Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger:

Ever wonder how people could have looked themselves in the mirror while dealing in the slave trade? Unsworth takes you into the minds of people from many walks of life, each contributing their one small part to this great tragedy of history. America and Britain together killed more Africans than Hitler did Jews, and the forces that made it possible you will recognize as still active in the world today.  "This hunger for profits has taken on sacred proportions."

Annie Proulx's The Shipping News: 

a beautiful story of real people in a strange place. Beauty and horror mix together into wonder in this story where a big and clumsy bloke perseveres through a bleak life to emerge an unlikely hero. One of the greatest books ever written.

Saint Maybe

Anne Tyler has done a miracle here. She's written a book that has made me sympathize with a Fundamentalist Christian. She draws out the grief that drives Ian, and the salvation the Church of the Second Chance offers him. She neither apologizes for, nor condemns or endorses fundamentalism. She only listens.

Annie Dillard's American Childhood: 

a fugue of childhood experience of discovery. A visual and visceral re-enactment of youth.