The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett
Somebody is trapped in an odd existence and wonders what is going on with him and the outside world. It is a weird rambling experience. I found this one more accessible than the others in the trilogy. Trying to find a plot is next to impossible, but the rambling is interesting.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Tim Robbins may be famous, but his audiobook narration is not the easiest to follow. In this classic story, Guy Montag is a fireman. With everything fireproof, the job of the fireman is to burn books rather than put out fires. They have even rewritten history to say that historical figures, like Ben Franklin, were similar firemen.
On one trip, the fireman encounter a person that wants to stay with their books. Montag also ends up with a book of his own. He is traumatized by the experience, and becomes attached to books. He later seeks others that like books and joins the underground. In the process he frames others and becomes sentimental towards books and knowledge. The fireman concept seems a little far-fetched, but it does play into the preachy nostalgia of the book.
Casino Royale (James Bond 1) by Ian Fleming
This is the first James Bond book. There is high stakes gambling, a narrow avoidance of death and romance. The novel is fairly short. There doesn't seem to be as much action as I would expect from the movie. Bond also has his upper-crust snobbery. there are the proper cuban cigars as well as the details of the card games. He does show uncharacteristic weakness - he is ready to leave the service and mary his love interest. However, that ends up becoming a moot point. The novel is not great, but I can see why it was popular. The most intense "action" sequence is probably when he makes moves to avoid getting shot at the card table (right as he is at the point of bankrupting his opposition spy opponent.)
Catcher in the Rye (1951) and Teddy (1953) by J.D. Salinger
[originally from 1991-1992]
Most literary works delineate the lives of superhuman characters: people who achieve monumental goals in the face of great adversity, yet still respect the idiosyncrasies of man. Salinger's characters, however, follow a different path. They keep in touch with reality, and rarely accomplish anything extraordinary in the eyes of men. They attack the rules of society, and become victories only by escaping from its confines.
The character that comes closest to achieving public prominence is Teddy, the ten year old prodigy. The world's major universities interview him, tapes of his mediational thoughts are played at parties, and he corresponds with many distinguished professors. Even though he has a cult falling, Teddy is oblivious to the world. He is dressed in a tattered shirt that's too big for him, coupled with non matching pants; he attempts to avoid conversation by choosing an isolated seat. He is fascinated by the orange peels floating out the 'window', and feels no need to correctly refer to his looking spot as a 'portal'. Through meditation, Teddy has achieved peace with himself, and has no need for the world's knowledge. His philosophy entails the deletion of all knowledge to achieve a greater state of consciousness where a square is not necessarily a square. He has fought and won the war against the world, and rejoices the opportunity to leave the battlefield.
Similarly, Holden Caulfield was fighting his own war. Throughout Catcher in the Rye, Caulfield figuratively spat upon the world of sycophant conformists. However, unlike the most nonconformists, he shows a great deal of respect for true followers of organized religion. The catholic nuns he meets are among the few outsiders he respects. He feels obligated to provide them with a monetary assistance, because he realizes that they are doing what they feel they believe in, and are not 'fake' (like the man who played Christ in the Christmas pageant). In addition to disliking the actor who "couldn't wait to smoke a cigarette after he got down from the cross", Caulfield despised the majority of the prep school personnel. They were phony, thrilled by there own bombastic tautology, and reluctant to impart any useful knowledge to the students. Indeed, Caulfield was much like the Dead Poet's Society students: he was inspired by a few thought-provoking teachers, and thus decided to drop his sycophancy in favor of an expression of true thoughts. Unfortunately, society was unwilling to accept someone critical of its fallacies, and he was not ready to completely ostracize himself from it.
Holden's younger brother, Allie, had the strength to remove himself from the binds of society. Unlike other baseball players, who felt it was necessary to bore themselves waiting in the outfield, Allie occupied himself with poetry inscribed on his glove. In addition to meditating upon his 'baseball glove' poetry, he also pursued many other avenues of learning, and was (in Holden's eyes) a 'perfect child' before he was abruptly taken from the earth. He was probably good friends with Teddy, and felt great relief that he could be taken from the earth to join his friend in a place more fitting to their intellects. However, he probably turned over in his grave when he saw all the unknown relatives, who waited for a supposed catastrophe to pay homage to him.
Salinger's characters were constrained by the rules of society, and attempted to overcome them. Some, such as Holden, had stayed too long, and were overcome by enticing facets of society and forced to stay. Others, like Allie and Teddy, had completed their trial on earth by overcoming the uselessness of society, and were taken away.
Caves of steel in six sentences: A cop is assigned a robot for a companion. They attempt to crack a murder case in "space town". The cop goes down a lot of false paths, manifesting his robot prejudice. Eventually he helps crack the case. The robot was not able to identify the culprit because his brain analysis did not reveal the guilt. However, the human realized an accidental killing would not manifest the guilt. 
