, but the terrors Hill House brings the Crain family and the characters in THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE are equally frightening.
For fans of “American Horror Story”
Though visually stunning, “American Horror Story” is pure nightmare fuel. Borrowing from the classic horror tropes that precede it, AHS is comparable to Shirley Jackson’s classic supernatural thriller THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. Four seekers arrive at the notoriously unfriendly Hill House, where they experience powerful encounters with inexplicable phenomena. (shudders)
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James McAvoy, Rosamund Pike, John Boyega, and Sir Ben Kingsley provide the voices for an animated adaptation of Richard Adams’s timely classic. In WATERSHIP DOWN, a band of rabbits flee the incursion of humans and the destruction of their home in an idyllic rural English landscape.
A phenomenal worldwide bestseller for more than forty years, Richard Adams's Watership Down is a timeless classic and one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage, and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society. Suggested by Jim Fusco
The basis of the six-part miniseries, ALIAS GRACE follows Grace Marks who has been convicted for the vicious murders of her employer and others in the mid-1800s. Though she’s serving a life sentence for the crime, Grace has no memory of the murders and an up-and-coming expert in the field of mental illness is determined to solve this mystery. Fans of Margaret Atwood’s bestselling novel THE HANDMAID’S TALE (and the Hulu series) will be just as captivated by this fascinating story of memory, murder, and the thin line between innocence and guilt.
Image Source: Netflix