# Should you read the book before watching the film? Canonical: https://zestasy.com/wiki/book-before-film/ Section: Zestasy Wiki > Books & ideas · Updated: 2026-10-14 · Publisher: Zestasy *Zestasy Wiki: our reference answers. Checked for facts and sources; less curated than the magazine.* Usually, yes: a book lets you imagine the characters yourself and gives you the inner life a film has to leave out, and you only get one first reading. But watching the film first can help with long, dense or unfamiliar classics, and some adaptations are so different they are best treated as a separate work. Decide by the book, not by a rule. The argument about books and their films is as old as cinema, and it usually ends with someone saying "the book was better" in a slightly superior voice. Sometimes they are right. But the order you take them in is a more interesting question than which one wins. ## The case for reading first **You get to imagine it yourself.** Once you have seen a face on screen, it is very hard to unsee it. Read first and the characters, rooms and landscapes are yours. **You get the inner life.** Novels can live inside a character's head for pages; films have to show rather than tell. Books built on memory, thought or slow change lose the most on screen. Giorgio Bassani's [The Garden of the Finzi-Continis](https://zestasy.com/wiki/garden-of-the-finzi-continis/), published in 1962, is a novel told as one man's memory of his youth in Ferrara. Vittorio De Sica's 1970 film won major awards, but [according to the Italian Wikipedia entry](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_giardino_dei_Finzi-Contini), Bassani, who worked on the screenplay, later withdrew his name over changes he had not approved. Read the book first and you can judge the changes for yourself. **You only get one first time.** Suspense, surprise and discovery belong to whichever version you meet first. If the book is the one that matters to you, give it that. ## The case for the film first Watching first is not cheating. It can genuinely help when: - **The book is long, old or dense.** A film can give you the shape of the story, the period and the main characters, so you can relax into the prose. It is a perfectly respectable way into a nineteenth-century classic. - **The world is unfamiliar.** Costumes, landscapes and customs you cannot picture are easier to imagine once you have seen them. - **You are reading in a language you are learning.** Knowing the plot frees you to focus on the words. Our page on [books to help you learn Italian](https://zestasy.com/wiki/books-to-learn-italian/) suggests films as a support. - **The film is much better known.** Sometimes you have half-absorbed it anyway. Watch it properly, then let the book surprise you with everything the film left out. ## When the film is its own thing Some adaptations are less translations than conversations with the book. A director changes the ending, compresses years into a scene, or leaves whole threads out. Valerio Zurlini's 1976 film of Buzzati's [The Tartar Steppe](https://zestasy.com/wiki/the-tartar-steppe/), for example, [leaves out much of the material](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tartar_Steppe) about the hero's friends back home, keeping the focus on the fort. It is a fine film, but it is a different experience from the novel's slow drift of years. When the writer is involved, the gap can be smaller. Gabriele Salvatores's 2003 film of Niccolò Ammaniti's [I'm Not Scared](https://zestasy.com/wiki/im-not-scared/) has a [screenplay by Ammaniti himself](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Not_Scared_%28novel%29), and the two make an unusually happy pair. The best approach with any adaptation is to stop asking whether it is faithful and ask whether it is good. Then compare. The differences tell you what each medium does best. ## A simple rule of thumb - **Read first** when the book is short to medium, the story turns on surprise, or its power lies in a character's mind. - **Watch first** when the book is long, old, set somewhere unfamiliar, or in a language you are still learning. - **Do both close together** if you are in a book club: it makes for one of the liveliest meetings of the year. ## FAQ ### Is the book always better? No. Some films improve on their source, tightening a baggy plot or finding images that the prose only gestured at. It is just rarer than the other way round. ### What about television series? Long series can follow a novel much more closely than a film, because they have the time. They can also be the easiest way into a very long book. ### Should children read the book first? It is a nice habit, but not a rule. A film can make a child curious about a book they would never have picked up. ### What if you hated the film? Read the book anyway. The film may have been the problem. ## Sources - [Wikipedia (Italian): Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_giardino_dei_Finzi-Contini) - [Wikipedia: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_the_Finzi-Continis) - [Wikipedia: The Tartar Steppe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tartar_Steppe) - [Wikipedia: I'm Not Scared (novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_Not_Scared_%28novel%29) ## Related - [What makes a good book club pick?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/good-book-club-picks/) - [What is The Garden of the Finzi-Continis about?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/garden-of-the-finzi-continis/) - [What is Niccolò Ammaniti's I'm Not Scared about?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/im-not-scared/) - [What is Dino Buzzati's The Tartar Steppe about?](https://zestasy.com/wiki/the-tartar-steppe/) - [Is The Leopard by Lampedusa worth reading?](https://zestasy.com/books/is-the-leopard-worth-reading/) - [All Books & ideas answers in the Wiki](https://zestasy.com/wiki/#books)