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Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle. Ostentaciously sci-fi, about a US government attempt to create alternate crystal structures of water, one of which, ice-9, causes all water it touches to immediately assume the same form, interspersed with words of wisdom from a Carribean mystic. Really, Slaughterhouse-5 or Sirens of Titan also deserve a nod here
I mean, you can't go wrong with ANY of those, and I'd add Breakfast of Champions to the list as well. Vonnegut is amazing.I'd recommend the later two over CC, maybe because I read them first, but I remember Slaughterhouse 5 being unlike anything I had ever read (which is all of Vonnegut's work really) and Sirens of Titan had just a sort of hilarity to it through and how all the pieces come together just blew me away and really made me question if a well written book like that are actually the highest form of art (which is an entirely subjective argument to have because you could easily find someone to define the pinnacles of other mediums as well)
- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest. Hands down my favorite author - I'm not even going to try to describe the plot beyond that a central plot point is Canadian seperatists obtaining and threatening to broadly distribute a film so entertaining that it destroys the viewers's minds, causing them to want nothing else beyond repeated viewings. Wallace is smarter than anyone else in the room and not afraid to let you know it (the book has nearly 300 footnotes, many of which actually advance the plot), but philosophically takes the stance that sarcasm and irony are a modern device to prevent us from engaging emotionally, and must be fought at all costs.
- Picking the last one is tough, but let's end on a light note - Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe. I think the bowl of petunias and sperm whale from the first book are one of the high points of modern comic literature, all the more so because the last book actually answers the question they pose.
The internet has done a lot to convince us of the exact opposite. I'll put that on the list of books to google at some point. As well as some others in here.most people would like to talk to you and would love for you to introduce them to others too.