A very happy birthday to youuuuuu

Happy birthday, ryuutsurugi!

A call for book recs

I need book recommendations! For a friend of mine, though personal recs are always welcome too. She's read both The Handmaid's Tale and 1984 and loved both, so more dystopias? She dislikes high fantasy and seems open to cross-genre things. I've already rec'd Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. (And she also reads chick-lit novels--Twilight series, I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter. Not sure about other tastes.)

Ideas?

ETA: Should mention that she's been previously dissatisfied by "girly" and genre novels. I'm trying to show her good examples of such, though.

Current list, in no particular order (books I've read personally are marked with a *):
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
Four Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
Fledgling by Octavia Butler
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
*The Giver by Lois Lowry
*Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
Specials by Scott Westerfeld
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
*The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
*A Brother's Price by Wen Spencer
New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear
Carnival by Elizabeth Bear
*The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro

Boldthrough '07

I haven't figured out my stance on this yet, and there are too many good links to collect, but here are two that I find indispensable.

erestor's Meta: LJ - it's not about the kids - it's about us.
I quote: "'Obscenity' is the perfect tool to weed out everything that doesn't fit in a nice, clean, straight, male-dominated and preferably white world."

jupiter_star's An open letter to Livejournal.
On contradictory statements by LJ/6A, and legality issues.