Summer is the perfect time to step away from the telly and reconnect with the power of the printed – or digital – page. Books can offer our screen-frazzled brains a respite, a deeper dive into the hot themes of the moment. But what book to choose? From a Slow Horses-style tale of an unlikely agent, to a simmering dynastic feud to substitute for Succession, here’s our guide to the best literary alternatives to the most bingeable shows.
Slow Horses (Apple TV+) /East of Hounslow by Khurrum Rahman
On the face of it, the protagonist of Rahman’s spy series, 30-year-old Javid (Jay) Qasim has little in common with the dysfunctional pen-pushers of Slough House – who first appeared in Mick Herron’s book series before being adapted to TV. A BMW-driving dope dealer who still lives with his mum, Jay is flashier but every bit as flawed as the reject spies. When he gets on the wrong side of a local drug baron, MI5 approaches him with a way out – going undercover to infiltrate a potential terrorist cell.
Douglas Is Cancelled (ITV)/So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
Steven Moffat’s satire revels in the absurdity of cancel culture. Jon Ronson’s exploration of the casual cruelty of social media offers an equally entertaining but deeper dive into the topic. Ronson tracks down individuals whose lives were destroyed when the digital mob turned on them, and poses some tough questions.
Emily in Paris (Netflix)/The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
Sally Jay Gorce, Elaine Dundy’s heroine, could give Emily a run for her money – despite having been created in 1958. With her pink hair and propensity for afternoons spent sipping pastis dressed in a ballgown, she fizzes with mischief and joie de vivre. Gorce fills her days with drinking, dancing and sex. I know who I’d rather be.
Never Have I Ever (Netflix)/Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian
In keeping with the teen TV comedy, Gold Diggers also features a geeky Indian teenager trying to find their place in a suburban American high school. Protagonist Neil Narayan falls for the girl next door. But things take an unexpectedly magic realist turn when he discovers that his love interest is the beneficiary of an ancient alchemical potion made from gold. A sharply observed tale about immigrant identity and the dark side of the American dream.
Derry Girls (C4)/Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
Located in Belfast in 1975, Kennedy’s novel is a more melancholy rumination on the impact of the Troubles than the 1990s-set sitcom. Catholic teacher Cushla meets Michael, a Protestant barrister, and they begin an affair. Against a backdrop of car bombs and fear, the usual secrecy of a clandestine romance is amped up tenfold, making for a tense and tear-stained read.
Baby Reindeer (Netflix)/Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
The brouhaha surrounding the identity of Baby Reindeer writer Richard Gadd’s real-life stalker and the blurring of fact and fiction detracted from two burning issues at the heart of the story: sexual identity and trauma. Young Mungo fearlessly takes on both of these themes, telling the story of a Scottish teenage boy grappling with a gay relationship. The neglect he experiences and subsequent trauma at the hands of powerful older men is grim, but there’s an underlying tenderness to Stuart’s writing.
Harlem (Amazon Prime)/Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan
Published in 1992, McMillan’s novel was a watershed moment, featuring the sex lives of educated, professional black women. Like Harlem, it focuses on four college friends in their 30s. TV producer Savannah relocates from Denver to Phoenix, Arizona. There, she is reunited with Bernadette, her college room-mate, whose husband has just left her for a white woman. Making up the group are Robin, who is looking for love, and single mother Gloria. There’s an exhilarating optimism in the strength they find in sisterhood and the realisation they can make it on their own.
White Lotus (Now TV)/The Club by Ellery Lloyd
What it lacks in glamorous locations (the TV show was set in Hawaii in the first series and Sicily in the second), The Club makes up for with an insider view behind the scenes at an exclusive resort on a private island off the coast of Essex. The Club’s glittering opening night party is wrecked by the discovery of two bodies. Much like White Lotus, this pacy thriller offers pleasing tension between employees and ridiculously entitled guests.
The Gilded Age (Now TV)/A Season of Splendor by Greg King
In Julian Fellowes’ lavish TV period piece about Manhattan society in the 1880s, the most powerful figure is socialite Caroline Astor. A Season of Splendor offers a gossipy account of Astor’s rise to social power while providing historical context. Her position was threatened by the rise of the nouveau riche – railway barons, merchants and bankers and their desperate ambitions to be admitted to her circle.
