Nonfiction:

1. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser. The growth of the fast food industry has changed America's eating habits and greatly impacted agriculture, the meatpacking industry, the minimum wage, and other aspects of American life.

2. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung. The perils of life under the brutal Pol Pot regime change a young woman's life forever, as she and her family find themselves fugitives of war, without even their names to remind them of what they lost.

3. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. Discover the amazing life-after-death adventures of human bodies in this examination of how medical and research scientists use cadavers to make our lives better.

Fiction:

1. Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Pi Patel, having spent an idyllic childhood in Pondicherry, India, as the son of a zookeeper, sets off with his family at the age of sixteen to start anew in Canada, but his life takes a marvelous turn when their ship sinks in the Pacific, leaving him adrift on a raft with a 450-pound Bengal tiger for company.

2. Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy, sets out from his home in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of buried treasure, but through his encounters with a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself a king, and an Alchemist, he learns the value of the treasures found within himself.

3. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Christopher has two mysteries to solve: who killed Wellington the dog, and what happened to his mother. But Christopher, who is autistic, approaches these mysteries and the world itself in a unique and special way