No Fifty Shades of Grey - or other similar trash - recommendations allowed

The book which has inspired this thread is, The Painted Man: The first book in a trilogy of The Demon Cycle. It's set in a world where demons rule the night, whilst the humans cower behind their wards waiting for the dawn with no means to fight them. I'm about 100 pages in, and the main protagonists are three children (although it's not a children's book)... The story follows their individual stories, and presumably their paths will cross at some point. I'm eager to find out. I find myself reading it every spare minute I have. For those frugal Brits out there, I got this book from Waterstones online for a bargain of £2.99 (didn't even know you could buy anything for £2.99 anymore, other than sweets


Orcs I read awhile ago, and as the title suggests, it tells the story from "the bad guy's" point of view. I found myself feeling sympathetic towards our Horde brethren (not a WoW book tho!) and almost rolled an orc for a time. UNTIL I remembered they were pretty ugly and, well, green

Also, and to prove I am not one dimensional in my book genre choice, my favourite book of all time is Good Omens - a typical tongue in cheek effort from Terry Pratchett, but it's nicely tempered by Neil Gaiman's darker style. In short, it's an end-of-the-world-four-horsemen-of-the-apocolypse style book with plenty of humour

Other good, eclectic books
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Probably the teacher in me, but I found this fascinating. It follows the story of a severly autistic boy who sets out to find the "murderer" of his neighbour's dog. It's very simply written, but done very well. I found it gave a wonderful insight into how those on the autistic spectrum view the world and how they cope with situations the rest of us find mundane. I've probably not sold this very well... It is a story, and not a study!

For a good (girly) cry, Five People You Meet In Heaven. It's a beautiful book about the meaning of Life, and Death. It follows the story of Eddie, who after reaching Heaven, meets five people explain his life to him... Real tear jerker, but don't mistake it for chick lit. It's incisive and thoughtful.
They're my recommendations, what are yours?