My favorite of the year would be Maxim Gorky's three-part autobiography: I read "Childhood" and "In the World" (a.k.a. "Amid Attendants") and just started the last part "My Universities". Gorky drifted as an orphan from house and job to another and describes an interesting array of characters he came across, mostly poor and misfortunate, but many of them good as well.

"He took me under the arms, lifted me up, kissed me, and placed me firmly on the jetty. I was sorry for him and for myself. I could hardly keep from crying when I saw him returning to the steamer, pushing aside the porters, looking so large, heavy, solitary. So many times since then I have met people like him, kind, lonely, cut off from the lives of other people."