By far the best book I have read recently is Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, a book from 1959 that completely holds up. It is all written from the point of view of a retarded man who is entered into a research project where his intellect is increased and he examines his life and relationships. Fucking wonderful.
Another good book was the autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi (or Yukichi Fukuzawa) who was one of the last samurai. He ended up becoming a teacher, a poet, and a huge proponent of exploring western cultures, learning dutch, and I think English. One note, I read a autobiography that was a few hundred pages and that was perfect. I have heard that he also has a much longer edition, thousands of pages, and that it gets boring.
One super easy and fun read is Winterdance by Greg Paulsen. He is actually a kids book writer, but this is the one adult book he wrote, and it is about his love of dog sledding and the first time he ran the iditarod (a more than 1000 mile dog sled race from Anchorage to Nome). Exciting and fun, but a super quick read.
