If You Liked This Show, Read This Book: Recs Based On Popular TV Shows

Are you trying to hit your reading goals for the year, but you can’t seem to stop watching TV? Are you jumping from one show to the next just to fill the void of finishing a series?

We get it. Here at Decider, we love TV too and totally get the feeling of missing a show once it’s over.

But the great thing about books is that you can find something similar to that show you just finished and loved and get lost in a new story, this time, between the pages instead of on-screen.

Books are the inspiration for many shows, but for this list, we stuck to books that made us think of popular shows, ways to learn more about a show’s topic, or something that uses the basic premise of an already-existing reality show to tell a new story. If you’re looking for future adaptations, we’ve got you covered, but if you just want to pick your new read based on something you already love, read on.

• If you liked The Bear… read Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

  If The Bear first opened your eyes to the abuse, hostility, and overall unhealthy behaviors in the restaurant industry, Kitchen Confidential is the best place to learn more directly from someone who lived it.

  While now, we consider the late Anthony Bourdain to be in the pantheon of famous chefs, a little over two decades ago, he was a little-known chef who wrote a New Yorker piece that rocked the industry and led to this very book.

  In Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain looks back at his years working in restaurants by chronicling wild-but-true experiences he’s had in kitchens — including drug use and sex.

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• If you liked Succession… read Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy by James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams

  While Succession follows a fictional family with a media-mogul patriarch, Unscripted dives deep into Paramount Global and the patriarch that founded it, Sumner M. Redstone. In 2016, Redstone was named in a lawsuit by a former romantic partner of his, and the ensuing trial placed the then-93-year-old’s health and judgment into question.

  For years, Redstone made it clear that his daughter Shari Redstone would take control of his businesses (sound familiar, Succession fans?), but the company’s old guard, including former CBS head Les Moonves, was hostile toward her. And while the question of succession was being raised, Moonves himself was facing serious public accusations.

  Unscripted takes an unflinching look at the secret inner workings of a massive media conglomerate and the ways family drama can seep into business.

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• If you liked Ted Lasso… read The Beckham Experiment: How the World’s Most Famous Athlete Tried to Conquer America by Grant Wahl

  Not only is The Beckham Experiment Coach Beard approved, but the book’s author, Grant Wahl, contributed to the series as well before his sudden death during the 2022 World Cup. The book actually makes a cameo appearance in season 3, episode 4 — the same episode that’s dedicated to Wahl’s memory.

  In The Beckham Experiment, Wahl was given unprecedented access to the Los Angeles Galaxy’s locker room for an entire season following David Beckham’s shocking move from the Premier League to Major League Soccer. The book is a firsthand account of the team on and off the pitch as they deal with clashing egos (between Beckham and star Landon Donovan), wins, losses, and more.

  Wahl was contacted by Ted Lasso‘s writing staff ahead of season 3 because they needed an expert on the subject of a journalist integrating into a locker room — his answers helped shape what became Trent Crimm‘s season-long plot.

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• If you liked The Great British Baking Show… read Alexis Hall’s Winner Bakes All series

  The Winner Bakes All series consists of two books so far: Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake and Paris Daillencourt Is About To Crumble. Both take place on the set of a baking show not unlike The Great British Baking Show, and each book follows one contestant on their journey throughout the competition. Because these are romance novels, there’s a distinct focus on the contestant’s love life, whether it’s with an electrician or a fellow competitor.

  Hall’s writing has all of the wholesome vibes of The Great British Baking Show with important commentary about mental health.

  BUY WINNER BAKES ALL BOOKS

• If you liked Bridgerton… read the Wallflowers, Ravenels, and Hathaways series by Lisa Kleypas

  Obviously, Bridgerton is based on a series of book, but it’s far from the only series of historical romance novels out there. If you’re looking for something that will give you the same tight-knit community vibes of Bridgerton, look no further than Lisa Kleypas.

  Kleypas has a number of historical romance series, but the three we’re recommending are the Wallflowers (five books), Ravenels (five books), and Hathaways (seven books) series in that order. There’s crossover between all of the characters that happen across the novels and larger series.

  WALLFLOWERS

  RAVENELS
  HATHAWAYS

• If you liked Gossip Girl (2007 or 2021)… read Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

  Ace of Spades is often described as Gossip Girl meets Get Out, but when you break the page-turning thriller down even further, it’s the omnipresence of GG in the 2007 series and the more diverse (both in race and sexuality) cast of characters that appear in the 2021 reboot meets Get Out.

  Set in an ultra-exclusive private school, two of the only Black students, Chiamaka and Devon, are chosen to be senior-year prefects (a senior student authorized to enforce discipline). Shortly after they assume those positions, an anonymous texter known as Aces starts sending messages about Chiamaka and Devon’s secrets that threaten to ruin both of their lives forever.

