We ❤ Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson's a director whose films have been secretly (or not-so-secretly) influenced by literature. 

In many of his films, the characters are often obsessed by certain book. Other characters narrate the films for the viewers, looking directly to camera and reading directly from books. And sometimes a certain book is integral to the movie's storyline.

In Moonrise Kingdom, when Sam and Suzy run away from home, they pack their bags full of heavy hard cover books.

The Grand Budapest Hotel was actually inspired by Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. “I had never heard of Zweig,” Anderson told George Prochnik for The Telegraph. “I just more or less by chance bought a copy of Beware of Pity...I also read The Post-Office GirlThe Grand Budapest Hotel has elements that were sort of stolen from both these books.”

The Royal Tenenbaums is structured like a storybook, and almost everyone in the Tenenbaum family has published a book. (And a series of fantastic fake books were created for the film).

Rushmore features a copy of Diving for Sunken Treasure in which Max notices an intriguing handwritten inscription.

The Life Aquatic also highlights a more direct analog to Diving for Sunken Treasure, with Bill Murray playing an extremely Cousteau-esque explorer.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) is an adaptation of the children’s book by Roald Dahl.

Below is a reading list based on whichever movie you like best.
Browse them all, or click a movie title to jump to that section:

The French Dispatch
Isle of Dogs
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Moonrise Kingdom
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Darjeeling Limited
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
The Royal Tenenbaums
Rushmore
Bottle Rocket

(Credit to this source: https://earlybirdbooks.com/wes-andersons-love-affair-with-literature)

 

The Post-Office Girl
by Stefan Zweig

Bellweather Rhapsody
by Kate Racculia
The Coffins of Little Hope
by Timothy Schaffert

The Grand Budapest Hotel
by Matt Zoller Seitz

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer
 
The Family Fang
by Kevin Wilson
 
Franny and Zooey
by J. D. Salinger

The Royal Tenenbaums: A Screenplay
by Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson

This One Summer
by Jillian Tamaki

Wildwood
by Colin Meloy

 

The Encyclopedia of Early Earth
by Isabel Greenberg

 

The Imperfectionists
by Tom Rachman

French Exit
by Patrick deWitt

The Expectations
by Alexander Tilney
 
The Adults
by Alison Espach
 
 
Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel
by Lynda Barry

 

Fantastic Mr. Fox
by Roald Dahl
Mr. Fox
by Helen Oyeyemi

Around India in 80 Trains
by Monisha Rajesh
We Came, We Saw, We Left:
A Family Gap Year

by Charles Wheelan
 

The Fantastic Undersea Life
of Jacques Cousteau

by Dan Yaccarino
 
The Story of Captain Nemo
by Dave Eggers
 
 
All Systems Red:
The Murderbot Diaries

by Martha Wells

 

Lives of the Monster Dogs
by Kirsten Bakis
 
Animal Languages
by Eva Meijer
 
 
Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs
by Minetaro Mochizuki
 

Blacktop Wasteland
by S. A. Cosby

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
by Michael Chabon