My favorite three books of all time are a trilogy written by Zilpha Keatley Snyder in the late 70s. The books are written as fantasies but are somewhat thinly disguised political views of the author. When I first read the books (age 9 or so) I didn't catch on to the social allusions & implications but rereading the books as an adult I can clearly see them. The books take place on another planet called "Green Sky," to which it later becomes clear that the race of characters on the planet has fled to, to avoid certain death with the destruction of their home planet. These people live in giant trees and glide through the light gravity wearing robes that function as wings, called "shubas". Apperently, the people in power (the "Ol-Zhaan") have been keeping a secret from the common people (called "Kindar") and when a new young boy, Raamo, is appointed to become a new member of the reverant Ol-Zhaan, his "spirit skills" (especially the ability to read others' minds, called "pensing") help him on the path of discovering what is not said. I was intrigued and enjoyed every moment of reading these three books and I highly recommend them even though they are out of print and somewhat hard to find. I have found them at libraries, rarely, and sometimes at used bookstores, and Amazon has the ability to try to find them for you. Their titles are:

• Below the Root
• And All Between
• Until the Celebration

• "Ten Stupid Things Women do to Mess Up their Lives" by Dr. Laura Schlessinger
• "Ten Stupid Things Men do to Mess Up their Lives" by Dr. Laura Schlessinger

• "Guilty by Reason of Insantiy: A Psychiatrist Explores the Minds of Killers" by Dorothy Otnow Lewis - this book is the nonfiction recollection of a doctor's various cases during her career that explores the notion that an insane person is responsible legally (ie "guilty") but in a different way than a "sane" criminal - and proposes the idea that there are NO sane murdurers
• "The Alienist" by Caleb Carr - a fictional story taking place in the late 19th century about how a psychiatrist (then called an 'alienist') for the first time becomes involved in a police investigation to find a murderer, developing as he works the art of criminal profiling. Teddy Roosevelt is the police commissioner in New York City at the time this novel takes place, and although the storyline is fiction, the author, an historian, presents a very accurate picture of life in those times (and in fact his research and presentation of information about the art and/or science of criminal profiling rings true to myself at least as well.)