Staff Picks

Our Oscars reading list

Picture of Lynne Rubio
by Lynne
02.07.14

Oscar season is here. Every year I try to watch as many of the movies that received major nominations as I can. So I have quite a viewing queue to get through before the 86th Academy Awards show airs on March 2. This year I have a pretty long reading list too, since more than half of the Oscar nominees for Best Picture began as books.

This collection is a study in the power a true story can hold over our imaginations:

Cover image of the book Twelve Years a Slave

Twelve Years a Slave

By Solomon Northup

Cover image of A Captain's Duty

A Captain's Duty

By Richard Phillips

Cover image of Philomena

Philomena 

By Martin Sixsmith

Cover image of the Wolf of Wall Street

The Wolf of Wall Street

By Jordan Belfort

Cover image of The Sting Man

The Sting Man (American Hustle)

By Robert W. Green

Other books that generated Oscar nominations this year are:

  • August, Osage County by Tracy Letts
  • Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
  • The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  • The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin
  • The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
  • The Invincible Iron Man by Stan Lee
  • Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen (Frozen)
  • Ernest & Celestine by Gabrielle Vincent

Does a great movie motivate you to read the book that inspired it? What would your vote be for Best Book Adapted to Film?