10 Booker-nominated books for fans of Wes Anderson

If you were to write a checklist of what makes Wes Anderson’s film style so distinctive, it would have to include books. They’re a big deal in almost all his movies and many of his characters are writers or storytellers of some sort.

Books are often in the background in Anderson’s films and regularly feature in the foreground, too. They’re usually made-up ones, celebrated as beautiful objects as well as a source of stories. One of Anderson’s go-to graphic designers, Anne Atkins, has said that her ‘most prized prop’ is the The Grand Budapest Hotel book, which opens and closes the film. Its sugary pink jacket and red lettering is a perfect example of Anderson’s beloved style.

The Grand Budapest Hotel isn’t the only Anderson film to take its shape from a fictional book or the life of an obscure writer. The Royal Tenenbaums opens with an eponymous library book and the film is presented in chapters, while books are some of Suzy Bishop’s most prized possessions in Moonrise Kingdom. In Rushmore, Rosemary Cross is seen reading Diving for Sunken Treasure by Jacques Cousteau, the book The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou goes on to explore, while The French Dispatch has been called a love letter to long-form journalism.

Besides books, also on the Anderson checklist would be specific kinds of characters – eccentric oddballs, often exceptional in some way, and specific kinds of stories – tragicomic adventures set in whimsical locations and confined doll-house-like spaces, such as hotels and schools.

If you’re a fan of Wes Anderson’s films – and as The Phoenician Scheme opens in UK cinemas – we think you’ll love these Booker-nominated novels. Among their pages, you’ll find precocious children and dysfunctional families, murder mysteries and crime capers, teenage angst and sibling rivalries, love stories, and, of course, plenty of aesthetically pleasing objects.

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes 

Shortlisted for this year’s International Booker Prize, Perfection is a book its author says is ‘built almost entirely on descriptions’, something fans of Wes Anderson’s intricate props and careful aesthetic will surely enjoy. Millennial expat couple Anna and Tom’s life as young digital creatives revolves around slow cooking, Danish furniture, sexual experimentation and Berlin’s 24-hour party scene – an ideal existence tantalizingly lived out on social media. But, feeling increasingly trapped in their picture-perfect life, the couple takes ever more radical steps in the pursuit of an authenticity and a sense of purpose that seems perennially beyond their grasp. 

The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch   

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1969, The Nice and the Good is part thriller, part romantic comedy – classic Anderson territory. On a hot summer day, a shot rings out through a Whitehall office. A government official has apparently shot himself, but the circumstances are questionable – prompting Octavian Gray, head of the department, to investigate. Lawyer John Ducane is charged with leading the task, while at the same time attempting repeatedly – and unsuccessfully – to break up with his mistress. When Ducane travels to Gray’s Dorset home, everything becomes even more complicated. Wes Anderson devotees will enjoy a murder mystery, a big country house full of eccentrics with complicated relationships, and a bubbling teen romance. There’s even a sighting of a flying saucer for fans of Asteroid City. This was the first of Iris Murdoch’s six nominations for the Booker Prize, which she won in 1978 with The Sea, the Sea. 

Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson  

In Charlotte Mendelson’s comic tale, a teenage girl swaps a flat full of eccentric relatives for the dubious delights of an English boarding school. Sixteen-year-old Marina lives with her emotionally delicate mother, Laura, and three ancient Hungarian aunts in west London. Imprisoned by her family’s crushing expectations and their fierce un-English pride, by their strange traditions and stranger foods, she knows she must escape. But the place she runs to makes her feel like even more of an outsider. Almost English was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2013. 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon  

Fans of Moonrise Kingdom will enjoy Mark Haddon’s acclaimed murder mystery novel, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2003 and captures a neurodivergent world view. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time follows the adventures of an unusual and brilliant youngster called Christopher. There are no lies in this story because Christopher can’t tell lies. Christopher does not like strangers or the colours yellow or brown or being touched. On the other hand, he knows all the countries in the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,507. When Christopher decides to find out who killed the neighbour’s dog, his mystery story becomes more complicated than he could ever have imagined. 

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor 

Fans of The Grand Budapest Hotel will love Elizabeth Taylor’s joyful and ruthless study of eccentricity in old age. On a rainy Sunday in January, the recently widowed Mrs Palfrey arrives at the Claremont Hotel, to spend her remaining days. Her fellow residents are a set of magnificent and curious oddballs, living off crumbs of affection and snippets of gossip. Together, upper lips stiffened, they fight off their twin enemies: boredom and death. Then, one day, Mrs Palfrey strikes up an unlikely friendship with an impoverished young writer, Ludo, who sees her as inspiration for his novel. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1971, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont is as wickedly funny as it is heartbreakingly sad.