Observer Books: Author Amy Chozick’s Favorite Character-Driven Reads

My day job involves writing for television, and yet, I find myself spending a lot more time reading books than I do watching TV. A couple of years ago, during the WGA writers’ strike, I became an even more voracious reader. I couldn’t work on my craft, but I could study how other authors mastered theirs. I’d spent my career as a journalist at the New York Times writing other people’s stories, so it felt like a real gift to finally sit down and make up my own. To get in the mood, I read a mix of high and low, fiction and non. I love an audiobook on hikes or in the car, but at night, I want to hold a physical book, preferably from the public library or this fabulous used bookstore in L.A., The Last Bookstore.

In a screenplay, you are always thinking about whether something is producible (i.e., can we really afford this car chase?), but when I set out to write my debut novel, With Friends Like You, I could let my mind, and, by extension, my characters (a.k.a., my imaginary friends), go wild. Here are 10 books that I loved reading—or revisiting—as I set out to write With Friends Like You. I hope they make you laugh and unsettle you, maybe all at the same time. You can throw them in your beach bag or load them onto your Kindle for a flight, or pump them into your veins via AirPods and Audible. Whatever your preferred poison, I hope you love these reads as much as I do.