Book Recommendations: Not YA Edition

What do you call books that aren't YA books? I don't like calling them "adult" books because that seems to imply that the books in question are x-rated. Trust me, I'm not recommending Fifty Shades of Grey. I actually read Fifty Shades of Grey last year, too, but I would never recommend it to anyone because it's terrible; it's poorly written and has a boring narrator. In other words, it reads like the erotic Twilight fan fiction it started out as. But I digress wildly; the point of this post is to recommend books not tear them down.

• Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - I decided to lump these together so I wouldn't end up writing six bullet points about my love for Jane Austen. I normally re-read an Austen novel or two every year, but last year I decided to read all six completed novels over the summer. It was a good decision. I've listed them here in the order in which I rank them, but I suggest you read or re-read them all and come up with your own ranking. Austen's novels are also incredibly popular fodder for adaptations; I've seen great (and at least one terrible) movies of each of these books.
• All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane by Amy Elizabeth Smith - I used this book to put a bow on my Austen re-reading. Smith decided to take a sabbatical from her position as a university professor to travel through South America, holding impromptu Jane Austen reading groups in each country she visited. Part travelogue, part literary discussion - this book is a great read. I ended up reading it in two days. I think it helps to be familiar with the Austen novels Smith discussed with her groups (Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice), but it's not necessary; my mom also enjoyed this book and she isn't a Janeite.
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - I read this book for my YA class, but I'm including it here because it was never marketed as a YA book. When I finished this book (at 2 in the morning, mind you) I wrote a Facebook message to my old roommate who'd lent it to me that simply said, "The Book Thief. Holy crap." Frankly, I'm disappointed that it took me so long to read it (it was released in 2007). It took a little while for me to get used to the narrator's voice (in my defense, Death is kind of a strange narrator), but once I got the hang of it I was mesmerized by the story. So thanks, old roommate, for lending me this book :)

I also enjoyed Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner. Somehow I'm always a year or two behind when reading Weiner's novels even though she's one of my favorite authors.