[imagesource: Gregory David Roberts]

Do you recognise that red and blue book cover?

You might have seen the frayed pages of Gregory David Roberts’ best-selling book Shantaram peeking out of the luggage carried by a backpacker taking on the world any time from the early 2000s.

Unless you were the weary traveller who had started the book, perhaps for your second time but didn’t end up ever finishing.

Well, you can happily give up for good now and donate the book to your local second-hand store because Shantaram is being made into a thriller series, per Collider.

For those of you who are unfamiliar or forgetful of the prose, the story is centred around Lin Ford, an escapee from an Australian prison, who hauls himself halfway across the world in the hopes that he will someday be free.

He becomes a fugitive living in Bombay in the 1980s, trying to figure out his life’s purpose. After falling in love with a mysterious woman and putting his seclusion at risk, Ford eventually discovers that no one can remain hidden forever.

Take it away:

In the new series created by Steve Lightfoot (Hannibal, The Punisher) and Eric Warren Singer (Top Gun: Maverick) – obviously also adapted from Roberts’ original book – Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) plays Ford while his love interest, Karla Saaranen, is played by Antonia Desplat (The French Dispatch).

Apple TV+ will release Shantaram with three episodes on October 14.

The other nine episodes will roll out weekly every Friday through December 16.

I dare you to finish the book before the series comes out. The third time’s the charm.

[source:collider]