Back to the original topic...
I only read fiction these days. I get enough nonfiction reading at university to completely turn me away from anything requiring brain power at home. So for fictional purposes I would suggest anything by Robertson Davies, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Douglas Coupland, Carol Shields, W. O. Mitchell, W. P. Kinsella. Farley Mowat kind of crosses the fiction-nonfiction line. I just read Black Robe by Brian Moore and it was really good. (You may notice most of these authors are Canadian - I have been reading mostly Canadian authors these last few years because I can relate to them more than US authors, which I unknowingly overdosed on as a child.)
For junky mystery books which you can read in one afternoon, I would suggest the Maggody series by Joan Hess, the Aunt Dimity series by Nancy Atherton, the Her Majesty investigates series by C. C. Benison. I also read a book about cat crimes once but couldn't seem to track down the rest of the series.
