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Since 1974 · Phone: 413-645-3256 · HOURS: Mon-Fri 10-6 · Sat 10-5 · Sun 11-4 (until Labor Day) · Contact Us That's right, we are in MASSACHUSETTS! |
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 Girl. The 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)
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The Post-Office Girl |
Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia |
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The Coffins of Little Hope by Timothy Schaffert |
The Grand Budapest Hotel |
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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer |
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson |
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Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger |
The Royal Tenenbaums: A Screenplay |
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This One Summer |
Wildwood |
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The Encyclopedia of Early Earth |
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The Imperfectionists |
French Exit by Patrick deWitt |
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The Expectations by Alexander Tilney |
The Adults by Alison Espach |
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Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel by Lynda Barry |
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Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl |
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi |
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Around India in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh |
We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year by Charles Wheelan |
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The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino |
The Story of Captain Nemo by Dave Eggers |
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All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells |
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Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis |
Animal Languages by Eva Meijer |
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Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs by Minetaro Mochizuki |
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Blacktop Wasteland by S. A. Cosby |
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh |