Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins
The first thing you notice in Robbins' work is how freakin' smart the guy is. Pure knowledge oozes out of his pen onto the paper (Yes, he writes first on paper). I'm a sucker for useless knowledge. I like to feel I'm well versed in that arena (just ask the people who have played me in Trivial Pursuit), so naturally he "had me at hello"-so to speak. Eventually you grasp the importance of the factoids that lace his stories, perhaps making the useless knowledge, useful. Ah ha!