I want to reiterate my recommend for Wally Lamb's "The Hour I First Believed", even if you don't get to any of his others, read that one.

For non-fiction recs, be sure you read Agnes Humbert's "Resistance" about her experiences in wartime France and later a concentration camp. Tells the story and still very very readable.

Finally, there has been a spate of good British books lately; Kate Atkinson's "When Will There Be Good News?" ( all of Kate Atkinson's books are recommends); Phillip Hensher's "The Northern Clemency"; and Catherine O'Flynn's "What Was Lost".