Books to Read Before the Movie Comes Out

This lavish treatment of Gustave Flaubert’s classic, out June 12, stars Mia Wasikowska as Emma, a woman trapped in a loveless marriage and pursuing a string of affairs. Wasikowska, who’s played an innocent girl in Alice in Wonderland and suicidal teen in In Treatment, is a fine fit for Emma’s powerful clash of lust, intelligence and moral questioning. But how can you skip the book that all but invented the modern novel? Flaubert scandalized France when Madame Bovary appeared in 1857; and even if its sexuality seems tame now, the way Flaubert wove himself into the mind of a frustrated, thwarted middle-class woman will always remain revolutionary.