Will you help me with a reading list for 2010?

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is a must if you haven’t read at least the first 4 already.

/edit: Assuming you enjoy reading it’s style.

“Monkey” by Wu Cheng’en

Hilarious novel written in the 13th(?) century

The Tale of Desperaux. Don’t even think about the horrible children’s movie that was made out of it…it’s actually a fantastic read. Yes, it is a technically a book for children. However, it’s really a rather dark tale with a lot of dry humor and other such things that children can’t even appreciate. I loved it and would suggest it as an unexpectedly great story.

SH-BOOM!
The Explosion of Rock ‘n’ Roll (1953 – 1968)
by Clay Cole

“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen

The Hunger Games
The Knife of Never Letting Go

are both great books written for young adults, but read by all ages

Harry Potter!!!!!

@Pseudonym High-five for Harry Potter!

It would help me if you were a little more specific about which genres interest you.

I’m pretty eclectic. :)

For humorous sci fi, read the whole Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett. Hysterical.

For more serious stuff, try Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.

The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini is a great book.

The Last Lecture, Outliers, The Book Thief

Shantaram

“The Long Walk” by Richard Bachman/Stephen King

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

Go Ask Alice
Fast Food Nation
A Child Called It
The Painted Bird
A Clockwork Orange
Seed

I don’t know your tastes, but an eclectic collection anyway, adapted and attenuated from my 2009 reading list:

John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and Cannery Row

William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and “The Bear” (especially the longer version)

Breece Pancake’s The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake (especially if you like Southern or “Appalachian” fiction; his name alone makes him worth your time)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Leaf Storm & Other Stories and One Hundred Years of Solitude

Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49

Don DeLillo’s White Noise

David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Oblivion (the latter is a collection of short stories)

Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 (a translation)

Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (an adaptation of Jane Eyre, if that interests you; unlike the others this was assigned reading but I enjoyed it)

Tao Lin’s Shoplifting from American Apparel (not my favorite, but a lot of people seem to think he’s a big deal, and maybe you’d like him; it’s “indie” lit, whatever that is)

William T. Vollmann’s Europe Central (I’m engaged with this now and probably won’t finish before 2010, but it’s good)

Something in there should entertain you at least. They’ll all educate you though.

I like James Ellroy. He’s the guy who wrote LA Confidential. His book My Dark Places is haunting and explains a lot about how and why he writes what he writes about the way he does.

Brian Lumley and the Necroscope series of Novels.
If you like Vampires and Deep Dark storylines:

Necroscope is the title of a series of horror novels by British author Brian Lumley.

The term necroscope, as defined in the series, describes someone who can communicate with the dead (coined Deadspeak later in the series). Unlike necromancers, who attempt to command the dead through rituals, spells, bodily mutilation and sometimes necrophilia, a necroscope simply communicates with them without any physical interference.

The term “necroscope” originally (in Greek) meant someone that can “see” (scope) into the dead (necro). It was used as a formal legal and scientific term for “Coroner” up to the middle of the 20th century. After the 1950s it ceased to be used, but can still be found in early 20th century books and encyclopedias (see Helios’ Encyclopedia, 1954 Athens). Necroscope, as a term for Coroner, came to be considered distasteful as it was associated with the coroner’s “tools” of the day, knives, saws and drills, and today is not in use. Notably, in the series the “necroscope” communicates with the dead without any tools, or bodily mutilation, an ability normally attributed to a “necromancer” (in Greek), whereas the “necromancers” in the series use tools like those used by the real “necroscopes”, the coroners.

The abilities of a necroscope are defined as a type of ESP.
Wikki Article

I can read and re-read this set of books over and over – and Brian Lumley has a very realistic style of writing and keeping you involved.

The Kite Runner
and
A Thousand Splendid Suns

By Khaled Hosseini
Best books EVER

@Vunessuh “A Child called It” was some epic reading!!!

