Read These Fall Books Before The Movies Come Out

Though Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike have all the charm—and skill—needed to portray the martial machinations of the world's most upsetting couple ever, it's the inventive plot twist of the original novel, which relies on the written words of a certain diary, that leaves you gasping. (Flynn wrote the screenplay for the film, so maybe we should expect a whole new corkscrew of suspense when we make our way to the theater this October.)

The story of this warm, comic novel—a family and all its dysfunction gathers to sit shiva for seven days—makes for a warm, comic movie. Add to that: Tina Fey stars!! But it's the one-liners that make the book so funny and wonderfully, achingly painful, such as when Tropper writes, "You have to look at what you have right in front of you, at what it could be, and stop measuring it against what you've lost. I know this to be wise and true, just as I know that pretty much no one can do it."

Before you, your mom, your dog groomer and the so-called friend who keeps inviting you to bead parties all go see the latest and last Hunger Games movie this November, take a few nights to dive into Mockingjay. We all love Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, and yet reading the character's voice in the first person is so much more intimate—allowing you to think as she thinks and feel as she feels, as she fights to keep alive....and save the world, while she's at it.

Seeing the first pick for the Oprah Book Club 2.0 come to life at the theater is enough to make our entire holiday this December. And it's all the more thrilling when the lead actress seems to fit the author so exactly, from her intelligence to her courage to her appearance. As Cheryl Strayed wrote on her Facebook page,"It's an extraordinary experience to see Reese Witherspoon dressed in the clothes I wore on the trail, her hair the same style and color as mine then, with my beloved/loathed Monster on her back packed just the way I packed it! I'm humbled and awed and so excited for you to see the movie!" So why go back and re-read? It's the graceful toggling between past and present in the memoir that makes the story pack such an emotional wallop. Strayed can move you from her childhood in the woods to her Brooklyn apartment to the isolated wilderness of the Pacific Crest trail in a few paragraphs—a feat that bends time as much as it suspends it.

Like Divergent and The Hunger Games trilogy, The Maze Runner is a YA dystopian novel about life in a world that's part 1984 and part Lord of the Flies. Thomas, a teenager, wakes up to find himself in a manmade labyrinth society where boys survive on what they can grow, find or steal. The September movie is sure to be a non-stop adrenaline rush, but read the book for that rare and oh-so-satisfying pleasure of being able to tear though 375 pages in one night. Think of it as popcorn for your imagination.