I’ve seen so many people asking for book recommendations based on their favourite TV shows or films, and it made me realise that, for me, those tastes don’t overlap at all.

Take Gilmore Girls, for example. I adore it, and I constantly see people looking for books with the same cosy, comforting vibe (but honestly, that would bore me to tears in book form). What I love about Gilmore Girls, and about most of the shows I watch, is that they don’t demand my full attention. I can have them playing in the background while I snack, play with the cat, scroll on my phone, or drift in and out of the story without losing much.

Books are the complete opposite for me. I need them to be consuming. I want to feel like my face is being physically pulled into the pages by some invisible force. If a book feels too low-stakes or “easy watching,” I lose interest immediately.

The same applies to Studio Ghibli films. I’m a massive Ghibli nerd, but for me the magic comes from the animation, atmosphere, and music more than the narratives themselves. Those stories work because of how they feel audiovisually.

Ironically, my taste in books makes for terrible TV viewing. I love bleak, grim, hopeless-as-hell narratives when I read, but I struggle to watch stories like that on screen. Reading feels more controllable somehow; I can slow down, skim, pause, imagine things differently, soften or intensify scenes in my head. It feels like I get to co-direct the experience. With TV, I don’t have that distance, and I often end up disengaging or literally just looking away.

So my TBR and my TBW (to-be-watched) are wildly different worlds, and what works for me in one medium almost never works in the other.

Does anyone else feel this way? Or are your book and TV tastes more transferable?