Fredric Brown’s The Fabulous Clipjoint. Also, in effect, The Screaming Mimi.
If you can find copies try The Book of Skulls and Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg
If you like whodunits: Ed McBain’s Matthew Hope’s mysteries, Andrew Vachss’s Burke’s mysteries, and Kinky Friedman’s Kinky Friedman’s mysteries. They are, in order: very realistict, very roman noir, and very funny and absurd. They are also the three people I hope write about 9/11 some day.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.
I have recently read, and greatly enjoyed, a novel called Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream by John Derbyshire, that may be the kind of thing you’re looking for.