The popularity of Harlan Coben’s novels among Polish readers against the backdrop of their film adaptations, 2012–2021

Abstract

This article discusses the relationship between books and films. It explores how film adaptations of literary works by the American writer Harlan Coben influence their popularity among readers. The theoretical considerations are supported with the existing data regarding the reception of his works both in the fields of literature and film, obtained from the services Lubimyczytac.pl and Filmweb. Both numerical and written evaluations are taken into account. Attention is also paid to the number of people declaring their intention to read a given book or to see a given film production. The data is analysed in detail, which allows to conclude that although some relationship between the adaptations of Coben’s novels and these novels exists, these adaptations do not have a clear impact on the reception of the literary works on which they are based. However, film adaptations do make Coben’s novels or the author himself more popular.