Im looking for some good books to read. Details inside?

Ghost Boy by Ian Lawrence

Seven Deadly Sins series by Robin Wasserman

Naughts & Crosses series by Malorie Blackman

Uglies saga by Scott Westerfeld

The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory

Children of the River by Linda Crew

Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz

The Vampire Diaires by L.J. Smith

You're getting a lot of good suggestions. I like your question though, so I'm going to throw out a few more.

A Canticle for Leibowitz ~ Walter M. Miller

The Handmaid's Tale (and others) ~ Margaret Atwood

The Stars My Destination ~ Alfred Bester

All the Kings Men ~ Robert Penn Warren

The U.S.A. Trilogy ~ John Dos Passos

Babbitt ~ Sinclair Lewis

One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich ~ Alexander Solzhenitzyn

Atlas Shrugged ~ Ayn Rand

A Bonfire of the Vanities ~ Tom Wolfe

Alas Babylon ~ Pat Frank

Triumph ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

The Mouse That Roared ~ Leonard Wibberley

Another Roadside Attraction ~ Tom Robbins

For Whom the Bell Tolls ~ Ernest Hemingway

In Cold Blood ~ Truman Capote

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee ~ Dee Brown

This may look like a really random list but it actually isn't. I think you'd find a lot here to interest you. Good luck with your search.

You have already read some good, and sophisticated, books, and bravo for wanting more. Let me suggest the following writers:

Graham Green. His books vary in setting but often deal with a corrupt government. Try The Power and the Glory.

William Trevor. He is one of today's better fiction writers. Corrupt government? Try Fools of Fortune.

Robert Penn Warren. All the King's Men is a classic American novel about corruption in government.

A couple of different angles are provided by women novelists, including:

Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale.

Ursula Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness.

Finally, in another very different setting (India), you could consider:

Rohinton Mistry: A Fine Balance.

I think you will find any of these compelling, morally complex, and thought-provoking. They are, in the best sense, books for adults and thinkers.

Think how much the worlds of entertainment and culture rely on political corruption for plots . . . Broadening your search, I would recommend Chinatown and Lone Star in the movie department and the opera Tosca.

Good luck!

--The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. A coming-of-age story about a member of the Spokane tribe, which Alexie is, and there are many similarities between his youth and this really very fine book.

It hits all the right buttons with an Indian's apparent insouciance, which is the surface, not the whole. The surface and the whole are in this book.

http://www.shermanalexie.com/

--Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore, also author of

--A Dirty Job, an author who is in many way taking up Vonnegut's mantle. The first book mentioned really hit it for me, though A Dirty Job is no fool's work, either.

http://www.chrismoore.com/

--Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson; a cyberspace (also called cyberpunk) marvel of a book. Great reading.

http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/

--Neuromancer by Gibson is a book I'm just starting-- but the blurbs say this award-winner started him on his cyberspace race.

ADD: the books recommended as by Abbey and Toole in particular are good.

--That reminds me: no one has yet mentioned John Irving, who writes some really great books too. --*Setting Free the Bears (deals with corruption; war)* is my favorite by him, though --The World According to Garp is very good as well.

Try reading "The Withern Rise Trilogy by Michael Lawrence". (First book: A Crack in the Line; 2nd: Small Eternities; last: The Underwood See)

It's not about a corrupt government, but it IS thought provoking. I really enjoyed reading it. C:

Hmmmm.... I'm not sure if these would be up your alley, but I'll suggest them anyway.

Crank & Glass: About a teenage girl's struggle with a meth addiction.

Burned: About a teenage girl whose father is abusive and what happens when she is sent to live with her aunt.

Impulse: About three suicidal teenagers who become unlikely friends. Told in alternating points-of-view.

All these are by Ellen Hopkins. She writes in free-verse poetry.

Her fifth novel, Identical, is due out August 26, 2008. It's about a set of twins who have a sexually abuse father.

She's also given some information about her next novel, which will be called Tricks, and about teenage prositution. Not much else is known about this book.

Hope these help!!

EDIT: The suggestions by Froot Loop are really good! I love Sold, Life As We Knew It, and The Giver; definitely listen to that recommendation.

Everything by Chuck Palahniuk is awesome. Other than FIght Club, my favorite is Invisible Monsters. I know. You said don't list them. Sorry.

You could really challenge yourself with "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court" by Mark Twain.

Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener"

Richard Adams' "Watership Down"

"This Side of Paradise" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Charlie's favorite. =] Oh perks.)

aaaand...

Try the original Lewis Caroll "Through the Looking Glass" and "The Adventures of Alice In Wonderland"

Edit: If you are looking for the corrupt government/thought provoking thing, DEFINITELY go for "Connecticut Yankee" and "Watership Down" as listed above. =]

Run, don't walk -- or I guess type fast to get to Amazon and get "Uncaged" by Joe Gazzam. I just finished this thing and it may be one of the best books I've ever read AND it's an action-y thriller, which doesn't seem to go together. But it totally does. Sooooo good.

The 8

Try ..... The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers or anything by Ernest Hemingway