Oh, and I forgot to mention: Books that aren't too brand new so that I can get them from the library in a reasonable amount of time!

Some contemporary books you may enjoy, although I'm not sure how available some might be in Israel-they weren't all blockbusters here in the US:

The Stolen Child
The Rule of Four (full disclosure: I liked this better than the DaVinci Code, but many of my friends didn't)
Midwives
BelCanto
Shadow Divers (non-fiction but reads like an adventure story)
I know you might meet these in school, but if not, the "classics" can add a lot to your body of knowledge and your "reading brain" (and would probably be easy to borrow from the library!) The way they used language is so different from modern authors. Jane Austen, for instance, writes with wit and an honest eye for human foibles, and her plots are timeless, though set in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Pride and Prejudice is my favorite and I guess the best-known. I'd recommend Mark Twain as an American classic wordsmith-Connecticut Yankee in King Author's Court.
Margaret George has written several fictionalized biographies that are fascinating-and fat! The Autobiography of Henry VIII was my favorite, but the Helen of Troy and The Memoirs of Cleopatra have gotten rave reviews from the patrons of the library where I volunteer.
Again in the historic fiction vein (we all recommend what we like best ;-) the First Man of Rome series by Colleen McCollough would keep you comfortably in books for a couple months.
If you read Lord of the Flies for school, as many young people do in the US, you might want to join in the discussion thread starting soon-or grab the book and read it now-it is a quick read and a young person's perpective would add a lot to the discussion.

Welcome galoosh!

If you like interesting stories, but don't mind some unconvential story telling, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is in paperback.

I can think of more, but - how do you like science fiction or fantasy reads?

Welcome Galoosh, my daughters enjoyed these three authors,

The Last Life by Claire Messud, a French-Algerian family in exile, 1960's
A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly, historical fiction, 1906, based on a young couple's disappearance in the Adirondack mountains
Ten Thousand Lovers by Edeet Ravel, young Canadian student in Tel Aviv, 1970's

Thank you all for your replies!

cindydavid4- science fiction isn't exactly my cup of tea, but i'm fairly open to new things. What exactly do you mean by unconventional story telling? ;)

Ccrdmrbks - We don't really read much for school (we're focusing on short stories now) so I haven't read any of those classics. I'll definately be checking out Pride and Prejudice on my next visit to the library (that will be tomorrow) since I've already heard a lot about it...

A few more books I've recently read and liked: Purple Hibiskus (if anyone heard of it... it's about a teenage girl in a somewhat disfunctional family in Nigeria), Kite Runner and The Fountainhead (Ian rand, long read!!).

Thanks again :)

Ok I have now looked up all the books, these 4 seem most compelling:

Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Cloud atlas - David Mitchell
A Northern Light - Jennifer Donnelly

Hopefully at least one of them will be available!

BTW, is there an option to edit my message? I keep wanting to add things I forgot, but I couldn't find an edit button!

When you write your message and click 'preview', you can see your message. Scroll down to use the box below your preview to change the message, then click preview message again. When its perfect, you click on 'submit'. After that, its on the net forever....

Glad you might like Cloud Atlas. By unconventional - he tells six different stories that will connect, eventually. Its how he connects them, and how he organizes the stories, that is quite interesting.

"The Rich White Bee-atch" by Ricardo, at Mighty Niche Books. Check out the blurb - "This is an epic novel about love, passion, murder, jealousy, inspiration, courageous women, eccentric men, bluebloods, Bohemians, fine dining, sex, sporadic travel and some pretty astounding events that have recently occurred in New York City and Paris

as well as

a wealthy middle-aged womanÂs guide to making a penniless young opera composer intermittently happy."

We just published it. Really cool.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mighty Niche Books