Interesting books and movies
(* means not suitable for ages approx. 16 or under, ** means also suitable for middle school students, otherwise generally for ages 14-99)

Books

Movies

Fun non-fiction books

Surely Youre Joking, Mr. Feynman, by Richard Feynman, memoirs of the Nobel-prize-winning physicist.  My favorite chapter is the one on lock-picking.  If you like it, read the sequel What Do You Care What Other People Think?
Yeager:  An Autobiography by Chuck Yeager (he broke the Mach 1 sound barrier)
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, disastrous climb of Mt. Everest
** Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat.  A naturalist studies wolves in the Canadian arctic
The Ship Who Wouldn't Float by Farley Mowat.  A landlubber restores a sailing ship with hilarious consequences
The Falcon and the Snowman by Robert Lindsey. A rebellious Southern California teen becomes a Russian spy.  If you enjoy it, read the sequel The Flight of the Falcon
Dogsong (or the juvenile book Wintersong) by Gary Paulsen.  He trains dogs to race in the Iditarod and everything goes wrong
Travels on my Elephant by Mark Shand.  A British expatriate purchases an elephant and travels around India on it, meeting interesting people.
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain.  He apprentices to a pilot on a sternwheeler.  Full of wry humor.
Child of the Jungle by Savine Kuegler.  The daughter of missionaries grows up living with a tribe in new Guinea.
The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu.  A little-known but fascinating counter-espionage operation during World War II.

Humor

Molvania, Phaic Tan or San Sombrero by Santo Cilauro.  Fake "travel guides" to non-existent countries.  The more you've traveled, the funnier they are.
America's Dumbest Criminals by Daniel Butler or The Darwin Awards by Wendy Northcutt.  How to remove yourself from the gene pool by doing really dumb things.
Dave Barry Does Japan, Dave Barry in Cyberspace, or Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway .  Very funny.
Selected short stories by James Thurber, appearing in The Thurber Carnival and other Thurber short story collections.  My favorites:  The Night the Bed Fell, The Day the Dam Broke, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Dog that Bit People.

Fun fiction books

The Princess Bride by William Goldman, swashbuckling adventure, even better than the movie!
*Infinity Hold by Barry Longyear, violent convicts dumped on a planet invent a government
And Then There Were None (also titled Ten Little Indians) by Agatha Christie.  Classic murder mystery.
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, The best sci-fi short stories ever written.  If you like them, also read Volumes 2A, 2B, 3 and 4.  My favorites in Volume One are Nightfall, Mimsy Were the Borogroves, and Flowers for Algernon.
A few short stories by Rudyard Kipling from the collection Just So Stories.  My favorites:  The Elephant's Child and How the Alphabet Was Made

Classic fiction books 

Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.  (if you like it, also read the sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
Animal Farm by George Orwell.  Social commentary
The Bible - rather than read the entire thing, you might find a kid's version which recounts the most popular stories from both Testaments.  The King James translation isn't very accurate, but is poetic and the most-quoted.  Different translations preserve the meaning better. 
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.  Dystopia
**Call of the Wild and/or White Fang by Jack London.  Sled dogs and men in the Yukon gold rush era
Centennial by James Michener.  Epic historical fiction about Colorado.  Skip the opening chapter on geology and dinosaurs.  
*A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.  Violent dystopia.  
The Crucible by Arthur Miller.  Play about Salem witch trials that indicted McCarthyism
The Food of the Gods by H. G. Wells.  Sci-fi classic about Frankenfood, written in 1904.
Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov (read in order).  Classic sci-fi trilogy.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, or her much-thicker Atlas Shrugged.  Her philosophy of objectivism personified in a nonconformist architect.
**The Gift of the Magi, short story by O. Henry.  The ultimate irony.
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck.  Follows the fortunes of a family of peasants in pre-Revolution China
Hawaii by James Michener.  Fictionalized epic history of Hawaii.  Skip the opening chapter on geology.  
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (not to be confused with the awful movie with a totally different plot).  Excellent short story collection.  If you like it, also read The Rest of the Robots, or the combination The Complete Robot, which contains both earlier books.
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence.  Play based on the Scopes monkey trial. Or see the excellent movie starring Spencer Tracy.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.  The original muckracker's 1906 expos of the Chicago stockyards.  Led to the passage of the Food and Drug Act.  
Kim by Rudyard Kipling, the adventures of a poor orphan in India in the 1800s.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding.  Social commentary
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke.  Collection of classic sci-fi short stories.  Make sure to read the title story and The Star.  The cult film 2001 was based on the story The Sentinel.
1984 by George Orwell.  Dystopia.  A must-read.
* One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.  Who is mentally ill and who is sane in this crazy world?
* QB VII by Leon Uris.  An eminent doctor is accused of collaboration with Nazis.
Roots by Alex Haley, the fictionalized epic history of a black American family tracing its roots back to Africa.
Science Fiction Hall of Fame, volume I.  If you think sci-fi is trash, you haven't read these!  My favorite story is Nightfall.  Read the other volumes in the series if you like the first.
Any famous play by William Shakespeare.  Watch the movie version or read a synopsis first to help you understand it.
**Any Sherlock Holmes short stories and novelettes  by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Find a collection and read several, in any order.  The Complete Sherlock Holmes has them all in chronological order.
Short stories by Mark Twain.  My favorites are The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg and The 100,000 Note
The Source  by James Michener.  Epic historical fiction about Israel/Palestine.  Helps to understand the current situation there.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Very different from the Disney movie.  Skip the numerous sequels.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  Growing up in the segregated South
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.  Pirates, buried treasure and adventure on the high seas.  Quaint language.

Factual and interesting books

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  Fascinating story behind the food we eat.  Traces food from farm to table, stopping along the way to examine the politics of farm subsidies and the phoniness of the "organic" label on food.  A must-read.
*The Lexus and the Olive Tree, * The World is Flat  or *Longitudes and Attitudes by Thomas Friedman; or *Fortune Favors the Bold or *The Zero-Sum Game by Lester Thurow.  Globalization from an economic perspective.
* Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody.  An American woman held hostage in Iran tries to escape.
The Mother Tongue:  English and How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson.  The history of the English language.  Fun for word nuts.
* Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.  Fascinating mix of social sciences and hard sciences to explain why certain countries are more advanced than others.  A must-read.
* The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. Fascinating mix of ecology and history. What would the world be like if there were no people?
The Worlds Great Stories: 55 Legends that Live Forever by Louis Untermeyer.  Very short retellings of classic tales.
River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler.  The author spent the years 1998-1999 teaching English in a small town in provincial China.  Fascinating glimpse into another culture.  
* Common Prayers: Faith, Family, and a Christian's Journey Through the Jewish Year by Harvey Cox. Written by a Baptist professor of theology at Harvard who is married to a Jewish woman. Learn more about your faith, other peoples' faith, and the historical background behind both.


Factual and interesting non-fiction books about current events

The World of Mexican Migrants: The Rock and the Hard Place by Judith Adler Hellman.  Insight into the explosion in illegal immigration.   

*The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea.  Harrowing account of illegal immigrants crossing the desert to the USA.  If you find it interesting, also read Enrique's Journey A boy travels from Honduras the the USA to be reunited with his mother.  Not for the squeamish.

* A book about the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan such as My Year in Iraq by former ambassador L. Paul Bremer (he was in charge of rebuilding Iraq during the first year after Gulf War II), or War Reporting for Cowards by Chris Ayres, The Story of My Life by Farah Ahmedi.

Compare the current nation-building in Iraq to the post-WW-II counterparts in Germany and Italy in the excellent historical fiction novels Armageddon by Leon Uris (Germany) or A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (Italy).  While fiction, they took actual historical occurrences and retold them as if they had happened to fictional characters.  Like Iraq, Germany and Italy were recently cobbled together from smaller entities speaking different languages and, in the case of Germany, different religions.  

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson.  A visitor promises to build a school for a remote Pakistani village. Helps to understand the relationship between 'The Ugly American" and Central Asia, and the political situation there. 

Infidel by Ayyaan Hirsi Ali.  The author grows up in a Somali refugee camp, emigrates to the Netherlands, and gets elected to the Netherlands State Assembly.  Examines the clash of culture between the third world and the developed world, and the clash between modern and fundamentalist Islam.

****************************************************************************

Classic drama:  
Doctor Zhivago, epic about a man whose life is disrupted by the Russian Revolution
The Wizard of Oz, an icon of Americana.
** Fantasia (the 1940 original), amazing hand-drawn animation set to classical music.  If you like it, also see Fantasia 2000
Lawrence of Arabia, epic struggle for Arab independence from the British during WW I.
Casablanca, classic Humphrey Bogart romance-during-the-war film. 
Gone With the Wind, epic set during the Civil War.  An American icon.
*The Great Escape, Allied POWs during WW II engineer an escape.  All-star cast.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Gold-prospectors strike it rich. Or do they?  John Ford directs Humphrey Bogart.
Twelve Angry Men, jurors deliberate on a murder case.  Must-see performance by Henry Fonda.  No special effects, fancy sets, sex, or violence.  Just excellent acting and a marvelous script.
*Schindlers List, multiple-Oscar-winning movie about the Holocaust
The Magnificent Seven, quintessential Western with an all-star cast

Scary:  (Unless you really like the genre, one of these Alfred Hitchcock films is plenty.)
Vertigo, Rear Window, *Psycho

Funny:  
Airplane, satirizes disaster films, particularly Airport.
Top Secret, makes fun of war movies and Elvis movies at the same time.  Campy and very, very funny.
** Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Screwball 1960s comedy with an all-star cast.  A must-see.
** The Gold Rush Classic silent film starring Charlie Chaplin as the Little Tramp in the Alaska gold rush.  Slow-paced by modern standards, but well worth watching.
** Arsenic and Old Lace. Two sweet old ladies have a deadly secret..  
** Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, classic 1960s romantic comedy.  
Any movie featuring the Marx Brothers such as A Night at the Opera or Monkey Business.  All are slow by modern standards, so be patient and wait for the funny parts.
** The Music Box short film featuring Laurel and Hardy moving a piano up an endless flight of stairs.  A must-see.
** assorted Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, or Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoons.  Bugs Bunny, Roadrunner, etc.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by The Reduced Shakespeare Company.  Spoofs of the Bard's plays
West Bank Story.  Re-telling of the classic musical West Side Story with Palestinians and Israelis.  Download this very short film from iTunes for $3.  It helps to have seen the movie West Side Story.

Will become classics:  
** Raiders of the Lost Ark now renamed Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Swashbuckling adventure
** Back to the Future.  A fun time-travel romp but don't take the "science" seriously.  If you like it, watch both sequels.
Dave.  An ordinary American becomes the acting President of the United States.  Fun yet thought-provoking.
Big. A 13-year-old boy wishes he were grown up. His wish comes true, but he's not ready for the adult world.