15 New Yorkers' Favorite Books

Philip Seymour Hoffman

"'Journalism always moves along a horizontal plane, telling a story,' Capote said in an interview, 'while fiction—good fiction—moves vertically, taking you deeper and deeper into character and events. By treating a real event with fictional techniques...it's possible to make this kind of synthesis.' I feel like Joan Didion, who started out as a novelist, does that. Jon Krakauer and some of the other writers on my list do it, too." —Philip Seymour Hoffman, actor

Books that made a difference to Philip Seymour Hoffman:

The Sportswriter and Independence Day by Richard Ford

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley