Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore
This book has it all: Cannibals, Cargo Cults and a stolen 747. A pilot tries to go for a job on an island. Things don't go exactly as planned. He discovers that they are a "cargo cult" that worships a pilot and a "goddess" (who was originally a pinup painted on a plane.) A Japanese group has discovered that they are a great source for organ harvesting, and has used their "religion" to help harvest the organs. The pilot manages to still an airplane and fly them away. It is some zany comedy set in some obscure islands.
There is a box that can end the world. Some criminals are trying to grab it for aa payday. An angel has also been spending a few millennia trying to locate it. There are plenty of strange things that happen (such as a car getting seriously damaged as it hits a pedestrian angel). In the end the world does not end. However, the plot is of minor importance compared to the bizarre things that happen in the process.
Brandon Sanderson has "leased out" some of his characters to other authors. He puts his name on the cover along with the co-authors that have done most of the writing in a universe that Sanderson created.
Driving out to North Cascades National Park, you pass through Concrete. It looked like a city with history. Wikipedia mentioned that This Boy's Life was set there, so it looked like a good book to read. In the book, the author and his mother travel from the east coast to Utah in search of mining riches. That doesn't pan out, so they settle in Salt Lake. After a breakup, they move to Seattle. After further issues, it is off to the mountains. He lives 30 minutes from Concrete and attends school there. He spends time in boy scouts and becomes Catholic. He also has to endure abusive step parents and engages in a life of mischief at all stops. He eggs cars with a buddy, kills animals with his gun and commits all sorts of petty theft. He is not the top of guy you would want to meet up with. Somehow out of all this he becomes a writer.
The Anatomy of Peace uses a story to illustrate how we can achieve inner peace regardless of what is going on externally. Often our approach is to try to "change others". However, this will usually fail if we are treating them as objects to change rather than as people with particular needs. The book uses a case study to explain the process. An executive and his wife are having struggles with his relapsed drug-addicted son. They send him to a wilderness camp run by an Arab and an Israeli. However, there is a two day parent session at the start where they meet together. In this session they talk about how they have got along and realized their challenges. They had each grown up hating the other's group, in spite of knowing people on "the other side". They had lost family in the conflict and become hardened and desired nothing other than defeating the other side. However, they each meet somebody that helps them make the transition to peace. They find it too late to make amends to their "dropped friends". However, the process of reaching out and attempted to make peace help them. The executive realizes that he has been treating others as "objects" rather than people. His interactions with his son are often done in anger in an attempt to correct him. He doesn't treat him as a person. Their relationship is part of the problem. He also has a similar issue with his employees. His first attempts at making peace with others fails miserably. He requires more effort to try to think of people outside of the box and as real people. He gradually does make changes.
Stephen Leeds has a mental condition that causes him to hallucinate many different people. These "aspects" have their own personality strengths and weaknesses. He knows they are not "real", yet he treats them as real. They must "travel" to meet him. He opens doors for them. He books space on airplanes for them. They must use a phone if they want to talk remotely. His aspects give him near super-human power. He can simply glance at a foreign language book and one of his aspects can know help him speak a foreign language. He uses this skill as part of a unique private investigator-like business that has made him a rich man. He also has many people eager to study him.
Anathem is a long philosophical novel. The world is just different enough from ours to make it difficult to understand what is going on. Most of the book involves conversations with "math monks". They discuss math, philosophy, theoretical physics and their interaction with the secular world. Interspersed with this philosophical discussion is a "mission" and the appearance of alien visitors. They discover that they are similar but different from the humans of their planet. Eventually people from both meet up and explore possible outcomes. In structure and length, the novel feels like a fantasy work. On content, however, it is science fiction write with clear modern day mores. There are plenty of ideas to keep for a long "geek" conversation.