Reading Recommendation Request

For research, I’m looking for a few book recommendations.

1) I am shamefully ignorant of all things African mythology/folklore (except, stereotypically, Egypt).  I want to fix this.  I’m interested more in fleshed out retellings than dry notes about details.  Something like what this book did for Norse Mythology, where you get a nice prose retelling with academic/anthropological notes about context, culture etc., in footnotes and the appendix, would be great.  Honestly, I won’t care about the academic details until after I care about the story, and most of what I’m finding on my own does a general, “In Western Africa you get myths about these characters who do these things.  In Central Africa, it’s similar, except more root vegetables.”  Nobody actually tells stories this way – some anthropologist committed murder in collecting those summaries.  A fabricated retelling (with good research and notes) is much, much more desirable than re-polished notes collected by a dead white guy.

2) Has anybody run across a book that rendered either telepathy or computers talking to each other across a network, while verbal communication is happening in the same scene, particularly well?  I am failing to create a satisfactory technique for this on my own and would like very much some sources for theft.  I want something more than weird punctuation – I’m looking for somebody who captured how the non-verbal, non-written communication would actually work.

3) It’s been a while since I’ve had my mind blown.  I’m starting to feel jaded.  Anybody got anything mind-blowing to recommend?  I read all fiction, so do not feel constrained by genre.