You can’t beat a good book in the garden on a summer’s day (anyone remember when we used to have summers in the UK?).

Nothing can compete with a really good read — a great description is involving than the best special effects Hollywood will ever produce, good dialogue sounds all the better when it’s happening in your own head, and nothing can match books for communication of smell, touch, taste and emotion.

But… that doesn’t change the fact that if you’re reading an amazing book there’s always a bit of your brain going “This would make an amazing TV show! If they cast the best people. And do the special effects properly. And don’t COMPLETELY RUIN IT!”

Okay, so discovering your favourite book is going to be adapted for the small screen brings a certain amount of trepidation as well as jubilation. But when they get it right, the magic can happen.

 

Pride and Prejudice

Quick –what’s your favourite bit of Pride and Prejudice? If you just said “The bit where Mr Darcy gets his shirt all wet” congratulations, you are a child of the ‘90s. That scene was never in the book, but it’s burned into the minds of a generation.

The series is just as great when it’s adhering to the book instead of your filthy Colin Firth fantasies, being a who’s who of the best of British acting talent at the time, with plenty of quotable zingers to remember for later.

 

Sherlock

Okay, this one is going to annoy some people. After all, can you really call it a successful adaptation if it’s set more than a hundred years after the original and has far less opium and far more mobile phones than you ever saw in the books?

But that’s actually the trouble with so many Sherlock Holmes adaptations. They think the source material is costume drama about quaint Victorians, when Arthur Conan Doyle was writing contemporary thrillers using the cutting edge of forensics at the time.

Holmes shouldn’t be some comedy stereotype with a deerstalker and pipe. He should be like James Bond, constantly updating to keep with the times. Sherlock does that with relish.

 

Gormenghast

From an adaptation with more dramatic difference to one that more closely matches the book in your head, Gormenghast takes place in a grotesque world that looks like a dream Lewis Carol had after eating some bad cheese.

Every character here is creepy and sinister and has one of a million conflicting agendas, in a world of parties and intrigue.

 

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

Well done if you managed to read this book. In its hardback form you could easily use it to beat a man to death. It’s an odd book that blurs the lines between historical fiction and fantasy so well you might come out of it believing wizards were actually there during the Napoleonic wars.

BBC One’s adaptation has taken its cues well from the book, and looks a lot like any other BBC costume drama (with costumes as exquisite as the accents) right up until statues start moving and horses begin materialising out of sand.

 

Game of Thrones

Come on, you knew this was going to be on the list. Not just a mini-series adaptation of a single book, but an epic series (50 hours and counting) that spans enough books to hold up a table that’s missing one leg.

We can argue all you like about how faithful it is to the books, whether this or that change is justified, and fight bitterly on the Internet about whether you can enjoy the series if you haven’t read the books.

And isn’t that what a great novel adaptation is for?