20 TV series based on popular book series

It’s arguably the most-famous — and almost certainly the most-successful — TV series based on a book series. After all, HBO’s “Game of Thrones” won 59 Emmys, including Outstanding Drama Series four times. The show, even with all its violence and sexually-explicit material, was a true phenomenon. The only thing that might surprise people about George R.R. Martin’s book series is that it is called “A Song of Ice and Fire.” Indeed, “A Game of Thrones” is only the title of the first book.

R.L. Stine’s kid-friendly horror series has been adapted on multiple occasions. In the ‘90s there was a show that was a Canadian-American joint production that would do episodes based off of a single book. As with most Canadian-American productions of the era, it was made on the cheap, but it was successful. Then, in the 2020s, Disney+ tried to make a more-elevated “Goosebumps” show. While both seasons were solid, it did not succeed as intended.

If you were a kid in the ‘90s and “Goosebumps” was too spooky for you, maybe you read “The Baby-Sitter’s Club” instead. It was a lengthy book series about, fittingly, a group of tween girls who start a babysitting business. Netflix turned it into a TV show that got good reviews, but it only lasted for 18 episodes before being canceled.

A two-for-one situation! Both “The Hardy Boys” and “Nancy Drew” are voluminous mystery book series for kids written by a fictional author. We hope we aren’t breaking the news to you that both series were written by several authors using a pen name that was plastered on the series' covers. Even though the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are not from the same series, they have often been tied together, especially in this show. This late-‘70s show on ABC featured Frank, Joe, and Nancy. However, early on the Hardys and Nancy had different storylines, and then when they started to have them cross over it was largely done to push Nancy to the margins, and then eventually ax her entirely.

Denis Villeneuve's first two “Dune” movies were critical and commercial hits. It wasn’t surprising that a third movie from Villeneuve's was announced to close out a trilogy. It also isn’t terribly surprising a spinoff TV series based on the movies based on Frank Herbert’s book series was also greenlit. However, instead of being about Paul and his epic story, it’s a prequel about the witchy Bene Gesserit. By “prequel,” we mean it takes place 10,000 years before the events of the film, which are also the events of the first Herbert novel.

For a while, it seemed impossible not to hit with something based in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” film trilogy was a sensation, and he somehow managed to turn a thin tome like “The Hobbit” into another successful trilogy. “The Rings of Power” doesn’t have Jackson’s cache — and it has the word “Rings” in the title twice for some reason — but what the Amazon Prime series does have is an insane budget. Amazon has poured so much money into “The Rings of Power,” but it has made essentially no cultural impact.

Well, a name like “Murderbot” definitely grabs the eye. Sort of the inverse of “Game of Thrones,” this Apple TV show is based on “All Systems Red,” the first book in a series called “The Murderbot Diaries.” Hey, if you can call your show “Murderbot,” you call your show “Murderbot.” The sci-fi comedy (yes, it’s a comedy) got good reviews, and if it goes on long enough may dip into other books.

“Perry Mason,” which debuted in 1957 and ran for nine seasons and 271 episodes, was the first standard-bearer for the legal procedural on television. Raymond Burr starred as Mason, a Los Angeles defense attorney who never loses a case. Erle Stanley Gardner started writing his Perry Mason novels in the 1930s, and there was a film series and a radio series that preceded the TV show. The author was prolific. Gardner wrote literally dozens of Mason novels, many of which were turned into episodes of the TV show.

You may know “Interview with the Vampire” as the Anne Rice novel turned into a movie with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. You might even know there is now an AMC show. When “Interview with the Vampire” was published in 1976, it was her debut novel. Rice would end up not stopping there, though. She would come to write more books about Lestat in what became the “Vampire Chronicles.”

Once you tired of “The Baby-Sitters Club,” you turned to “Sweet Valley High.” The books, based on twin sisters going to high school in the fictional California town of Sweet Valley, is of the soapy YA ilk. In the ‘90s the book series was adapted into a syndicated show that played like a slightly more serious “Saved by the Bell.” There was talk of a reboot in the 2020s, but it didn’t go anywhere.

