Top Ten Tuesday—Books That Make You Think

I'm very behind on reading. Here's why:

He doesn't do much, but simply staring at him is far more entertaining than even the best story right now.

I still want to blog, so I decided that the best way to do that is to participate in some blog linkups. This one is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, and there are tons of participants. She posts a different top-ten topic every week. This week it's the top ten books that make you think. Without further ado, here are mine:

1. My Sister's Keeper. I read this for a book group a few years ago and it sparked one of our best discussions ever. Would you conceive a child for the express purpose of saving your sick child? Now that I'm a mom, my answer hasn't changed. I would die for my son, but I couldn't bring another child into the world to serve as a donor child; it just wouldn't be fair to that child. I pray I'll never have to make a decision like that.
2. The Bookseller of Kabul. This book made me think about the place of women in post-Taliban Afghanistan. (Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns is a novel about the same topic, but The Bookseller of Kabul is all the more powerful because it is a true story.)
3. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. This is a classic coming of age story that brought the hardships of poverty home to me when I first read it as a teenager. Almost 20 years later it still affects me. Angela's Ashes does this, too.
4. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Two words: Big Brother.
5. Farewell to Manzanar. This book resonated with me because I am half Japanese. Even though none of my relatives were sent to the camps (they all lived in Hawaii), it appalled me to think that this actually happened in the recent past in this country. Land of the free, indeed.
6. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. As awful as the relocation camps were, they pale in comparison to the atrocities of slavery.
7. King Leopold's Ghost. Also atrocious: colonialism.
8. The Song of the Dodo. This is one of my favorite books, and its light tone belies the seriousness of its subject: the affect shrinking habitats have on endangered species.
9. The Shadow of the Wind. This one made me think in a good way: it's a very entertaining book, but you have to pay attention.
10. The Ancestor's Tale. It's fascinating to read about our evolutionary origins and the science behind discovering them.