These are more escapism type books - sorry don't really have a long list of "soul searching books". Thats not to say some of these don't require a lot of thinking.
I have not put authors in a lot of cases - sorry.
Captain Corellis Mandolin - great writing - different from the movie. You will be pissing yourself... the characters are so likeable and funny.
God of Small Things. This book reads as close to a movie. Very different. Story of an indian girl and her brother. Very moving and a lot beautiful images are conjured up.
What the body remembers. Story about a Sikh woman set during the partition of British India into 2 states - Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. A somewhat difficult book to read as it is so detailed - but worth it. I never though I could feel like an indian woman in the 50's but this book transports you.
Once were warriors. Written by Alan Duff. Written very differently. Spelling, pronunciation, grammar of the entire work is as it almost phonetic. Takes a couple of chapters to get up to speed but it is brilliant. Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff's sociological epic of Maori despair, is -- besides powerful, visceral -- almost a grab-bag of postcoloniality; it touches on issues of translation, gender and power roles, traditional versus modern culture, media influence on culture, conflict of ideology, and, of course, is rooted in a current socio-political context of a once-colonized land, New Zealand.
Enders Game (been mentioned thanx Dagny and others although I do have some comments on that but they'd spoil it if you'd not already read it - so I'll keep them to myself - maybe a new thread topic)
Wind in the Willows - a classic. The number of times my grandparents read this to me and my brother on a wet morning. This probably has some lessons in it - mainly learnt at poor Toads expense. I'm so glad this book has yet to be hollywood-ified. I'd hate to see Toad and Ratty action figures...
Perdido Street Station - China Melville - brilliant new author ! This novel is set in a fantasy world without electricity - but still technologically advanced so everything runs on steam or magic - the plot is all about what goes wrong when the government, who is into the drug trade, outsources production to private enterprise (the gangs) !!! cool, cool read... very clever.