Try some Samuel R. Delany; he's one of the real pioneers of postmodern sci-fi. "Nova" is a really good place to start with him. If you've got time, "Dhalgren" is also a spectacular read, though at eight hundred pages, it's not for the casual reader.

Naomi Klein's "Fences and Windows" is a great counter-point to Thomas Friedman's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", but both are required reading for anyone interested in globalisation and its boons and banes.

A great biography I read in the last few months was Martin Amis's "Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million". It's particularly interesting, since Amis' father, Kingsley Amis, was in the British Communist Party for twelve years.

That should be enough for now. The problem with working in a bookstore is that my to-read pile is perpetually almost as tall as I am.

***Links***

"Nova":

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375706704/ref=nosim/

"Dhalgren":

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375706682/ref=nosim/

"Fences and Windows":

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312307993/ref=nosim/

"The Lexus and the Olive Tree":