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Here are a few things I have read. Some contain "adult content," you know, the kind of stuff your English teacher wouldn't want to have to discuss in class.
Beloved -- Toni Morison. This book is hard to describe (and not an easy read), but is amazing once you get into it. A woman deals with the ghost of the child she lost years ago.
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier. The book begins with a group of boys vandalizing a home and attempting to rape a young girl. It's main message deals more with the mistakes people make and whether you can forgive and forget the mistakes you've made because, as the title states, we all fall down.
She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb -- Yeah, this was an Oprah book. If you think you have problems, it is time to meet the protagonist of this novel.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover -- A minister moves his wife and four daughters to Africa to work as missionaries. Each chapter is told by a different daughter, making the long book intruiging through out.
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen -- A romantic tale of the Dashwood sisters as they start a new life with their widowed mother and search to find husbands. The turning point of this one made me cry (and I am no sap!)
Shopgirl by Steve Martin -- This short book follows the life of an artistic, depressed shopgirl who falls in love with the wrong man.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. The novel begins with the rape and dismemberment of the narrator, who tells the remainder of the story from heaven as she follows the aftermath her family suffers as a result of her murder.
Wit by Margaret Edson -- a play that follows a professor's terminal ovarian cancer. I read this a year before my mother was diagnosed with the late-stage lung cancer that killed her. It's realism is amazing.
Some Great Books from High School You May Have Missed
Animal Farm by George Orwell -- there is little not to like about talking, drinking, smoking, poker playing pigs. Oh, and it is an interesting way to view the Russian Revolution, too.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain -- this is a classic. Huck is a trouble-maker, back when trouble-makers weren't signed to rap album contracts. Check it out.
I Had Seen Castles by Cynthia Rylant -- a short, but beautifully written novella about a narrator looking back on his youth and what changed him most. Yes, it was partially the war and partially a girl. It is always a girl, isn't it?
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee -- Tale of a young girl seeing descrimination in the South during the Depression.
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton -- A group of boys deal with the sturggles of growing up when you feel you don't fit in.
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers -- a realistic depiction of the Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of a young Black soldier.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald -- this novel asks the question "Is acting rich something that can be learned?"
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury -- I have always loved this book. Bradbury's living room of the future seems an awful lot like Damon's to me, though.
A Separate Peace by John Knowles -- a man revisits his prep school days and the events that made him learn more about himself.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare -- Yes, it is impossible to recommend books without including Shakespeare. I suggest reading the play after seeing a performance or movie, though. (Plays are meant to be seen, afterall.) Mel Gibson's version is good, although it doesn't follow the play exactly. Unabridged tapes of the play are good, too.
Their Eyes Were Watching God -- Zora Neal Hurston -- an African-American woman overcomes challenges to lead the life she wants.
Nonfiction Books
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction
The Year of Magical Thinking -- Joan Didion -- Didion's memior of the year following her husband's sudden death. The book begins, "Life changes fast. Life changes in an instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer -- An account of a voyage up Mount Everest turned tragic.
Night by Elie Wiesel -- Nonfiction account of Wiesel and his father's time in concentration camps during WWII.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt -- Set in Savannah, Georgia, Berendt follows the murder trial of a rich, antique dealer. The people he meets are BEYOND eccentric.
It is Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong -- Before Armstrong won his first tour de France, he fought advanced testicular cancer. This is his biography.
Dare to Win by Jack Canfield -- This book will help you stop asking yourself, "Why should good things happen to me?" and have you start asking "Why shouldn't they?"
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris -- A friend of mine brought me this book from a convention. She thought Sedaris's odd sense of humor matched my own. She was right. This is a collection of personal essays.
The Anxiety and Fear Workbook by Edmund J. Borne -- a good resource for overcoming fear and anxiety in your life.
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston -- Go ahead, bring on the bird flu, it has NOTHING on the Ebola virus. If you get queasy easily, this is not the book for you. I read parts allowed in class one time and a kid FAINTED. Don't say I didn't warn you...