Recommend some really great books (fiction/nonfiction) OUTSIDE my usual comfort zone

[franch]

Just heard Tim Smit (the Eden Project social entrepreneur) talking about the 'gang rules' of his company, one of which is to read 2 books (also go to 1 concert, 1 play and 1 movie) outside your normal sphere of interest, every year. I thought this was a great philosophy. To be absolutely honest I"m struggling to read 2 books within my sphere of interest a year at the moment, but would like to start a list of books beyond my comfort zone anyway, to spur me on.

Bit tricky this as you don't know me, but my comfort zone includes:
literary fiction - I'm an Annie Proulx / AS Byatt / Martin Amis / Raymond Carver type, if that makes any sense
very little non-fiction, but I guess most of my interests are fairly 'soft' / 'feminine' / 'artistic'

I know nothing about:
most of the arts beyond literature!
architecture
business
history
religion
science
politics
philosophy
geography
sport

I never read:
crime
sci fi
fantasy
horror
romance
'genre' fiction in general

Can you recommend anything good, then, that might stretch me a bit?

janeite - do you live in London? Are you thinking of cooking yourself or eating out?

Thanks for all the new suggestions - some brilliant ones - will return to them in detail asap

A Testament of Youth by Vera Brittan - superb autobiography of young girl with ambitions to be a literary type 'coming of age' during WWI. It really brought the whole period alive for me, and I am cross I avoided reading it for so long for fear it would be heavy or depressing - it is neither. Thoropughly recommended. Covers politics and history but in a very accessible way.

Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamund Lehmann

Definitely also second the Pepys biography - is very funny and very interesting. Also second the Wilkie Collins suggestions - and I recently read No Name by him which was a wonderful romp with a serious under-message. A bit like Victorian 'Hustle'.

Crime - I absolutely love the Henning Mankells police procedurals - perhaps start with The Fifth Woman. Set in Sweden and very well written with interesting characters.

Another excellent book I read this year was This Thing Of Darkness by Harry Thompson - is based on the voyages of the Beagle, its captain Fitzroy and its famous passenger, Darwin. Beautifully written, quite geographical with discussions of philosophy, morality and religion too. A tremendous read.

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson

Congo by Redmond O Hanlon

do you fancy Fermat's Last Theorum, by Simon Singh?

another good science writer, is Dr John Emsley

I can second the Alison Weir stuff, she's great. and if you've never read it, the Michael Crick book on Jeffrey Archer is hilarious.

will ponder over some more general stuff for you

oh and the book that The Last King of Scotland film was based on by Giles Foden is a good read and I learned a lot about Uganda

Ooh yes, Annejones "This Thing Of Darkness" is BRILLIANT. I've been trying to get some of my colleagues to read it but can't convince them. Franch, you really should try that; it's an amazing read. As an atheist I was surprised how much I sympathised with Fitzroy's desire to suppress some of Darwin's more "blasphemous" ideas. And interested to see when and why Darwin chose to go against his word and publish them.

On the food note - I'm not in London no; I'd love to try cooking something myself. The only restaurant I know near me doesn't tend to get very good reviews.

oh yes 'This thing of darkness' is brilliant, so is Joe Simpson's 'Touching the Void' (an articulate, literate, climber) and Robertson Davies 'What's bred in the bone'- lots of art and art history.