Favorite books? Where do I begin?

Contemporary Fiction

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
  This is one I've been pushing at friends for the last few years.
• My Year of Meats, by Ruth Ozeki (and All Over Creation was wonderful, too)
• Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Maybe the Moon, by Armistead Maupin
• The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

Mysteries

• Anything by Carl Hiaasen
• The Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters, preferably read in order
• Almost anything by Minette Walters
• The Lord Peter Winsy/Harriet Vane books by Dorothy Sayers

Science Fiction and Fantasy

• Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
• Stardust, by Nail Gaiman
• Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
• Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
• Replay, by Ken Grimwood
• The Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon - especially good as a companion piece to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
   

History

• Is Paris Burning?, by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
• The Armada, by Garrett Mattingly
• Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen
• The Story of Mankind, by Hendrik Willem van Loon
• Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horwitz
• The Cartoon History series, by Larry Gonick
• 1066: The Year of the Conquest, by David Howarth
• Lincoln: A Foreigner's Quest, by Jan Morris; I'm not a big biography fan, but this isn't your typical biography

Travel

• Baghdad Without a Map, by Tony Horwitz
• Nine Parts of Desire, by Geraldine Brooks
• Holidays in Hell, by P.J. O'Rourke
• Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson
• The Last Pink Bits, by Harry Ritchie
• Shopping for Buddhas, by Jeff Greenwald
• The Oysters of Locmariaquer, by Eleanor Clark

Other Non-Fiction

• Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott
• Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine
• Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds, by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
• Dakota, by Kathleen Norris
• Anything by Sarah Vowell
• The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine, by Rudolph Chelminski

Children's Chapter Books

• Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White
• The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
• A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
• The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
• Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede
• So You Want to be a Wizard, by Diane Duane
• Donorboy, by Brendan Halpin

Picture Books

• The Paper Bag Princess, written by Robert N. Munsch and illustrated by Michael Martchenko
• The Big Orange Splot, by Daniel Pinkwater
• The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg
• Zen Shorts, by Jon J Muth
• Tuesday, by David Wiesner
• Hondo and Fabian, written and illustrated by Peter McCarty