Books to Read Before the Movie Comes Out

Based on Jill Ciment’s 2009 novel and retitled 5 Flights Up for the screen stars Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton as a couple in their twilight years contemplating a move from their longtime (and rapidly gentrifying) Brooklyn neighborhood. It’s rare to see older (not to mention interracial) couples in movies at all, let alone treated respectfully and tenderly. But Ciment’s original, in which the two are East Villagers remembering the political ferment of the 1970s, wasn’t just a love story or a nostalgic tale about neighborhoods; it was a laugh-out-loud comic novel about the absurdities of New York real estate in which the couple’s dachshund gets her own chance to narrate.