Reading books is among the best things to use your free time to do.
In general my preferences when it comes to books are, mostly
non-fictional with focus on science and history. Science is mostly an
exploration about our star system and physics.
History is more broad, ranging from the early Medieval phase over WW II into current events.
Current events are mostly related to USA and the aftermath of 9/11.
When it comes to fiction, I am deeply indebted to modern Anglo-Saxon
writers such as Banks, Stephenson, Coupland, Gibson, Gaiman and
Practchett. Basically modern contemporary writers without a chance of
winning the Nobel Prize.
My top list 2009;
Frank Miller - The Sin City series. The movie were great, but the
graphical novels (7 of them) are awesome. The genre graphical novels is stumbling close to
cartoons, and to be quite frank some of the Sin City novels are very similar to the old fashioned cartoon genre. But whatever it is called, they are great. Not really 2009 but anyway.
BTW, the movie is also great.
Neal Stephenson - Almost everything he writes becomes pure
gold. For all reason and purposes his Snow Crash is a modern classic. His great Barouqe Cycle is monumental and Cryptonomicon is great. Although his Anathem is flawed unfortunately.
Lawrence Wright - The looming tower. A bit old but still
unbeatable. It is an expose about the road towards 9/11 with focus on
al-Qaeda. Pulitzer price winning book (2007).
Steve Colls book about the bin Ladens is great.
His book about the CIA and Afghanistan is a modern masterpice. I can recommend it highly.