White Oleander by Janet Fitch, Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Beach Music by Pat Conroy, The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, Prayers for Rain by Dennis LeHane, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen, The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen, Remains of the Dead by Wendy Roberts, The Likeness by Tana French.
For seeing how a master author twists a plot and keeps hoods running throughout a book, yet keeps all the threads tied to psychological character motivations, Prayers for Rain by Dennis LeHane is a great read. If you want to read an example of brilliant, specific, page-turning prose and character motivation and arc driving a story, White Oleander by Janet Fitch is the book for you.
Good Will Hunting, Tootsie, Silence of the Lambs, Lethal Weapon, Batman Begins, The Dead Poet's Society, As Good as it Gets, The Shawshank Redemption, Invictus.
All of these movies are excellent and will keep you glued to your seat, but Good Will Hunting and As Good as it Gets provide clear examples of a wonderful character arc. For an excellent example of using backstory to move the current story forward, watch Batman Begins. To see more than one protagonist illustrating opposing sides of a theme, watch Lethal Weapon or The Dead Poet's Society. And to see the most brilliant antagonist in action, watch Silence of the Lambs (if you can handle a difficult, intense movie). For a movie with a first person narrator who isn't the protagonist, watch The Shawshank Redemption. To see how the power of redemption in story can be used on a personal level and expanded to be public (to a team and a nation), watch Invictus. Besides, Morgan Freeman makes any movie good!
The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell, Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham, The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler, Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maas, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, On Writing by Stephen King, The Grammar Desk Reference (Writer's Digest) by Gary Lutz and Diane Stevenson.
