What is your favorite book about culture(s), fiction and nonfiction, and why?

Ooh, I have a couple of these. I really love Wild Swans, which is a story about three generations of chinese women in the 20th century, and I'm currently reading a more modern book called 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth, by Xialou Gou which is again about women in China. Another I read, Real World by Kirino Natsuo is about Japanese students and their reactions to certain aspects of their life.

Mostly when I think about cultural books I think of books that explore cultures I'm not familiar with, so these are the ones that come to mind. They're all fiction. Fiction is a great way of depicting culture because it explores things in a way that non fiction can't because you can be more attached to the people involved, without sacrificing historical accuracy, and you can talk about the way people feel about culture and not just the culture as a whole.

One non-fiction book that I do love that touches on culture is called The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten-Boom, and it's an autobiography by a woman whose family sheltered Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland, and her experiences in a concentration camp.