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We tried to hire Nicole Kidman to record an intro video for this post — something along the lines of: “We come to this bookstore for magic. We come to Powell’s Books to laugh, to cry, to care." You get it. Unfortunately, and completely surprisingly, she was all booked up.

Just like Harry Styles, we love when a movie feels like a movie (and even more when a movie feels like a book). If you’re like us (and like Harry Styles!), then we’ve got the list for you: a book to pair with your favorite movie from this last year. Go ahead, pop a bag of popcorn, put your favorite soundtrack on, and settle in.

Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.

By far one of my favorite movie-viewing experiences this year. Any new movie from Jordan Peele is an event, and I went into this one as blind as I possibly could. There was so much to pull from when choosing which book paired best with it — the familial relationships, the pursuit and dangers of fame, and... well, that creature and the characters' attempts to understand its patterns. So, for Nope, I’m recommending the incredible novel, The Seep, but Chana Porter, about an alien lifeform that seeps its way into our world. The seep connects everything and everyone to each other, and in its wake, the world becomes a sort of utopia. But, of course, utopias can’t be completely utopian. This book is a strange, compelling look at what it means to love and to lose, what it means to be human in the strangest of circumstances, and what it means to adjust to what you once thought was impossible.

For more Chana Porter, check out the original essay she wrote for the Powell's Blog: In Praise of Attentiveness, Not Apocalypse: Imagining Freely With Chana Porter

This movie, reuniting Timothée Chalamet and Luca Guadagnino, was bound to be achingly lovely and beautiful — which Bones and All absolutely is, but also with a side of blood and gnashing teeth and hungry angst. I knew immediately which book I’d be pairing with this movie: Tender is the Flesh, set in a world where eating human meat has become commonplace. Tender is the Flesh manages to be both disgusting and beautiful, sad and provocative. I also love that the titles for these two can form its own cute sentence when combined: Tender is the Flesh and the Bones and All!

While we wait for Lydia Tár’s forthcoming biography, Vladimir by Julia May Jonas seems like a good book to keep us occupied. Both film and book are interested in dissecting the uncomfortable politics around power and coercion, both exist in the worlds of academia and/or art, both mess with the bounds of genre, and both went places I did not see coming. Oftentimes, reading Vladimir and watching TÁR made me want to look away, but both stories were told so precisely — and with unexpected humor — that I found myself riveted (and unnerved!) instead.

When I found out that Park Chan-wook would be releasing a romantic neo-noir, I knew I’d be all the way in, and I was right: cop becomes transfixed with the main suspect in the murder case, murder case becomes derailed, cop’s marriage also becomes derailed, etc. It’s an incredible and incredibly beautiful movie. Which makes it a perfect fit for the debut novel from Tegan Nia Swanson, Things We Found When the Water Went Down, a dark and moody noir, told in the form of a dossier about a woman’s disappearance. Sixteen years later, the woman’s daughter is trying to figure out what happened to her, a search that takes her down some bendy, unsuspected paths. Atmospheric and emotional, this is the perfect chaser for Park Chan-wook's newest masterpiece.

I know this book recommendation is a little bit of a gimme, since Sjón co-wrote The Northman with director Robert Eggers, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to recommend a Sjón book! Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was is a perfect pairing, in my opinion (especially if you focus on the part of The Northman that’s about a lost boy searching for his purpose). I think it’s best to go in as blind as possible to this book, so the only extra bit of context I’ll give is that this is a historical fiction that’s set during the 1918 influenza pandemic and the main character is a queer, cinema-obsessed teen. Perfect to pair with The Northman, and thematically perfect for this list.

Oh, this movie. What is there to say about this movie! A high-key disaster with a drama-forward release. While it’s certainly not one of the best movies of the year, the drama surrounding it (and whether or not Harry Styles spit in Chris Pine’s lap) (he didn’t) made it one of the most memorable, so I felt like I had to include it here. But when choosing a book to pair it with, I stumbled upon the question of how much do I allow myself to spoil? And settled on: as little as possible. So for Don’t Worry Darling, I’ve chosen Peaces by the inimitable Helen Oyeyemi, the story of a very-in-love couple whose love is challenged in magical, exceptional circumstances. Oyeyemi, as ever, is a true master.

Everything Everywhere All At Once was one of the most surprising, fulfilling, and thrilling movies from this last year, so choosing a book to pair it with was especially difficult (not least because there were so many potential directions/universes I could focus in on). But then I remembered Cursed Bunny and I realized that the choice was obvious. This is a story collection filled with stories that play with genre (including but not limited to body horror, sci-fi, and fable). The stories look at power structures, trauma, and the general horror of existing in this world (to name only a few of its many topics). It is a surprising, fulfilling, and thrilling collection that matches near-perfectly with EEAAO.

But if you are more interested in one of the other, many universes in EEAAO, we have even more recommendations for you! If you want to read something to match the universe where Michelle Yeoh is an actress, then I recommend The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North. For the Racacoonie universe, there’s Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata; and for the universe with the hot-dog fingers, you can preorder Raw Dog by Jamie Loftus.

I went in blind to see Barbarian (opening weekend, because I was terrified of spoilers) and oh boy am I glad I did because Barbarian is a ride. And so is Sarah Gailey’s newest horror Just Like Home, an aptly titled and entirely eerie book about a woman who’s called home by her ailing mother and is forced to confront the bad, haunted bits of her past that have baked themselves into the bones of the house. Just like with Barbarian, I had no clue where this book was going at any given moment and the finale was truly a heart-thumping, wild surprise that made me gleeful with its daring. 10/10, absolutely made cowering under my comforter worth it.

After Yang is such a special movie, one that I thought went underappreciated this year, so consider this blurb a recommendation for movie and book. Kogonada’s movie is an incredible, understated, speculative film about loss, belonging, and language. Scattered All Over the Earth is an incredible, understated, speculative novel about loss, belonging, and language. BRB, I need to go watch and read both of these again ASAP.

Of course, I had to include this movie, about a bookseller, on the list. Joachim Trier is one of my favorite directors whose movies are always literary, both in content and form, and this one, with its various chapters about The Worst Person in the World is no different. I’ve chosen to pair this one with a book about a woman in her mid-30s working as a freelance copyeditor who decides it’s time to shake up her rote, mundane world. This book is a beautiful character study, focused on what it means to live as a woman in the world, on our loves and mistakes and solitudes. The rush of that scene in The Worst Person in the World, where she’s running through the streets while everyone around her is paused mid-motion? That’s how much of All the Lovers in the Night feels.

The Menu definitely isn’t the best movie of the year (at least, in my very subjective opinion!), but I couldn’t help including it when I realized how perfectly it would pair with Chelsea G. Summers’s A Certain Hunger. This book is such a delicious delight: about a food critic, obsessed with both food and sex, who finally decides to embrace the dark parts of herself. Both movie and book have fun satirizing the often-ridiculous world of foodies. Dark and twisty and absolutely delectable.