As with the 2020 movie Shirley about Shirley Jackson, movies that fictionalize and speculate on real people’s private lives can be controversial. Although Ammonite is not based on a book, there are many books that would pair well with it. Are you curious about trailers for movies like Ammonite? If romance—especially period and LGBT romance movies like Portrait of a Lady on Fire—or female scientist and trailblazer characters appeal to you, you may enjoy these six books. In 2019, I wrote about Remarkable Creatures and The Essex Serpent. In both of these novels, the discovery of prehistoric fossils shakes some people’s religious beliefs. Some characters also consider women searching for fossils doubly inappropriate. In 2012, Guardian writer John Mullan reminded us that in keeping with the fads of their class and era, LaMotte and Ash go on a fossil hunting expedition together. Ash writes in a letter to his wife that “ancient ammonite worms find new lives as polished brooches.”
Further Reading
100 Must-Read Historical Romances
