I'll elaborate a bit, so maybe someone will actually go and read the books I mentioned.
-
The Poor Mouth is Flann O'Brian's answer to the typical "romantic misery" that Irish literature is quite well-known for. A pretty descriptive quote from
here: "The Poor Mouth relates the story of one Bonaparte O'Coonassa, born in a cabin in a fictitious village called Corkadoragha in western Ireland equally renowned for its beauty and the abject poverty of its residents. Potatoes constitute the basis of his family's daily fare, and they share both bed and board with the sheep and pigs. A scathing satire on the Irish, this work brought down on the author's head the full wrath of those who saw themselves as the custodians of Irish language and tradition when it was first published in Gaelic in 1941."
I was laughing aloud while reading it.
-
The Third Policeman is a strange, existential book. There's a story of the narrator meeting people like two policemen, of whom the first one has his own atomic theory (that involves bicycles), and the other is making chests that go inside each other, and of which the smallest ones are so small that you can't even see them. Simultaneously there are exceprts and explanations of the philosophy and research of "de Selby", the most insane scientist/philosopher the world has ever known (more info about him can be found for example
here).
- Mikhail Bulgakov's
The Master and Margarita is a true Russian classic, but not in the heavy "War and Peace" style. The Master and Margarita is a story of Satan and his henchmen coming to Moscow and causing quite a bit of confusion among the people. Simultaneously an account of things leading to Jesus' crusifixion is related. All the characters are described extremely well, and the humour is just splendid.
This is one of the best books I've ever read, and I find it a shame that it isn't known very well. There's a free eBook over
here.