We've never spent so much time at home as we have this past year, giving the world of entertainment the rare opportunity to have our undivided attention and showcase the best televisual delights they have to offer — with huge audiences watching from their sofas.
From The Undoing to Normal People — screenwriters certainly stepped up to the plate when it came to adapting bestselling novels to the small screen — but what about what else is coming up in 2021 and 2022?
The Conversations with Friends adaption is well on its way, with production officially in progress for the BBC series, plus Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-Jones recently confirmed that filming had officially wrapped on Where The Crawdads Sing. Elsewhere, four of our favourite bestselling books are to be adapted to the small screen: firstly Dolly's Alderton's huge hit Everything I Know About Love is being adapted by the BBC, as well as Naoise Dolan's Exciting Times (starring Bridgerton's Phoebe Dynevor as protagonist Ava).
Meanwhile, Candice Carty-Williams' 2019 bestseller Queenie is getting the small screen treatment from Channel 4, and we'll be seeing Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali taking the lead in Netflix's adaptation of Rumaan Alam's Leave The World Behind. More details below.
We can also look forward to TV adaptations of two bestsellers, Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half and Curtis Sittenfeld's Rodham. As well as this, Netflix has just announced that it's adapting Elena Ferrante's latest novel, The Lying Life of Adults, as well as the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See into two new series.
Feminists Don't Wear Pink, a collection of essays curated by Scarlett Curtis, is also being adapted into an anthology series starring Jameela Jamil, Beanie Feldstein, Pose star MJ Rodriguez, Shrill's Lolly Adefope and Kat Dennings. Saoirse Ronan will serve as an executive producer of the pilot episode.
Period drama fans will be delighted to hear that Henry Fielding's classic novel, Tom Jones – which has both delighted and scandalised readers since its release in 1749 – is being adapted into a lavish ITV period drama starring Solly McLeod, Sophie Wilde and Ted Lasso star and Emmy winner Hannah Waddingham.
Netflix is adapting David Nicholls' much-loved novel One Day – previously made into a film starring Anne Hathaway – into a TV series that will begin shooting in the UK in 2022. More below.
We've collated all the most exciting bestselling books being adapted for television in 2021 and included links to the original books, in case you wanted to read up before the screen versions come out. With all this good TV coming up, we may never leave our sofas again...