100 books like Innocents and Others

I could probably have picked any novel by Patricia Highsmith, but this one checks several boxes for me personally. I love novels that explore the minds of anti-heroes and aren’t afraid of going into their deepest, darkest thoughts. Of course, there are others who do this particularly well. Jim Thompson is outstanding for his portrayal of actual psychopaths who are unlikely protagonists.

Highsmith walks a fine line between creeping me out completely and tapping into my most disturbing fears without losing my compassion altogether. As an author myself, I know how hard that is to achieve, and Highsmith remains a masterclass in writing the psychological thriller. 

In a world of aggregate and pre-release reviews, it’s easy to forget that one of the most important measures of a book's success is how much it stays with you in the years after you read it.

Look At Me has haunted me in the years since I read it. No other book has had a greater impact on the way I think about our perception of ourselves vs. the way the world perceives us, and how that can be manipulated and exploited.

Like many great books, knowing too much about the plot before you pick it up is going to lessen your experience, so I’m just going to say that it’s about people who have constructed new identities and covers themes of deception, and reinvention and let you discover it for yourself (and thank me later).

I’ve always been confused by the longstanding misconception that thrillers can’t be thematically complex and literary novels can’t be briskly plotted page turners. Birnam Wood is one of many excellent examples of a book that accomplishes both.

Catton’s novel covers activism, climate change, class struggle, idealism vs pragmatism, and a range of other related themes all while moving at a cracking pace and unleashing a thrilling, pulse-pounding plot. Some characters are lying by omission, others for the sake of preservation, others for the sake of self-interest. The result is a deliciously deceptive story where you aren’t sure who to trust or who the villains and heroes are until well into the second act.

Birnam Wood will have you alternating between thoughtfully stroking your chin, gasping in shock, and screaming in horror.

We all have secrets. If you read that sentence and thought “not me!” then that’s likely because you’ve repressed something so dark and dangerous that your psyche let you unleash it from the depths of your unconscious into your working memory.

This book looks at the myriad ways that holding onto secrets can affect our relationships and day-to-day lives through an engaging blend of personal, creative, and scientific perspectives.

Peppered with both fun tidbits of information (the average person has thirteen secrets), as well as complex, deeper insights into the science of secrets, I found this fascinating both as a general reader and more specifically as someone who writes characters who are burdened with secrets and have to construct a false reality around them.

Newbie novelist Jacqueline Susann created an iconic all-time bestseller with her tale of three young glamazons who vault to the show business heights, only to tumble into a pit of addictions, poor choices in men, and delightfully overripe dialogue. Susann made her sweeping, sexy soap opera shenanigans even more irresistible by patterning her characters on such 20th-century headline-makers as Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Grace Kelly, Ethel Merman, and the Kennedys. Said publicity-savvy Susann, “They can keep calling it that ‘roman à clef'. It’ll only make my books sell.” They did. It did. Although the sanitized and critically bashed 1967 movie version toned down the à clef elements, it became a box-office smash that has gone on to become enshrined as a kitsch classic.

Gabler offers a detailed and persuasive history of Hollywood’s first producers, all immigrant Jewish Americans seeking to achieve the American dream.

This handful of men started in New York as peddlers or small business owners and then moved west to build their own film empires. No one saw motion pictures as more than a superficial pastime, but it seemed a good business opportunity. Unfortunately, Thomas Edison owned the rights and patents that kept Jewish entrepreneurs from accessing New York, so the immigrants went west.

MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Universal: these were their kingdoms and are still the names we know today as the major Hollywood studios. Meet the remarkable (and sometimes horrible) men who built this world and learn about their lives and ambitions in Gabler’s engaging book.

Granted unlimited access to the film production of Tom Wolfe’s best-selling The Bonfire of the Vanities, Salamon serves up a fascinating portrait of one of Hollywood’s most notorious flops. Miscast (Tom Hanks as an arrogant Wall Street heel?) and tone-deaf, the resulting film ran roughshod over Wolfe’s satire and Salamon was there to record every juicy and head-scratching nugget explaining just how the disaster unfolded. Detailing the head-on collision between ego, money, and power in smooth, vivid prose, Salamon will keep any reader interested in Hollywood turning pages long into the night.

This is one of the first Hollywood novels I ever read and it has stayed with me ever since. This book is great because instead of focusing on superstars, it’s the story of the behind-the-scenes people working in Hollywood, who haven’t hit the big-time yet and are just trying to survive. What makes the book so remarkable is that West could’ve been writing about any industry but uses Hollywood as a metaphor for many of society’s ills that were rampant in the 1930s.

Bukowski didn't thieve, solve crimes, or use high-tech. In fact, he worked hard and was poor and isolated most of his life. But he lived in the fringe of the noir world, and beat on his machines—manual typewriters, then an IBM Selectric, and finally, with some fame and money, a computer. He was South of his No North, real and genuine for so long that when Hollywood knocked, he was ready for them. This book is his first-hand account of the dumb ego and stupid money that goes into making a movie. Hilarious and dark at the same time. A poet's novel.

It’s a little bit of a cliche to list St. Joan as your favorite LA writer, but believe me when I tell you she has more than earned her reputation. While she’s better known for her essays, this novel might be my favorite thing she wrote. I think of this book every time I have to make the terrible multi-lane change entering downtown on the 101 freeway, every time I meet an aspiring actor with something seedy in his past, or drink Coca-Cola from a glass bottle. It’s such a dark, twisted space for exploration, and Didion isn’t afraid to get weird. The best book for SoCal cynics, disillusioned dreamers who haven’t made it big, and anyone else who is falling for this city’s seductive charm.