The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Especially the appendices.
It has not aged well - it is a book written by two dudes who were the editors for the Playboy letters column in the swinging sixties, who kept getting piles and piles of far-right-wing-nutjob conspiracy tracts and decided to write a book asking "hey what if all this crazy shit was all true" - but it poked some interesting holes in my reality.
I loved this book as a college freshman. It was witty and funny, and made fun of every conspiracy under the sun.
I tried to read it again recently, and couldn't get in to it. Conspiracies are everywhere these days, and so have become a bit blase...
In the pre-internet days the book was a treasure trove of interesting trivia about various events events throughout history. But today we're drowning in such historical trivia, which is all over the internet.
Drugs also play a central role in the book, and while they were pretty taboo in the 80's and 90's, today with the legalization of pot and the Psychedelic Renaissance, books featuring positive depictions of psychedelic drug use are just not as fresh or transgressive.
I still give credit to the books for opening my eyes on a lot of these subjects, of which I was completely clueless about when I read it, and if you're young and this is all new to you, you might enjoy it too.
It has not aged well - it is a book written by two dudes who were the editors for the Playboy letters column in the swinging sixties, who kept getting piles and piles of far-right-wing-nutjob conspiracy tracts and decided to write a book asking "hey what if all this crazy shit was all true" - but it poked some interesting holes in my reality.