Succession (Sky)/The Heirs by Susan Rieger
Feuding dynasties have been the inspiration for many novels but The Heirs offers particularly good parallels with Succession’s Roy family. Six months after patriarch Rupert Falkes dies, an unknown woman makes a claim that she has two sons by him. This throws his grieving widow and five adult sons into predictable turmoil as they navigate grief, betrayal and greed.
Schitt’s Creek (Netflix)/Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey
With her debut novel, Schitt’s Creek writer Heisey offers a wry and perceptive “coming-of-divorce” novel. Maggie, a 29-year-old PhD student, has to rebuild her life when her solvent, stable husband moves out. Her mordant observations, chapters comprised entirely of Google search items and verbatim direct messages evoke a TV script. The overarching theme is similar to the Netflix show – that your circumstances can change in a heartbeat.
Blue Lights (BBC)/In the Woods by Tana French
One of the joys of watching police procedurals – of which Belfast-based Blue Lights is one of the best – is the camaraderie between officers. With her Dublin Murder Squad series, Tana French depicts these relationships with such compelling depth, they linger in the mind long after. In the Woods, the first in the series, centres around detective Rob Ryan as he investigates the murder of a 12-year-old girl and discovers that the crime holds the key to his own past.
We Are Lady Parts (Channel 4)/These Impossible Things by Salma El-Wardany
If you loved the anarchic energy of Nida Manzoor’s series about a Muslim punk band, then El-Wardany’s celebration of female friendship is one to savour. She documents how three friends navigate love, sex and faith under the watchful eyes of their community. It’s also about heartbreak, new beginnings and ultimately forgiveness.
Sex Education (Netflix)/Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
In the Netflix series, Gillian Anderson plays a sex therapist whose son Otis sets up his own advice clinic at school. In the Big Swiss, Greta works as a transcriber for a sex therapist. The premise is intriguing – she falls in love with an anonymous female client’s voice (the Big Swiss of the title), and less obviously, with her trauma. There’s an awkwardness at play here that echoes Sex Education despite the protagonist being well into adulthood. It is a quirky comedy about voyeurism set in upstate New York with a cast of colourful characters.
Halt and Catch Fire (Amazon Prime)/Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
If you were intrigued by the premise of the long-running Amazon Prime show about the cut-throat early days of the computing industry, Zevin’s novel offers a compelling contemporary equivalent. The book follows video game developers Sadie Green and Sam Masur, who build a successful game together. It’s a boy meets girl story that’s a meeting of minds and ideas rather than romance, but nonetheless a satisfying read.
Severance (Apple TV)/Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
Like Severance, which explores the separation of a person’s work and non-work memories, Annie Bot is a timely examination of the human psyche. The robot in question is created with the sole purpose of pleasing her owner. But as she gains more intelligence, she starts to question whether her life is really fulfilling and raising questions about the consequences of advanced technology.
This Town (BBC)/This Is Memorial Device by David Keenan
Music critic Keenan’s debut novel is subtitled: A Hallucinated Oral History of the Post-Punk Scene in Airdrie, Coatbridge and Environs, 1978-1986. Told in a series of interviews with people whose lives were irrevocably affected by the band, it features a fantastic cast of misfits, visionaries and drop-outs. Like the Birmingham-set This Town, it is a celebration of the transformative power of music to transcend difficult times.
The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Amazon Prime)/Funny Girl by Nick Hornby
Hornby’s novel is set in the glittering world of swinging 60s London rather than Maisel’s 1950s Manhattan, but similarly explores the story of a woman trying to make it in the world of comedy. Sophie Straw ditches a career as a Blackpool beauty queen to try her luck in the Big Smoke. Inspired by her idol Lucille Ball, she lands an audition for a TV sitcom and becomes a star. Hornby is great on the optimism and pop culture of the era as well as illuminating on class, ageing and the fickleness of fame.
Ripley (Netflix)/Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Like Ripley – itself based on the novels by Patricia Highsmith – Eileen is a manipulative and amoral character operating by her own rules. While working as a secretary at a correctional facility for teenage boys, she befriends a colleague, Rebecca. The book is narrated many years after the fact and presents a testimony of Eileen’s dastardly deeds in the week leading up to her escape and reinvention in New York.
