What books, outside the realm of Theology and Church history, what classics do you recommend reading, and why?
By books not to be discussed in this section - "theology" and "Church history", I don't mean books that are existentialist and talk about God's existence, or even a book where Christianity is thematic- I mean books that are directly and explicitly about Christianity, Church history, theology, apologia, etc.
I'll start with a couple of mine. They are arguably not the most dense / artsy books, but they are books where, upon reading, I was like "Yep, almost everything this guy says is superb, and I can't really argue against it."
Tocqueville's "Democracy in America." These were two essays by the 19th century French diplomat, Alexis de Tocqueville, who was visiting America to learn about how France could be successful from it and where it couldn't be. While he was there to learn about what America did well, he had clear sympathies to the French Monarchy before the Revolution, and therefore, gives a very objective reading and comparison of American and French society. Not only are his observations about American society spot on such that they are relevant to this day, but I think many of his ideas on human nature were so revolutionary that they forever changed the fields of Psychology and Sociology.
Huxley's "Brave New World." This book was by philosopher (and libertine) Aldous Huxley, and describes a society years from now where there is a strict crony-capitalist totalitarianism and biologically real hierarchical structure, and human beings who aren't at the very top are stuck in an uneducated pleasure society where their lives are dictated by purposeless sex, food, entertainment, drugs (pleasure pills called "Soma"), where the family unit is abolished and the society is constructed towards efficiency. There are remnants of prior civilizations in what are known as the "Savage Reservations," where, despite the fact that the Savages have forgotten the past, they still try to maintain the traditional norms of religion, God, chivalry, family, suffering, culture. The book's plot is that a woman from the pleasure "Brave New World" is left behind in the Savage Reservation and she gives birth to a son there named "John," who is raised on the Savage Reservation and grows up there, but then is taken back to the "Brave New World" (which is what John calls it, quoting Shakespeare), where a clash of the two civilizations occurs. The book says a lot about human nature and the growing industrialization/pleasure society that Huxley felt that the world was heading towards.
