India, July 17 -- Fitzgerald and Buddhist self-help in The White Lotus. Nothing on the show is accidental. Not the pineapples, not the monkeys. Definitely, not the books. In S3, the Ratcliffe patriarch contemplates suicide, while his wife Victoria reads The Beautiful and the Damned by F Scott Fitzgerald (a nod to their crumbling excess). Their eldest, Saxon, starts off a spoiled jerk but turns to Buddhist nun Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart as he matures.

Sally Rooney in Succession. In S2, eagle-eyed fans noticed Shiv reading Conversations With Friends. The parallels with Frances are hard to miss - both struggle with daddy issues, self-loathing, and emotional repression. Shiv and Tom's dysfunctional marriage echoes the book's theme...