Where are my fellow bookworms? If you know anything about me, you know I like to read ... like, a lot. I share a bedroom about the size of a college dorm with my twin and I've still managed to cram around 200 books in there (my mom was insisting it was a fire hazard, so I've resorted to stuffing some in my box spring ... whatever works, right?) Though there's no feeling like finishing a good book, there's always a problem that inevitably arises when you flip the last page; what should I read next? Problem solved! If you haven't read these five books, you're sorely missing out. Get to your local bookstore RIGHT NOW.

1. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

What's It About?

The Kite Runner follows the redemption of its protagonist, Amir, as he struggles to right a wrong that destroyed a friendship decades ago in the Afghanistan of his childhood. The reader watches Amir grow into a young author as, simultaneously, Afghanistan falls under Soviet, and, subsequently, Taliban rule.

Why Should You Care?

Amir's journeys from childhood to adulthood and betrayal to redemption is enlightening to witness. Not to mention several of the characters provide profound insight into the moral struggles of ever day life. Get your box of tissues ready.

Favorite Passage:

“It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything all right. It didn't make anything all right. Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting."

2. "Silence" by Shusaku Endo

What's It About?

This is a brutal novel about two Jesuit missionaries, Fathers Rodrigues and Garrpe, who search for their mentor, Father Ferreira, a rumored apostate, in Japan during the period after the failed Shimabara Rebellion, which saw the Catholic Church's existence forced underground.

Why Should You Care?

Throughout his perilous search for Father Ferreira and accompanying missionary work, Rodrigues witnesses untold cruelties and merciless martyrdoms that make him wonder why, in the face of so much suffering, God is silent. For any Christian who has ever struggled with doubt, this book is a must read. Even if you aren't Christian, and let me reiterate this, this book is a must read. Endo paints a startlingly genuine picture of Rodrigues' psychological reaction to suffering, and the book's beautiful symbolism is worth the read alone (props if pick up on both Jesus-Judas relationships in the novel ... the first is obvious, but the second took me two weeks and an epiphany while running the vacuum).

Favorite Passage:

"This was a frightening fancy. If he does not exist, how absurd the whole thing becomes. What an absurd drama become the lives of Mokichi and Ichizo, bound to the stake and washed by the waves. And the missionaries who spent three years crossing the sea to arrive at this country - what an illusion was theirs. Myself, too, wandering here over the desolate mountains- what an absurd situation! Plucking the grass as I went along I chewed it in with my teeth, suppressing these thoughts that rose nauseatingly in my throat. I knew well, of course, that the greatest sin against God was despair; but the silence of God was something I could not fathom. 'The Lord preserved the just man when the godless folk were perishing all around him. Escape he should when the fire came down upon the Cities of the Plain.' Yet now, when the barren land was already emitting smoke while the fruit on the trees was still unripe, surely he should speak but a word for the Christians."

3. "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard

What's It About?

If you were forced to read Hamlet in high school, you'll vaguely remember these two minor characters as the ... well ... they actually didn't stand out in any way, nor did they serve an integral purpose in the plot. Maybe you don't remember them (you will, though). In Tom Stoppard's play-within-a-play, Shakespeare's two minor characters attempt to discover the cause of their friend Hamlet's perceived madness and struggle with their own existential self-doubts.

Why Should You Care?

This play is literally your teenage inner-dialogue printed in front of you. If that doesn't get you to read it, I don't know what will. Those questions about existence and life itself that decided to pop into your subconscious just as you were trying to fall asleep? Yep, they're in there. The answers aren't though (they never are). Stoppard manages to provide pages and pages of analysis of existential philosophy in ridiculously humorous dialogue, while inventively and subtly setting up a tragic ending you'll despise the title for. I guarantee you'll feel smarter and slightly panicked for reading it.

Favorite Passage:

"Guil: We got his symptoms, didn't we?
Ros: Six rhetorical and two repetition, leaving nineteen, of which we answered fifteen. And what did we get in return? He's depressed! ... Denmark's a prison and he'd rather live in a nutshell; some shadow-play about the nature on ambition, which never got down to cases, and finally one direct question which might have led somewhere, and led in fact to his illuminating claim to tell a hawk from a handsaw.
Pause.
Guil: When the wind is southerly.
Ros: And the weather's clear.
Guil: And when it isn't he can't.
Ros: He's at the mercy of the elements."

4. "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer

What's It About?

This novel revolves around the exploits of nine-year-old Oskar Schell as he follows one last scavenger hunt possibly left by his father, who was killed in the World Trade Center on September 11th. The story of his paternal grandparents, following their lives from the bombing of Dresden all the way up to their failed marriage and reunion decades later, is also expertly woven into the main narrative.

Why Should You Care?

Besides Oskar being one of the most brilliantly endearing characters I've ever come across in a book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Closeis a masterpiece. Besides the typical prose structure, the story is told through memoirs, stream-of-consciousness letters, and, amazingly, photographs. Foer's novel also tackles Oskar's inability to cope with the passing of his father and the meaninglessness of a tragedy that took so many lives.

Favorite Passage:

Dad would've left his messages backward, until the machine was empty, and the plane would've flown backward away from him, all the way to Boston.
He would've taken the elevator to the street and pressed the button for the top floor.
He would've walked backward to the subway, and the subway would've gone backward through the tunnel, back to our stop.
Dad would've gone backward through the turnstile, then swiped his Metrocard backward, then walked home backward as he read the New York Times from right to left.
He would've spit coffee into his mug, unbrushed his teeth, and put hair on his face with a razor.
He would've gone back into bed, the alarm would've run backward, he would've dreamt backward.
Then he would've gotten up again at then end of the night before the worst day.
He would've walked backward to my room, whistling "I Am the Walrus" backward.
He would've gotten into bed with me.
We would've looked at the stars on my ceiling, which would've pulled back their light from our eyes.
I'd have said "Nothing" backward.
He'd have said "Yeah, buddy?" backward.
I'd have said "Dad?" backward, which would've sounded the same as "Dad" forward.
He would've told me the story of the Sixth Borough, from the voice in the can at the end to the beginning from "I love you" to "Once upon a time ..."
We would have been safe.

5. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

What's It About?

The Great Gatsby revolves around the exploits of new-money-millionaire Jay Gatsby as he tries to impress the love of his life Daisy, a gorgeous socialite with a cheating, conniving husband. Our poor, reflective narrator Nick is thrown in there to watch the destruction and chaos ensue.

Why Should You Care?

Besides the setting (I'm a sucker for the Jazz Age), The Great Gatsby is filled with gorgeous symbolism and a tragic plotline that will pull a reader in from the beginning. Fitzgerald was one of the Lost Generation writers, a group made of up of those scarred by the First World War, so his enduring novel captures the meaningless excess of the era sandwiched between "The War to End All Wars" and a depression that would cripple the country. If you weren't forced to read this in high school (and then read it three more times because it was THAT good), this is essential reading to be a functioning member of society. Read it.

Favorite Passage:

“And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”