This link goes to the review I wrote in my LiveJournal of An African in Greenland . I think the OP would enjoy this book, because he mentions several books that were written by “unexpected” authors. This memoir is about exactly what it’s title claims to be about, an African guy who moves to Greenland. It’s fascinating.
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas (aka Epitaph of a Small Winner), by 19th-century Brazilian writer Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis. If Tristram Shandy had been written by a 19th century Brazilian whose father was descended from slaves and whose mother was a washerwoman, and if it started at the end of the protagonist’s life instead of at his conception, and if it were much more pessimistic, it might have looked a lot like The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas. Also recommend Dom Casmurro, by the same author.
Hey! I read and really enjoyed both of those books. Really, really good. I second the recomendation.
A Fan’s Notes was famous once upon a time. Fame is fleeting.
I was going to give a few more books like that but that’s not what the OP asked for. So,
Pamela Wharton Blanpied, Dragons: An Introduction to the Modern Infestation
Dmitri A. Borgmann, Beyond Language
Jack Butler, Jujitsu for Christ
Bill Carmichael, Incredible Collectors, Weird Antiques, and Odd Hobbies
Smokestack El Ropo’s Bedside Reader
Edmund G. Love, Arsenic and Red Tape
Mark Ramsden, The Dungeonmaster’s Apprentice
Gesta Romanorum, or Entertaining Moral Stories translated by Charles Swan and Wynnard Hooper
Non-fiction (which you should read every once in a while, you know): Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams (yes, that Douglas Adams) and Mark Carwardine
Fiction: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore - not at all what you might think it is
You don’t remember the secret of the sacred eggplant (which is an actual historical document, BTW. As a matter of fact, Ebeneezer Cooke did exist and did write a poem named “The Sot-Weed Factor.”)?
I think the English candy scene is the single funniest scene in English literature (not counting plays). It was one of the few things that made me laugh out loud every time I read it. And you never did the Kenosha, Kid.
My standard recommendation in these threads: The English Passengers. You can add several Dopers to the list of people who have thanked me for telling them about it.
I just picked up All The Names by Jose Saramago at a tag sale for $1.00. It sounded very intriguing. Maybe I should move it up in my To-Be-Read pile.
My favorite scene in Gravity’s Rainbow is the huge orgy onboard the Anubis as it floats down the Rhine river, if only for the phrase “There was a general withdrawing from orfices.”
Thought of another couple:
Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iragi Village
Objects of Desire: The Lives of Antiques and Those Who Pursue Them
Athena, aside from the person who pressed a copy of Monster Dogs into my hands, you’re the first person I’ve met who has read it. Wow. Thanks for removing the feeling that I’m the only person in the world who has heard of it.
“I never did.”
–The Kenosha Kid
And let’s not forget the law firm of Saltieri, Poore, Nash, DeBrutus, and Short.
I didn’t see these mentioned, but I surely must have missed them. :rolleyes:
The Alexandria Quartet (Justine , Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea) by Lawrence Durrell
The Magus, The Collector and French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles He also wrote some interesting non-fiction like, * The Aristos: A Self-Portrait of Ideas* and The Enigma of Stonehenge.
James Clavel’s Sho-gun and the rest of his Asia Saga
Aztec, Raptor, and The Journeyer by Gary Jennings
Great posts, so far I think we’re up to almost 60 titles, and several authors whose various works I should check out.
I think I’m aiming for at least 100; non-fiction is important, I agree, and if you look at the list of other previous recc. you’ll see a lot of those titles, but anything is good- this is just one of those posts I do to keep my thread at the top of the page 
Another vote for The Sot-Weed Factor.
A book that i’m sure you’ve heard of, but that has not been mentioned in your lists or in this thread: Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
As an American historian, i have to recommend a few autobiographies and other works by important historical figures:[ul]
[li]Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (already on one of your lists)[/li][li]Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography[/li][li]Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave[/li][li]Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House[/li][li]W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk[/li][li]Hector St. J. Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer[/li][/ul]
Also, a book that gets trashed by many literary types, but is historically important and, i think, underrated as a piece of literature: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Finally, in deference to my background, a quick plug for an Australian author (or two):[ul]
[li]Xavier Herbert, Capricornia (novel)[/li][li]Jill Kerr Conway, The Road from Coorain (memoir/autobiography)[/li][li]Bernard Smith, The Boy Adeodatus: Portrait of a Lucky Young Bastard (memoir/autobiography)[/li]the novels of Peter Carey[/ul]
Put me down as another vote for Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
In a similar vein (once incredibly popular books which are rarely read today), I suggest Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick, both for style (believe it or not, the book is genuinely funny in places) and for a look at NY City in the 1800s, including childhood homelessness, Wall Street, anti-Irish stereotypes (one of Tom’s nemeses is Mickey McGuire, and he resides with a slovenly Irish landlady at one point) and con artists. Even better: Tom and a young friend visit the site where Central Park is being constructed! I was on quite a Horatio Alger kick for several years. If you can’t lay hands on a reprint, you can easily buy an old copy of **Ragged Dick ** on Ebay. (There are many other titles out there, but Ragged Dick is the best, IMHO.)
