If you like humour and can at the very least tolerate sci-fi, then you should definitely look into 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and it's sequels by Douglas Adams. That book is so unbelievably funny, I was literally laughing out loud while reading it on several occasions. Seriously, at least check them out once. But for slightly less obvious humour book, (though it's still quite funny) try the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. It's a fantasy series, and the way the books are depicted their city/country sort of mirrors our world. They're wonderfully characterized and well thought out, I definitely reccomend them. The Sherlock Holmes series deserve a mention in this thread as well. Go read them. Now. Arthur Conan Doyle also wrote some other short stories, and they're pretty good, too. And if I may be biased for a moment, the Alien Chronicles series by Deborah Chester just plain rocked. Very dramatic at times, and the world depicted was, like Discworld, very believable and well described.