I'm trying to find an "obscure" book to recommend to a wide audience, but nothing I can think of is right. Either the book is already known among the kind of people who like that kind of book, so that I look dumb for thinking it's obscure to anyone, or it's so obscure that it actually wouldn't be liked by a wide audience, and I'd look either pretentious or utterly eccentric for recommending that people read, for instance, "Tales of a Rat-Hunting Man." It is a bit of a brainteaser. I could absolutely cop out by suggesting that this wide audience sit down and read "Moby-Dick," which is not obscure but which goes unread. I'll see if this particular cop-out is needed. Because part of the pressure on this assignment is that the assignment is not actually to recommend a book but to take part in a conversation about recommending a book, and fit into the conversation such that it will continue. This has never been my strong suit, keeping a conversation going.