I recently finished The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry while traveling on the train to NYC. A quirky little book, perfect for traveling. The Goldfinch is next up on my list. Have a good trip, Janet!

You guys, my Amazon wish list (and my nightstand, where I stack books I have yet to read) is overflowing! Thank you for all of the recommendations. Some I'd already read before, but it's fun to see what everyone has to say.

Loved reading all these recommendations!

I also loved Life After Life. In fact, I've really enjoyed all of Kate Atkinson's books in general, especially the other ones that are sort of postmodern family sagas (Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Emotionally Weird) as opposed to the more detective-y ones.

Seconding the recommendations on Zadie Smith (especially loved NW and White Teeth), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, and Where'd You Go, Bernadette as well.

Other recommendations: Anything by David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas, Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, etc.); The Invisible Bridge (about a Hungarian Jewish family before and during WWII); the Boleyn books by Philippa Gregory for a nice combination of trashy and historical.

One idea for non fiction lovers: go to delanceyplace.com. They publish a short excerpt of a non fiction book daily. Some of the reads are fascinating. You can have it sent to you daily.