I'm taking book recommendations…

…and am actually going to read for pleasure now (something I haven't let myself do in a really long time!). Now that I'm not working full-time, I can finally get to those books I've wanted to read but have never had the time. I don't really have hobbies or anything like that (translation: I'm not crafty or creatively talented in the hobby-ish way), but reading is something I truly enjoy. While on my mini vacation—see below post—I read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and loved it!

Any of you who read, please suggest some titles of books you've enjoyed and think I might like. What do I like? I don't go for the real heavy/dark literature, but I do like realistic and genuine. Nor do I go for the extremely light/cheesy/contrived stuff, although I do like an uplifting story. So, if you know of any good books that have a good balance, send their titles my way!

A sampling of my too-many favorite passages from The Secret Life of Bees:

She said a scholarship was my only hope for a future and lent me her private books for the summer. Whenever I opened one, T. Ray said, "Who do you think you are, Julius Shakespeare?" The man sincerely thought that was Shakespeare's first name, and if you think I should have corrected him, you are ignorant about the art of survival. He also referred to me as Miss Brown-Nose-in-a-Book and occasionally as Miss Emily-Big-Head-Diction. He meant Dickinson, but again, there are things you let go by. (16)

Leaning back on my elbows, I slid down till the water sealed over my head. I held my breath and listened to the scratch of the river against my ears, sinking as far as I could into that shimmering, dark world. But I was thinking about a suitcase on the floor, about a face I could never quite see, about the sweet smell of cold cream. (56)

Up until then I'd thought that white people and colored people getting along was the big aim, but after that I decided everybody being colorless together was a better plan. I though of that policeman…saying I'd lowered myself to be in this house of colored women, and for the very life of me I could not understand how it had turned out this way, how colored women had become the lowest ones on the totem pole. You only had to look at them to see how special they were, like hidden royalty among us. (209)

"You are one-third friend, one-third brother, one-third bee partner, and one-third boyfriend," I told him. He explained to me I had one too many thirds in the equation, which, of course, I knew, as I am bad in math but not that bad. We stared at each other as I tried to figure out which third would get deleted. (216)

You think you want to know something, and then once you do, all you can think about is erasing it from your mind. From now on when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I planned to say, Amnesiac. (249) Knowing can be a curse on a person's life. I'd traded in a pack of lies for the truth, and I didn't know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can't ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now. (255)