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• If you liked The Bachelor or The Bachelorette… read The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun OR Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales

  These are two books for anyone who wishes Bachelor Nation were a little less… heteronormative.

  The Charm Offensive takes place on the set of “Ever After,” a show with Bachelor-like qualities. The show’s Prince Charming is an anxious, disgraced tech genius who only agrees to appear to rehab his image. He’s assigned an on-set handler whose job it is to prepare the Prince Charming to make connections with the group of women competing for his heart, but their chemistry might just be better than the chemistry he has with any of the women.

  In Never Ever Getting Back Together, the dating show format gets a little twist. Namely, it’s set on a show where the bachelor character’s only options are his exes. There are six exes total — one comes open to possibly rekindling her romance, while another is dead-set on revenge. Neither of them considered their happily ever after might actually be each other.

  THE CHARM OFFENSIVE

  NEVER EVER GETTING BACK TOGETHER

• If you liked Loki… read This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

  This Is How You Lose The Time War is an ambitious novella. In just 223 pages, it tackles quite a lot — and does so successfully. Written as letters between two rival agents on opposite sides of a massive, multiversal war, what starts as each agent trying to secure a future for their own faction turns into something much larger than either of them expects. Something like love. Like in Loki, the agents have the ability to time travel and jump universes.

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• If you liked The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel… read In On the Joke by Shawn Levy

  While The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is fictional, it still deals with the way women were treated in the late 1950s and early 1960s as they tried to make their way up in the world of stand-up comedy. In On the Joke is a nonfiction book that takes readers through the early history of women in stand-up comedy, from Moms Mabley to Phyllis Diller to Joan Rivers.

  If you’re a fan of Maisel and interested in that time period, this book is for you.

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• If you liked Saturday Night Live… read Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

  Just one glance at the description of Curtis Sittenfeld’s latest novel will definitely have you thinking of a certain sketch comedy show and, more specifically, a certain former cast member of said sketch comedy show.

  The book follows a writer on The Night Owls (which is essentially Saturday Night Live), who channels her frustrations at her male costars dating beautiful and accomplished women, while it’s highly unlikely that would ever happen to her or any of her fellow female writers. She hits it off with a pop star who’s hosting and performing on The Night Owls and finds that her real life could actually be a romantic comedy in the making.

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• If you liked Daisy Jones & The Six… read The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

  The Final Revival of Opal & Nev is written as an oral history, even though it’s fictional, just like the book Daisy Jones & the Six is based on. Opal and Nev are an interracial rock duo who rise to fame in the 1970s and, like Daisy and the Six, have a major, highly-publicized breakup. In 2016, Opal is considering reuniting with Nev for one last tour, just as a music journalist begins curating an oral history about the duo and secrets long buried are unearthed.

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• If you liked The Last of Us… read Wilder Girls by Rory Power

  Set in an all-girl academy eighteen months after it is put on quarantine when a deadly and incurable Tox begins to spread, the students who survived are cut off from the rest of civilization on the island where their academy was located. When one of the girls goes missing, her friend will do whatever it takes to get her back, even if it means breaching quarantine and exposing herself to the Tox and whatever else lies behind the fence surrounding their school.

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• If you liked Yellowjackets… read Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

  If your favorite part of Yellowjackets is the show’s approach to the supernatural, Nightbitch is for you. The novel is about a new mother who becomes convinced she’s turning into a dog while her husband dismisses this fear. She struggles with temptation and keeping her canine alter-ego a secret as she falls further into reading about potential cures.

  It’s not exactly the same as what’s possibly happening to Taissa on Yellowjackets, but it’s an interesting twist on the idea that you could be two different people — or things — and not know it.

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• If you liked any Real Housewives franchise… read Not All Diamonds and Rosé by Dave Quinn

  Whether you watch all of the Real Housewives franchises or just a few, this eye-opening oral history covers all of the Housewives series to hit Bravo through the early days of Salt Lake. Featuring interviews with Bravo executives, Andy Cohen, friends of, husbands, and the Housewives themselves, Not All Diamonds and Rosé will give you the inside scoop on all of the iconic moments.

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• If you liked Stranger Things… read The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson

  A group of misfits coming of age during a fateful summer sounds pretty familiar, right? It’s worked for Stranger Things and every iteration of Stephen King’s It, and it’s also the plot of Craig Davidson’s The Saturday Night Ghost Club. Jake’s uncle is a fanatic of all things occult, so when a few new-to-town kids befriend Jake, his uncle starts the Saturday Night Ghost Club. The experiences they have that summer form the people that they’ll grow into, as all good coming-of-age stories do.

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