Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply is one of the best novels I’ve ever read. I just raced through it. Sly, chilling, intriguing and very, very readable.
A friend loaned me *Replay *by Ken Grimwood, and it nearly killed me to have to stop reading for real life stuff. It’s definitely a good long airplane or bus trip book.
Is that part of the “…For Dummies” series?: 
I liked Freakonomics, as already mentioned, but my most recent “can’t put it down” was Desdaemona by Ben Macallan.
Really? It was good, but long, and it felt long. Especially with all those footnotes and free verse. War and Peace was good too, but I can see putting it down for awhile. Who’s watched all of LOST in one sitting?
Deserved or not (and I think not), at least that would be based on your choices. I don’t know why I read slow. If I were defensive, I would say that it’s because I read very closely and carefully, or because I have ADHD, but who really knows. The fact is that I do read a lot, and it takes me* forever*.
Oh, yes, definitely. Loved that book. Have to read it again sometime!
It sounds like your reading preferences are similar to mine. I am still unable to put down The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis when I start reading it, and I think I’ve read it more than a dozen times. I always cry at the end, too.
I’m going to have to stop coming into this thread. Every time I do, I add at least another three or four titles to my To Read list.
I couldn’t put down Deighton’s Berlin Game, Mexico Set and London Match, pretty much the best Cold War spy series ever.
And Winter is fantastic. It’s a very distantly related prequel to the Game Set and Match series.
Read Stokers "Dracula’. You will find out why it has stuck for a century.
I had trouble putting down “Sot Weed Factor”.
If you liked Dracula, check out George R.R. Martin’s Fevre Dream, about vampires along the Mississippi before the Civil War. A good historical/horror page-turner.
Good thing you didn’t have it in the same book bag as the Helium tome!!
Even if you didn’t like Dracula all that much, check it out.
Ed McBain’s Downtown. Not one of his famous series, just an incredible tale set in NY at Christmastime.
Or anything by McBain, the Grand Old Master of the detective novel.
I loved Hit Man by Lawrence Block - all about a sympathetic (!) New York assassin and stamp-collector, Keller.
I got in trouble in school for reading Jurassic Park during class, but it was much more fun than fractions. I give a +1 to the Discworld books and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. Finally I will admit that I’m one of those people who finished reading the last Harry Potter book the day it came out.
Sunshine by Robin McKinley. One of her few novels written for adults, it’s really good and cries out for a sequel, but she only writes what she feels like writing.
StG
I also liked Sunshine, but I don’t think that it needs a sequel. I think that she said everything she set out to say in the one book. It’s a great book, and McKinley does her usual excellent job. I’d rather have a writer STOP writing when she’s said everything that needs to be said, rather than have her keep churning out slush for her fans.
The Mistress of the Art of Death series. Set in 12th century England, the main protagonist is a lady pathologist retained by Henry II for the purpose of examining corpses and solving murders. Very entertaining, and the characters are wonderful.