Last time I posted a list of books that I want to read before the adaptations hits the big screen, I actually accomplished reading four out of five books I listed. Though not all them I read before watching the film, I still manage to enjoy reading all four books. Now that there are more books turning into movies I’m planning to catch-up with my reading once again. Hopefully I’ll be able to read all books before I get to see the film adaptation.
And with so many books turning into films, I’m glad that some of them I already read way back, such as The Mortal Instruments series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, The Hunger Games series, Divergent series, The Fault in our Stars, If I Stay and Where She Went, Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, and others Young Adult books. It just means less books for me to read before the movie adaptations comes out. Anyway, here are the top four books I want to read before their film adaptations comes out.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn’t make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender’s skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender’s two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.
Ender’s Game is the winner of the 1985 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Movie release date: Nov. 1, 2013
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Abigail Breslin, and Harrison Ford
The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort
In the 1990s Jordan Belfort, former kingpin of the notorious investment firm Stratton Oakmont, became one of the most infamous names in American finance: a brilliant, conniving stock-chopper who led his merry mob on a wild ride out of the canyons of Wall Street and into a massive office on Long Island. Now, in this astounding and hilarious tell-all autobiography, Belfort narrates a story of greed, power, and excess no one could invent.
Reputedly the prototype for the film Boiler Room, Stratton Oakmont turned microcap investing into a wickedly lucrative game as Belfort’s hyped-up, coked-out brokers browbeat clients into stock buys that were guaranteed to earn obscene profits—for the house. But an insatiable appetite for debauchery, questionable tactics, and a fateful partnership with a breakout shoe designer named Steve Madden would land Belfort on both sides of the law and into a harrowing darkness all his own.
From the stormy relationship Belfort shared with his model-wife as they ran a madcap household that included two young children, a full-time staff of twenty-two, a pair of bodyguards, and hidden cameras everywhere—even as the SEC and FBI zeroed in on them—to the unbridled hedonism of his office life, here is the extraordinary story of an ordinary guy who went from hustling Italian ices at sixteen to making hundreds of millions. Until it all came crashing down . . .
Movie release date: Nov. 15, 2013
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, and Matthew McConaughey
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.
Movie release date: Jan. 17, 2014
Starring: Sophie Nélisse and Geoffrey Rush
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
The first book in the New York Times bestselling Maze Runner series—The Maze Runner is a modern classic, perfect for fans of The Hunger Games and Divergent.
When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.
Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every thirty days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.
Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.
Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.
Movie release date: Feb. 14, 2014
Starring: Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, and Patricia Clarkson
There are more books plan to turned into a movie that I want to read but I didn’t include in the above list because they don’t have released date yet or the target released date is too far from now. Some of these books are Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (which I actually started reading but haven’t finished yet), Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness, and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.
What about you, any books you want to read before the movie adaptation comes out? What book are you most excited to see on big screen?
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