I also heartily recommend Jessica Mitford’s **The American Way of Death ** (non-fiction), an old expose’ of the funeral industry. It was updated sometime in the 80s. but I’d go with the original version if you can get your hands on it. If I wanted to give young people an insight into the way business really works in this country, I’d go with this book.
Under the Skin, by Michel Faber. It is disturbing, could make you laugh or cry or be sick depending on your mood and which part of it you’re reading at the time. I’ve never forgotten it and it’s been nearly four years since I read it.
Most of these aren’t obscure and a couple are actually compilations of short stories, but they are some of my favorite books – the ones that stuck around when Mom made me clear out my bookcases.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind is one of the best books I’ve read in years. It has some very interesting things to say about identity – tying it up with scent to a sort of aura of self-knowledge/identity. The writing is incredibly lush, too, rather like a good perfume.
You’ve no doubt already read Dubliners by James Joyce, but if you haven’t, you should.
I found Impossible Saints by Michele Roberts to be excellent. The Passion by Jeannette Winterson falls into the same genre. Rain of Scorpions and Other Stories by Estela Portillo Trambley sort of falls into the same category (calling it women’s lit demeans them somehow), but it usually is classified as Chicano lit.
Machiavelli’s The Prince, just because an English major with a minor in history should read it.
Wisconsin Death Trip is fascinating. Completely destroys any concept you had of an idyllic Midwest at the turn of the 19th century. Plus it has pictures!
I also recommend picking up some of Christopher Marlowe’s plays, since most English classes go something like, “Shakespeare wrote a lot of plays and was the greatest playwright the English speaking world has ever known. He was magnificent, a veritable God of English literary virtue. Also, Kit Marlowe wrote some stuff.” I’m not arguing that Shakespeare wasn’t magnificent, but, jeez, cut the guy who gave us Dr. Faustus some slack.
Finally, if you’ve read up on Engels and Marx and other 19th century German philosophers, I suggest you pick up Freedom & Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bull. It’s an epistolary novel set in the early Victorian period, against the seamy world of industrial England. It’s not quite as profound as the other books suggested, but you should get a kick out of it after reading Engels . . . who I see isn’t actually on your list. Um. Read F&N anyway.
I cannot tell you how happy I am that Mists of Avalon is on your list. Yay!
Magnalia Christi Americana, by Cotton Mather
Fart Proudly, by Benjamin Franklin
Edgar Huntley, by Charles Brockton Brown (proto-mystery novel during the days of the Indian uprisings)
The Confidence Man: His Masquerade, by Herman Melville
The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, by Leo Marx
Politics and the English Language, by George Orwell (an essay)
Let Your Mind Alone!, by James Thurber (insightful and hilarious)
A Childhood: The Biography of a Place, by Harry Crews
Dien Cai Dau, by Yusef Komunyakaa (poems by a VietNam vet from New Orleans)
Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment, by WS Merwin (poetry)
First, and I am not being hostile, I am rather curious why you felt the need to identify yourself as Caucasion American Male. Do Whitebreads have a different reading level or interest than your Average Black Guy or Average Jose or Chen? Just saying you are almost 20 and in college gives us a pretty good picture already. ( It’s of a drunken frat boy, if you want to know 
)
Here on the Dope ( and the rest of the world but they are a little slow on the uptake.) color isn’t an issue, it is a compliment. Comprende?
Secondly, YAY for you on deciding to expand your horizons in reading Great Stuff.
Remember, with every Great Book, there are about 5 books after it that will be utter and complete shit.
My humble suggestion: (Though, if you want a romance novel suggestion list…I could whip that out in no time.)
Whoa, tiger! You’re reading a lot into his little bio (which I would have rendered as “19 year old white guy”). I don’t see any insult to anyone there, even though I also wondered why he sensed the need for it.