BOOK CLUB: Novelists turned screenwriters

Child 44 author Tom Rob Smith turned his hand to screenwriting with London Spy (9pm, BBC2), which concludes tonight. He’s not the only famous novelist to try writing for the screen…

Cormac McCarthy Many of the reclusive American writer’s novels have made it to the big screen, often to great acclaim – such as Best Picture Oscar-winner No Country For Old Men (2007). Ridley Scott directed the film based on McCarthy’s first original screenplay, 2013 pulp thriller The Counselor, starring Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender (1). Nick Hornby The British author’s novels High Fidelity and About A Boy were both made into films, and Hornby has since had great success adapting other people’s books. Based on the memoirs of journalist Lynn Barber, An Education (2009), starring Carey Mulligan (2), won rave reviews; Wild (2014) was adapted from the adventure-led biography by Cheryl Strayed; and Brooklyn (2015) was based on Colm Toibin’s historical romance.

William Faulkner The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of As I Lay Dying worked in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s, collaborating on scripts for notable film adaptations of To Have And Have Not (1944), by Ernest Hemingway, and The Big Sleep (1946), by Raymond Chandler. His estate has since published some of Faulkner’s unproduced scripts.

Raymond Chandler All but one of Chandler’s novels have been adapted for the screen, sometimes several times. His only original screenplay, The Blue Dahlia (1946), starring Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd (3), secured him an Academy Award nomination.

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