City of Illusions - Ursula K. LeGuin (The Hainish Chronicles, Bk. 3)

Each one of these gets better than the last. I love the long-term effects this series uses to make such power points.  This is by far the best of the series with lots of mind games and references to the other books. This book is part survival story, part taming the wild, part mystery, part science fiction, a wonderful combination of themes.  It is intense without being overwhelming.
If you read these books, I strongly recommend reading them back to back to ensure you catch the details.

I am Malala: The Girl who Stood up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban - Christina Lamb & Malala Yousafzai

This is an amazing story and everyone should read this book.
I remember that the first time I heard the basics about Malala, I was so angry.  I'm still angry. Little men using God as an excuse to hurt others because those men are worthless and use violence to make themselves feel special.  I wish I could personally shove them into the gaping pit where they belong. But I digress....
This book does a good job of showing Malala as a normal girl. Each step of her journey by itself doesn't seem significant, but they all add up. She has and continues to use her story to do amazing work.
The book ends with her UN speech, which you can watch here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SClmL43dTo

If you too want to fight terrorism AND help uplift the downtrodden, you can donate here:
https://www.malala.org/

The best part is religious extremism flourishes when the population is uneducated.  Education, especially of girls, stomps out the ignorance that makes terrorism seem like a viable career.  Malala is destroying terrorism in her home country by helping people. It's so simple.
I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Planet of Exile - Ursula K. LeGuin (The Hainish Chronicles, Bk. 2)

The genealogy of this series is my favorite part.  To jump around so far in time and see how ancient actions continue to influence people's actions. 
This book was a little more desperate fighting, think GoT, than the last. I liked this one more than the first.  Typically, "the classics" of any genre are boring because those early books didn't have to get weird/creative, but LeGuin's books are delightfully original despite their age. 
I would still recommend to anyone who likes scifi.

Rocannon's World - Ursula K. Le Guin (The Hainish Chronicles, Bk. 1)

Good, but not life altering.  I noticed several similarities between this book and the Ender series.  Card obviously drew from Le Guin: the careful thought about time travel and how one would communicate vs move a living thing through space, the crazy species, the exploration process, the misunderstanding.  I hadn't heard of her until I started this book, but now having seen the similarities between her world and Card's, I will read more of her work.
This book's pace went up and down, occasionally it wasn't able to hold my interest yet at other times it was riveting.
Considered as one of the classic science fiction writers, I would recommend this book to all my sci-fi friends.