Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey

Jasper Jones is a rebellious, mixed-race, solitary boy living in a small town in Australia in 1965.  If anything goes wrong in the town the cry goes out "Jasper must have done it!"  When he makes a terrible discovery he turns to Charlie for help.  Charlie is a bookish thirteen year old boy and doesn't know why Jasper has come to him for help.

Together they carry the secret of the discovery trying to find the truth.

Charlie is having problems of his own with his tempestuous mother, his first love and he has to hide the truth from his cricket mad, best friend Jeffry Lu.

Along the way Jasper finds out things about his own family that have been buried hidden for too.

This book is a great read and won the 2010 ABIA Book of the Year Award and was also the winner of the Booksellers Choice Award.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

The Reluctant Fundamentalist, by Mohsin Hamid, is the story of Changez, a Muslim from Pakistan, who wins a scholarship to Princeton University and then acquires a job with a prestigious firm in New York.  He tells you about his life and family in Pakistan and his new life in New York but after 9/11 attitudes towards foreigners start to change and Changez starts to think about his life in New York and steadily becomes disillusioned.  Finally he leaves his job and returns to Pakistan ......

This book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007 and has just been released as a movie.