These are the books I recommend to anyone/everyone, books that I keep on my shelf and have happily re-read multiple times in my life:

for non-fiction, anything by Daniel C. Dennett, but especially Consciousness Explained. Life-changing book, seriously.

for fiction, Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume and Carl Sagan's Contact (which fwiw is quite a bit more engaging than the 1997 film based on the novel).