Clay’s Ark by Octavia Butler

Interesting contrast – we have a not-too-distant future where people live in enclaves and everyone else is predatory scum and yet a manned spacecraft powered by particle physics and psionics makes it to Proxima Centauri Two and back with an alien symbiont.

Same theme: humans driven by imposed compulsions battle to retain some vestige of humanity.

Very readable. When I say 'readable' I mean you don't *need* to look where you're going when you're walking to work right?