The Boys (Amazon Prime)/The Power by Naomi Alderman
For those in search of the type of vigilante justice seen in The Boys, Alderman’s science fiction novel is a gripping and at times hilarious read. The premise is that women are able to release electrical jolts through their fingers, enabling them to have dominance over men. Suddenly, with a flick of the fingers, they have “the power” – but how will they use it? A feminist triumph.
The New Look (Apple)/Miss Dior by Justine Picardie
If trailers for Apple’s lavish drama about Christian Dior and Coco Chanel during the Nazi occupation of Paris have piqued your interest, then Miss Dior is an excellent alternative. It explores the relationship between the designer and his younger sister. Catherine dedicated herself to the French resistance until she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück. Meticulously researched, the book offers a comprehensive account of events.
Industry (BBC)/Bully Market by Jamie Fiore Higgins
Like Yasmin, Industry’s protagonist, Fiore Higgins was one of the few women at her investment bank, Goldman Sachs. Her memoir documenting the everyday sexism she experienced at the firm is horrifying. Her male colleagues moo at her and place a toy cow on her desk while she is pumping breast milk and she witnesses all manner of predatory behaviour at the many booze-fuelled corporate events. The book provides no easy answers but is a vivid, compelling story.
The Wire (Sky)/Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman
When it comes to writing about Baltimore’s gritty enclaves, Laura Lippman is particularly well qualified. Like David Simon, creator of The Wire, to whom she was once married, she also worked as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. Baltimore Blues introduces us to Tess Monaghan, a local newspaper reporter. When her friend is implicated in the murder of a notorious attorney, Monaghan desperately attempts to prove his innocence and solve the crime. Much like The Wire, it features fantastic details about the machinations of politics and power in the city.
The Last of Us (Sky)/Zone One by Colson Whitehead
Like The Last of Us, Zone One focuses on a zombie apocalypse following a pandemic. The novel is set in a world where humanity has been divided into the uninfected and the living dead. Hero Mark Spitz is part of the civilian clean-up crew in New York. This is topical material that transcends the genre through its lyrical language and slow-moving, contemplative plot.
The Bear (Disney+)/Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
The parallels between The Bear and the late Bourdain’s memoir couldn’t be more obvious. Both focus on the overheated atmosphere of restaurant kitchens – the pressure and team bonding of working towards a common goal. The memoir is by turns funny and revelatory, detailing Bourdain’s struggles with addiction. Gritty and rich in detail, it’s no surprise to learn he was inspired by Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London with his exposé of the restaurant business.
Pact of Silence (Netflix)/The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
An atmosphere of secrecy and malaise underpins the 18-part Mexican telenovela, which focuses on a secret that bonds four teenage girls into adulthood. The same ingredients, in a different time and place, strongly reminded me of Eugenides’s debut novel. Strict Catholic family values, midnight assignations and illicit sex form the backdrop to the lives of the Lisbon sisters, who live in a Michigan suburb during the 1970s.
The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)/The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware
Greed is the motivating force behind Roderick Usher’s rise to power in the American gothic series and it’s also what drives Hal Westaway, Ware’s protagonist. A broke and lonely tarot reader, she receives a letter informing her that she’s inherited a substantial bequest from her grandmother. It could be the answer to her prayers – the only problem being that said relative died 20 years before. The choice she makes propels her deeper and deeper into a web of lies and grisly family secrets.
Yellowjackets (Paramount)/The Girls by Emma Cline
The premise of Yellowjackets involves a high-school female soccer team surviving a plane crash in the wilderness. In Emma Cline’s novel, the same sense of a group of girls experiencing claustrophobic isolation is present. Evie Boyd, 14, finds solace on a ranch with the girls who are in thrall to a charismatic musician. Set in 1969 in California, it is loosely inspired by the Manson family and the murder of actor Sharon Tate.
Three Body Problem (Netflix)/Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel
If Three Body Problem whetted your appetite for wildly ambitious world building in other galaxies, then Mandel’s novel should appeal. Moving from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon 500 years later, she takes in art, time travel, plague and, of course, love. The bestselling author of Station Eleven isn’t afraid to make huge leaps of the imagination and there’s something strangely comforting about the vastness of it all.
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