Ep. 190: Behind the Scenes of a Book-to-Screen Adaptation with Georgia Hunter (Author of One Good Thing) + Book Recommendations
Sarah's Bookshelves Live
Sarah Dickinson
4.9 • 732 Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2025
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Episode 190, author Georgia Hunter returns to the podcast to chat with Sarah about her sophomore novel, One Good Thing, and go behind-the-scenes of her experience adapting her first novel, We Were the Lucky Ones, for Hulu. Georgia talks about her role as executive producer, the difference in writing a novel that wasn’t based on family history, and how the screenwriting process influenced her own writing. Plus, Georgia shares her book recommendations.
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Highlights
- Books by Georgia Hunter: We Were the Lucky Ones (2017) and One Good Thing (2025)
- A spoiler-free overview of One Good Thing.
- Georgia’s inspiration for the characters, their story, and choosing Italy as the setting.
- The very different process for writing and editing her second book.
- How the steps for adapting We Were the Lucky Ones began and how long it took.
- Georgia’s role in the writer’s room for the screen adaptation and as a resource for the actors and writers.
- How the six writers handled their episodes and wove together the different perspectives for a cohesive series.
- If Georgia would ever consider writing for a tv series.
- How screenwriting impacted Georgia writing her second novel.
- What her day on set looked like as executive producer.
- How Georgia handled filming on location and the timeframe from start to finish.
- Talk about an adaptation for One Good Thing — and is it better suited for a feature-length film or another tv miniseries?
Georgia’s Book Recommendations [51:05]
Two OLD Books She Loves
- Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (2022) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [51:39]
- Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2022) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [53:38]
- Other Books Mentioned
- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (1998) [54:00]
- David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850) [54:17]
Two NEW Books She Loves
- All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker (2024) | Amazon | Bookshop.org[56:29]
- The Busy Body by Kemper Donovan (2024) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [58:49]
- Other Books Mentioned
- We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker (2021) [56:41]
One NEW RELEASE She’s Excited About
- The Names by Florence Knapp (May 6, 2025) | Amazon
| Bookshop.org [1:00:55]
Last 5-Star Book Georgia Read
- Horse by Geraldine Brooks (2022) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [1:03:52]
About Georgia Hunter
Website | Instagram | Facebook
When Georgia Hunter was fifteen years old, she discovered that she came from a family of Holocaust survivors. Years later, she embarked on a journey of intensive research, determined to unearth and record her family’s remarkable story. The result is the New York Times best seller, We Were the Lucky Ones, which has been published in over 20 languages and adapted for television by Hulu as a highly acclaimed limited series. One Good Thing is Georgia’s second novel. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and their two sons.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I'm your host, Sarah Dickinson. Join me every other week as we get real and sometimes a bit snarky about books and reading. Let's get rolling. |
| 0:22.6 | Those of you who have been listening to the podcast from the very beginning, and I literally |
| 0:27.6 | mean from episode number one, y'all might remember that Georgia Hunter, author of the hit debut |
| 0:33.4 | novel, We Were the Lucky Ones, was my first ever podcast guest. Eight years after that novel came out, Georgia is back with her sophomore novel, One Good Thing. Georgia writes War II fiction specializing in stories about how Jewish people survived the Holocaust. You all know War II fiction is not my go-to genre, but Georgia has twice now written books that have defied that trend for me. Like |
| 0:56.3 | We Were the Lucky Ones, One Good Thing is an ultimately uplifting and inspirational story |
| 1:00.9 | spotletting the resourcefulness and resiliency of Jews during the Holocaust as well as female |
| 1:05.7 | friendship. It's propulsive and reads like a very serious, very high-stakes road trip book featuring characters I was rooting hard for. |
| 1:14.6 | So I'm thrilled that Georgia is back on the podcast for the second time. |
| 1:19.2 | When Georgia was 15 years old, she discovered that she came from a family of Holocaust survivors. |
| 1:24.1 | Years later, she embarked on a journey of intensive research determined to |
| 1:27.6 | unearth and record her family's remarkable story. The result is the New York Times bestseller, |
| 1:32.8 | We Were the Lucky Ones, which has been published in over 20 languages and adapted for television |
| 1:36.9 | by Hulu as a highly acclaimed limited series, which Georgia co-executive produced. One good thing is |
| 1:43.7 | Georgia's second novel, |
| 1:44.8 | and she lives in Connecticut with her husband and two sons, |
| 1:48.0 | and Georgia and I are friends from college, |
| 1:50.7 | which if you've been listening to the show for a long time, |
| 1:53.8 | y'all know that. |
| 1:56.0 | Georgia, welcome back to Sarah's bookshelves live. |
| 1:58.9 | Thank you, Sarah. |
| 1:59.9 | I'm so pumped to be back. |
| 2:02.1 | This is coming full circle. I can't believe it. I know. I was thinking about going back and |
... |
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