Despite being the best companions, books are being increasingly replaced by TV adaptations in this fast-paced streaming world, and Netflix is full of them. People often find it tedious to flip through the pages when they can watch something equally mesmerising in a few hours.
Book-to-film and series adaptations are increasingly common these days. From classics like Little Women, Pride & Prejudice, Frankenstein to young adult novels like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Fault in Our Stars and other thrilling books like The DaVinci Code, Gone Girl etc., various books have been adapted into films and TV series.
Who thought Netflix would come up with something as riveting as The Queen’s Gambit or that BBC’s modern take on Sherlock Holmes would reignite interest in Arthur Conan Doyle’s elusive and intriguing sleuth?
However, recently, Noah Baumbach’s White Noise came under a list of books that are unadaptable, with many saying that the book was better than the novel. While it is still up for debates, Netflix has ordered a range of books to be adapted into films and shows this year that deserves your attention.
Here are the five Netflix book adaptations you must check out in 2023:
Five Netflix book adaptations to check out in 2023
All the Light We Cannot See (Shawn Levy)
Adapted from Anthony Doer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning eponymous novel, the upcoming four-episode Netflix limited series All the Light We Cannot See revolves around a blind teenager named Marie-Laurie who fights for survival in a Nazi-occupied France. She does so alongside a canny German soldier during the height of the Second World War.
Essentially a tale about the fatalities of warfare, the series has been praised by disability groups’ rights activists for casting blind student Aria Mia Loberti. She will be joined by Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, Warner Pfennig etc. The release date has not yet been confirmed.
The Pale Blue Eye (Scott Cooper)
Starring Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Robert Duvall and Gillian Anderson, the story is set in 1830 and sees Bale take the lead as a veteran detective investigating a murder, who takes on the eponymous and pioneering dark murder-thriller novelist Edgar Allen Poe as an assistant.
Based on Louis Bayard’s 2006 novel, this adaptation was picked up by Netflix for a staggering $55 million. Although it was initially set to release on Netflix in 2022, it has been streaming since January 6th, 2023, after a brief run in the theatres.
The Lying Life of Adults (Edoardo De Angelis)
After Netflix’s success with The Lost Daughter in 2021, the streamer seems to have taken a keen interest in adapting the works of Elena Ferrante. Set in ’90s Naples, this six-episode limited series is derived from Ferrante’s eponymous novel and is brilliant enough to be considered ahead of its game in the race for the best shows this year.
With a multitude of bizarre and sometimes disjointed experiences, the series records an Italian teen’s coming-of-age story as she grows to look like her aunt increasingly by the day, much to the chagrin of her parents. This leads to a quest to find ideas and people that otherwise would not have found their way into her life.
Lockwood & Co. (Joe Cornish)
Based on Jonathan Stroud’s award-winning book of the same name, this upcoming eight-episode British Netflix series stars Ruby Stokes, Cameron Chapman, Ali Hadji-Hesmati, Ben Crompton and Luke Treadaway, among others.
Lucy Carlyle, Anthony Lockwood, and George Cubbins are three teenage ghost hunters who work in the titular Lockwood & Co., an adult-run psychic centre in London, where they solve a mystery that changes the course of events. The series is scheduled for a January 27th, 2023, premiere.
The Three Body Problem (D.B. Weiss, David Benioff, Alexander Woo)
Based on Liu Cixin’s complicated trilogy, the Netflix series is based on the first book and will be headed by legendary Game of Thrones directors Benioff and Weiss and True Blood director Woo. Set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution era, the series will see scientists in China committing suicide due to their involvement with the Frontiers of Science, leading a disillusioned scientist to carry out an investigation.
The cast includes John Bradley, Benedict Wong, Elsa Gonzalez, and Jovan Adepo. Tony Leung and many others. Woo had expressed his admiration for the Cix works, saying, “It’s a privilege to be adapting one of the great masterpieces of Chinese science-fiction. The Three-Body Problem trilogy combines so many things I love: rich, multi-layered characters and true existential stakes – all told as an elegant and deeply human allegory.” The series has been embroiled in some controversy for allegedly normalising the incarceration of Uyghur Muslims in China; it does not have an exact release date and might release sometime later this year.
