Author Self-Reference

Around page 75 of The Body in the Library, a young boy tells the chief inspector that he enjoys reading murder mysteries. The boy collects autographs of famous authors and starts listing them. One is Agatha Christie. While it made me smile, it broke the illusion and threw me out of the story for a second. I know other authors have done the same thing--Dante comes to mind, but that was part of the structure of The Divine Comedy.

How does an author do it successfully? Is the cleverness of an author referencing themselves worth the chance that the reader will be thrown out of the book and not pick it up again? Would it be easier if you were less well known?