When you think about it, it’s obvious. Of course this horny, pulpy show about supernatural creatures is based on a book series. “True Blood” isn’t high art, but it ran for 80 episodes on HBO. Interestingly, Charlaine Harris’ book series was called “The Southern Vampire Mysteries.” None of the books in the series is called “True Blood,” either. Once the HBO show took off, the series was re-released as, yes, “The True Blood Series.”

“Outlander” is totally different from “True Blood.” It’s horny and pulpy but its fantastical element is time travel, not vampires. Everything in the “Outlander” world is concluding at once, though. In 2026, the eighth and final season of “Outlander” debuted on Starz. Part of that season is based on the as-yet unreleased 10th book in the series, which author Diana Galbadon has said will be the last.

Kids of the ‘70s and ‘80s grew up watching “Little House on the Prairie,” NBC’s answer to CBS' “The Waltons.” Additionally, while the Waltons lived in Depression Era Appalachia, the Ingalls lived in 19th-century Minnesota. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the “Little House” books for kids in the 1930s and 1940s. If you haven’t put two and two together, yes, Ingalls Wilder’s books were based on her own childhood.

Lemony Snicket writes the “Unfortunate Events” novels, but Snicket is himself a creation of author Daniel Handler. The whole thing is sort of meta and aimed toward kids with a snarkier side to them. You know, the kind of kid who is probably prone to love to read to begin with. You may remember the film adaptation, as Jim Carrey played Count Olaf, but there was also a Netflix show that ran for three seasons. This time, Neil Patrick Harris played the Count, and the show was praised for being more in line with the tone of the novels.

If you love an oh-so-watchable mystery procedural, you absolutely should check out “Slow Horses.” It’s lean, mean, funny, sharp, everything you want. The Apple TV series is focused on Slough House, which is where MI5 puts the employees they want out of the way but can’t afford to outright fire. Of course, these screw-ups still manage to save the day more often than not. The employees stuck at Slough House are called semi-derogatorily the “Slow Horses,” hence the title, which is also the title of the first book by Mick Herron.

Produced by Shonda Rhimes, “Bridgerton” is a romance show that has a bunch of regal trappings solely so that people can be dressed all fancy and hang out in palaces and mansions and the like. All style, no substance, but it works for the Netflix crowd. It’s the kind of show that wins Creative Arts Emmys. “Bridgerton” is also based on an eight-book series by Julia Quinn.

Yeah yeah. “Bosch” is only watched by Gen X and Boomer dads. That’s the joke about the Titus Welliver-starring show wherein he plays LAPD detective Harry Bosch. The show, based on Michael Connelly’s Bosch novels, ran for seven seasons on Amazon Prime. Then, Amazon realized it made a mistake and announced a “spinoff” series called “Bosch: Legacy” that is for all intents and purposes the exact same show. That ran for three seasons. Amazon is laughing all the way to the bank.

Yes, Father Dowling is a priest. A priest played by Tom Bosley (the dad from “Happy Days") who solves crimes. Why? Why not! The show originally ran for eight episodes (plus a TV movie) on NBC and then moved to ABC for 35 episodes. Father Dowling was a character adapted from a series of novels by Ralph McInerny, fitting a professor at Notre Dame. However, the show never adapted any of McInerny’s novels into episodes.

The heyday of AMC is well in the past, but “Dark Winds” is carrying the torch once held by the likes of “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men.” While the series, which focuses on Navajo Tribal Police officers, hasn’t been a cultural phenomenon, it is well-received as a gripping crime procedural. The show is based on the “Leaphorn and Chee” novels by Tony Hillerman, Leaphorn and Chee being the two officers at the center of the show. The fourth season debuted in 2026, and a fifth season is in the works. Catch up now!

Inverting the “Bosch” generalization, your mom may have several of Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta novels on a bookshelf (or maybe you are that mom, no shade). Scarpetta is a forensic pathologist who has, to date, been at the center of 25 novels. Fittingly, it’s Amazon Prime who has opted to adapt the book series into a show. The casting for “Scarpetta” is high-level, as Jamie Lee Curtis plays Kay’s sister Dorothy and Kay herself is played by Nicole Kidman.