Nick Harkaway – The Gone Away World

The Truth About Forever, Dreamland, Along for the Ride, This Lalluby, Someone Like You, That Summer, Just Listen, Lock and Key, Keeping the Moon, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List, Gingerbread, Cupcake, Shrimp, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, Story of a Girl, Angela’s Ashes, The Great Gatsby, Seduced by Moonlight, Julius Ceasar, Romeo and Juliet, The Glass Castle, Starcrossed, Summer’s Child, Summer Light, The Secret Hour, Sandcastles, Crazy in Love, Wolf Rider, Nothing but the Truth, Thirteen Reasons Why, To Kill A Mockingbird, Jacob Have I Loved, Crank, Burned, Identical, Glass, Impulse, Tenderness, Of Mice and Men, Fever 1793, When It Happens, Prom Anonymous, Speak, Illustrated Man, Monster, Go Ask Alice, A Certain Slant of Light, The Demon Lover, Twisted, The Outsiders, Bless Me Ultima, Wild Roses, The Nature of Jade, (Honey, Baby, Sweetheart) Looking for Alaska, Bastard Out of Carolina, The Boyfriend List, A Northern Light, Out, The Giver, The Fifth of March

Well these are a lot of the books I’ve read…hope you might like some of them…Sarah Dessen is my favorite author..she wrote the first 9 books on this list…and the next five will make you laugh a lot!

Hope I helped.

@King_of_Sexytown Twas indeed. The Lost Boy (the one after it) was pretty good as well.

A few to add to the list…

Fiction:

The Towers of Trebizond by Rose McCauley
The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald (if you only read one book on the list…)

Any book in the Virago Modern Classics Series (browse Amazon and find what you might like)
Any book from the Persephone Book Imprint (same as above)

Non-fiction:

The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

and for fun…
Women Who Love Books Too Much by Brenda Knight (which is filled with bios and suggestions of great women writers and books women should not miss)

Everyone has given some great suggestions….happy reading!

Since you mentioned having a preference for the eclectic…

1. As She Climbed Across the Table, by Jonathan Letham – A professor’s wife becomes inexplicably drawn to a black hole named Lack.

2. Towing Jehovah, by James Morrow – God has died and his body has fallen into the ocean. A down-on-his-luck sea captain named Anthony is tasked with towing it to the Arctic to prevent it from decomposing.

3. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Seth Grahame-Smith – Yep, it’s pretty much what the title implies: a Jane Austin novel, but with zombies.

If you tell me about some of the books you’ve enjoyed in the past, I could probably come up with some suggestions that might better suit your particular tastes.

East of Eden, Gone With the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, Rebecca

Other than classics:
A few of my favorites are:
Geek Love (K. Dunn), any Margaret Atwood, I read Middlesex a little while ago and enjoyed that.

I can never resist recommending the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. If you get into it, you could be “one of us”. I saw several good ones already. Try American Gods by Neil Gaiman. All of Jane Austen’s books are worth reading. I like fantasy, so I’d say the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, and another by David Drake. Also, the Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer. Some great non fiction is Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran, and of course, an all time favourite of mine, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Good luck.

A Confederacy of Dunces and The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint are two great reads that I could barely put down.

There are so many good answers on this page, you almost can’t go wrong.

@ubersiren lurve for Rebecca

If you’re into books that might actually change the way you think about things, you should read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

If you want a book that will actually shock and surprise you on every page, read anything written by Chuck Palaniuk, especially Haunted… but beware, Haunted is very graphic and disturbing at times… as are many of his books. (He recently came out with one called Pygmy… it was okay, but definitely not as good as his other books… the ending was disappointing, considering that ALL of his other endings have completely shocked me).

Another good book was Oryx & Crake by Margeret Atwood.

If you need a laugh, anything by David Sedaris is hysterical. I just finished “When You Are Engulfed in Flames” and it was super. Don’t let the creepy cover scare you off though – it’s rather misleading.

WOW you guys! Thanks!! You are truely making me fall in love with this site! (It’s my second day here) I’m going to be able to assemble my reading list so easily! XD

I love Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid’s Tale is one of her best. I also loved Alias Grace (again, Atwood) And I am going to read Oryx and Crake next as recommended by Seelix
I loved Fingersmith by Sarah Waters enough to follow up with reading Tipping the Velvet—And please don’t let anyone stereotype or brand these 2 as “lesbian fiction.’’It is simply great writing, with a plot that totally draws you in and great characters.
For nonfiction I am reading Queen of Fashion-what Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution by Carol Weber
It is amazing the detailed info they have about her from writings of the times. Those close enough to her to know what she was really like and what she went through.