The Unreality Reading List (Based on Movies You Love)

If you liked Indiana Jones and Lost, try reading The Lost City of Z.

The first three Indiana Jones movies are classics because they tell us something we believe to be imagined (The Holy Grail, The Ark of the Covenant)  is actually real. Then Indy gets his bullwhip on and goes traversing across the globe in search of these mythical items, finding opposition around every corner. David Grann experienced a similar situation when he decided to follow-up on an explorer who disappeared into the Amazon in 1925.

The Lost City of Z is entirely true, which makes all the more insane. Percy Fawcett, a British explorer, claimed to have findEl Dorado, the legendary Aztect city made of gold. When he took his soon on an expedition to find El Dorado, he disappeared and was never heard from again. Grann tells both the history of El Dorado and his personal adventures in the Amazon attempting to track down Fawcett’s remains and to finally expose what really happened to him. Along the way he meets unfriendly local tribes, the usual assortment of deadly insects and critters and ends up finding…well, something.

Like Lost, Grann writes his book as a mystery, one that changes shape and scope as he progresses in his efforts. You know how when you finished an episode of Lost, your hand almost instinctively went to start the next one? Trying to find a chapter to stop for the night in Lost City of Z presents similar problems. This book is addicting, riveting and super informative. As soon as it was published, Brad Pitt bought the rights to the movie version. Of all the books listed in this article, Lost City of Z is the most universally guaranteed to appeal to everyone, even those who hate reading. Read the first chapter and tell me I’m wrong.

If you liked Children of Men and V for Vendetta, try reading Y: The Last Man.

Y: The Last Man is a series of ten graphic novels. The first one introduces us to Yorick Brown. Yorick, along with his monkey Ampersand are the only living mammals with a Y chromosome. A plague instantaneously wipes out every male on the planet, but for some reason Yorick and Ampersand survive. As both humanity’s last hope and an instant target for those that would see the male race truly exterminated, Yorick begins an arduous quest to reunite with his girlfriend Beth, was working inAustralia when the plague occurred.

Children of Men is a great companion film to the events of Y, as both feature a future in which reproduction is impossible. While Y watches as the world quickly devolves into mayhem, Children of Men starts off in a world already afflicted with a lack of offspring. The tones of the two works are rather different, but if the concept of Children of Men appeals to you, the “what would happen if” nature both confront, you’ll definitely enjoy the extended meditation on the role of gender, what a world without men might be etc in Y: The Last Man.

The connection with V for Vendetta is the graphic novel element. V is a film that tries very hard to look like a moving graphic novel, and also a movie that focuses on a dystopian future. If you like the way V is laid out, you’re probably a graphic novel person. This medium takes a lot flack, but has produced some truly great works in recent years. Ever since Art Spiegelman’s Maus won a Pulitzer Prize, book critics and reads alike have had to reevaluate their relationship to what are unfairly considered as serious comic books. Y: The Last Man is a great place to start if you’re interested in discovering what graphic novels have to offer. Just be sure you get at least two or three volumes before you start – there’s no way you’re reading just one.

If you liked Man on Wire and Annie Hall, try reading Let the Great World Spin.

As you hopefully recall, Man on Wire is the Oscar-winning documentary about Philippe Petit, the crazy dude who broke into World Trade Center towers and tightroped walked between them. It is an amazing film, one of those movies where you have to fight really hard to cry. Well Let the Great World Spin is a novel that takes the moment when Petit walked the two towers and shows what was happening in the life of a handful of New Yorkers at that time. These characters vary from an Irish transplant, a hooker, a wealthy couple grieving for their son to Petit himself as he prepares to make history.

Let the Great World Spin is impeccably written. Author Colum McCann is frustratingly talented at describing people, places and moments. This novel is sad, rich with detail and stunningly beautiful. It comes as no surprise that McCann won almost every significant literary award possible when Spin was published in 2009. I can’t tell you this book reads fast – its somber nature and delicate descriptions make for a longer reading experience. But oh it is worth it.

I mention Annie Hall because Woody Allen has become a major point of reference for depicting the lives of New Yorkers throughout the last several decades. Annie Hall is set in 1979, and while it is far funnier than Spin, they both saturate themselves in the New York of the 1970’s, and the people who populated it. On a more general level, if you like Woody Allen’s films, features with lots of talking, minimal plot and true character studies, you’ll be well-suited to reading Let the Great World Spin.