Watch This? Read That!

Are you looking for the next book to add to your TBR list?

Check out these suggestions for fans of The Crown, This Is Us, Big Little Lies, and more.

Watch Gilmore Girls?

Read The Late Bloomers’ Club

If you’re experiencing Stars Hollow withdrawal, this heartwarming novel set in the equally charming small town of Guthrie, Vermont is for you. Nora runs the Miss Guthrie diner (think Luke’s). Life takes a surprising turn when she mysteriously inherits a local farmhouse and her free-spirit younger sister comes back to town. (Stay tuned for an interview with author Louise Miller coming up soon on the new A Bookish Home podcast!)

Watch Grey’s Anatomy?

Read The Queen of Hearts

If the tight-knit, complicated relationships between doctors on Grey’s Anatomy has had you hooked for years, try The Queen of Hearts by Kimmery Martin. Zadie, a pediatric cardiologist and Emma, a trauma surgeon have been best friends since their medical school days. When a former colleague resurfaces, they are forced to reexamine decisions from the past and a secret threatens to destroy their friendship.

Watch The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society?

Read The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Did you recently watch the delightful adaptation of The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society and wish it wasn’t over? Of course, if you haven’t read the book yet, head straight to your local library or bookstore to pick up a copy. Otherwise, I recommend another small-town story where books change the lives of the inhabitants. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin is full of heart and will have you alternately laughing out loud and tearing up.

Watch Mozart in the Jungle?

Read The Ensemble

Do you want to go behind the scenes in the world of professional musicians? Check out The Ensemble by Aja Gabel. Henry, Jana, Brit, and Daniel begin playing in a string quartet together in their twenties. Told from alternating points of view, the novel takes us into their lives as ambitious musicians and traces the evolution of their complex relationships with one another over the course of twenty years.

Watch This Is Us?

Read A Place For Us

If you love the way This Is Us weaves together the present and the past and the perspectives of parents and siblings to form the picture of a family, this new novel is for you. A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza is another carefully woven deep dive into the inner workings of a family and shows how the small everyday choices parents and children make strengthen or weaken familial connections and change the course of lives.

Watch A Chef’s Life?

Read The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living

If you are eagerly awaiting a new season of A Chef’s Life, read The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living. Follow another talented (pastry) chef, who leaves the prestigious, big city restaurants she has been working in and comes to deeply appreciate life in a tight-knit, rural community. The descriptions of food in this novel are stunning and the characters will quickly find their way into your heart. (Again, stay tuned for an interview with author Louise Miller coming up soon on the new A Bookish Home podcast!)

Watch The Man in the High Castle?

Read American War

If envisioning an alternate, frightening course of history for America in The Man in the High Castle has kept you clicking “Next Episode”, read American War, a novel by Omar El Akkad. In this enthralling and dark, dystopian read we meet Sara Chestnut, who is six years old when the Second American Civil War begins in 2074. As the years go on Sara ends up in a refugee camp in Mississippi and eventually becomes swept up in a resistance movement.

Watch The Crown?

Read The Royal We

Can’t get enough of the royal family in The Crown? For a lighter fictional take try The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. This novel is loosely based on the courtship of Kate Middleton and Prince William. A pure joy to read and impossible to put down.

Watch Big Little Lies?

Read What Alice Forgot

Are you a fan of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies and the series adaptation on HBO? Check out What Alice Forgot, one of Moriarty’s other books–and my favorite of hers. After an accident in spin class, 39-year-old Alice wakes up with an entire decade erased from her mind. In her last memory, she is 29, pregnant with her first child and happily married. Now she must figure out how to suddenly navigate her life as a separated mother of three and face the choices she has made.

Watch Downton Abbey?

Read The Summer Before the War and

The War I Finally Won

If you are missing the wonderful Downton Abbey (and awaiting the movie in the works!) here are two books for you. My adult pick is The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson. Set in 1914, the story of Beatrice Nash and her arrival in the small village of Rye in England has the heart, wit, and class struggles of Downton. For the kids in your life and for middle-grade fans, read The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. In this sequel to the stunning, Newbery Honor title The War That Saved My Life, Ada is back and must share her small home with Lady Thornton (think Lady Grantham).