Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott. 2002. Fiction. Anne Lamott is one of my favorite non-fiction writers (Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions, Traveling Mercies). For her fiction, I would recommend Crooked Little Heart before Blue Shoe (which was a good, but not great, read).
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde. Fiction. 2003. A sequel to The Eyre Affair. These books are fun "literary science-fiction," and they make more sense if you have read some classic literature such as Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, short stories by Poe, et cetera.
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Fiction. 2002. Set in 1964 in the South, Bees deals with a teenage girl's search for her mother and a place where she fits in. Very readable.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. Non-Fiction. 2003. A treatise on why punctuation matters and a call to arms for grammar-sticklers to unite.
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. Non-Fiction. 2001. The author wanted to see if it was possible to get by on minimum wage in America. She tried her hand at low-wage jobs in three parts of the country. A sobering read. If you are thinking college is a waste of time, read this book!
My Turquoise Years by M.A.C. Farrant. Non-Fiction. 2004. This memoir of a teenager growing up in the early 1960's who is being raised by her aunt and uncle while her estranged mother travels on cruise ships and lives in far away Australia is quite funny and gives you a good idea of the time-period.
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Fiction. 1990. Probably the best thing I've read this summer. Based loosely on the author's experiences in the Vietnam War, this book straddles the line(s) between memoir, fiction, short story collection and novel as it examines war, memory, truth and reality. Haunting, gripping, and intense.
High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never by Barbara Kingsolver. Non-ficiton. 1995. Essays on a multitude of topics, each one thought-provoking and interesting.
I am trying to get through some back issues of the New Yorker, which has a way of piling up.
As for books, my waiting-to-be-read pile includes:
Obason
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
epitaph for a peach
Branded