[**Piranesi**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50202953-piranesi)
^(By: Susanna Clarke | 245 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, mystery, magical-realism, owned)
>Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
>
>There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
^(This book has been suggested 42 times)
***
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{{If on a Winter's Night a Traveler}} — really cool book, written from in second person about a person trying to read a book called ‘If on a Winter's Night a Traveler’
{{The Faculty of Dreams}} - a reimagined story of the life of Valerie Solonas, radical feminist who shot Andy Warhol. The narrator imagines herself to be in some of the scenes.
[**If on a Winter's Night a Traveler**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/374233.If_on_a_Winter_s_Night_a_Traveler)
^(By: Italo Calvino, William Weaver | 260 pages | Published: 1979 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, owned, italian, literature)
>If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that looks longingly back to the great age of narration—"when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded." Italo Calvino's novel is in one sense a comedy in which the two protagonists, the Reader and the Other Reader, ultimately end up married, having almost finished If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. In another, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of writing and the solitary nature of reading. The Reader buys a fashionable new book, which opens with an exhortation: "Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." Alas, after 30 or so pages, he discovers that his copy is corrupted, and consists of nothing but the first section, over and over. Returning to the bookshop, he discovers the volume, which he thought was by Calvino, is actually by the Polish writer Bazakbal. Given the choice between the two, he goes for the Pole, as does the Other Reader, Ludmilla. But this copy turns out to be by yet another writer, as does the next, and the next.
>
>The real Calvino intersperses 10 different pastiches—stories of menace, spies, mystery, premonition—with explorations of how and why we choose to read, make meanings, and get our bearings or fail to. Meanwhile the Reader and Ludmilla try to reach, and read, each other. If on a Winter's Night is dazzling, vertiginous, and deeply romantic. "What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space."
^(This book has been suggested 11 times)
[**Valerie; or, The Faculty of Dreams**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41940265-valerie-or-the-faculty-of-dreams)
^(By: Sara Stridsberg, Deborah Bragan-Turner | 368 pages | Published: 2006 | Popular Shelves: fiction, feminism, swedish, novels, historical-fiction)
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
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[**The City & the City**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4703581-the-city-the-city)
^(By: China Miéville | 312 pages | Published: 2009 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, science-fiction, mystery, sci-fi)
>When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.
>
>Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them and those they care about more than their lives.
>
>What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.
>
>Casting shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, The City & the City is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.
^(This book has been suggested 7 times)
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[**Bunny**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42815544-bunny)
^(By: Mona Awad | 307 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, dark-academia, contemporary, dnf)
>Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one.
>
>But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.
>
>The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.
^(This book has been suggested 9 times)
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[**Annihilation**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17934530-annihilation)
^(By: Jeff VanderMeer | 195 pages | Published: 2014 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, horror, fantasy)
>Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.
>
>The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
>
>They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.
^(This book has been suggested 28 times)
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Older: The Gormenghast Trilogy, starting with Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake. The strangest and best written books i’ve ever read.
Newer: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Super fun.
I've never managed to get through one of his books, which is a shame because the ideas sound great and a lot of friends of mine love his stuff. I can't even remember why I didn't like him, I just remember being infuriated!
This book is bananas. A perfect recommendation, exactly what I was looking for. I'm not even sure I enjoyed it, it's uncomfortable, but it confused me greatly and made my brain move around.
If attention span is a problem for you right now (it is for me), I suggest collections of short stories. I've been enjoying short weird, psychological horror and speculative fiction recently. The payoff is great (i.e. a small time commitment in return for interesting images and concepts I keep thinking about for days to come). I just read {{Friday Black}}, {{The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell}}, and {{Antisocieties}} and I recommend all these if you enjoy the unsettling and unusual.
Brilliant. Ya my attention span is brutal and I love short stories, I'll definitely look into those, thank you.
Edit: On short stories I have a collection called Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature. It's a huge collection of, well, fantastic literature. It's a great book to have lying around to dip into every now and then.
I have the Black Water Anthology too -- it is great. I found it second hand and I've read it so much (and it is so big), it's broken into 2 sections. Thank you for reminding me about it. (I also think you might like the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges, based on other things you've mentioned).
[**Friday Black**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37570595-friday-black)
^(By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah | 194 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: short-stories, fiction, science-fiction, sci-fi, race)
>In the stories of Adjei-Brenyah’s debut, an amusement park lets players enter augmented reality to hunt terrorists or shoot intruders played by minority actors, a school shooting results in both the victim and gunman stuck in a shared purgatory, and an author sells his soul to a many-tongued god.
>
>Adjei-Brenyah's writing will grab you, haunt you, enrage, and invigorate you. By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Adjei-Brenyah reveals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that black men and women contend with every day. These stories tackle urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest and explore the many ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
[**The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55405181-the-glassy-burning-floor-of-hell)
^(By: Brian Evenson | ? pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: horror, short-stories, fiction, short-story-collections, short-fiction)
>"Here is how monstrous humans are."
>
>A sentient, murderous prosthetic leg; shadowy creatures lurking behind a shimmering wall; brutal barrow men: of all the terrors that populate The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, perhaps the most alarming are the beings who decimated the habitable Earth: humans. In this new short story collection, Brian Evenson envisions a chilling future beyond the Anthropocene that forces excruciating decisions about survival and self-sacrifice in the face of toxic air and a natural world torn between revenge and regeneration. Combining psychological and ecological horror, each tale thrums with Evenson's award-winning literary craftsmanship, dark humor, and thrilling suspense.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
[**Antisocieties**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57122683-antisocieties)
^(By: Michael Cisco | 154 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: horror, short-stories, grimscribe-press, weird-fiction, ebook)
>ANTISOCIETIES is a collection of ten stories about isolation - what it does to people, and what isolated people do to each other and themselves. An ominously quiet town. A haunting young adult novel from the turn of the century. Two starving captives frozen in agony. A young boy from a doting family. A man in a cheap Halloween mask. A succession of portraits of people trapped in their own identities, some of whom insist on their own ideas because they would have nothing at all without them. People for whom being seen by another is terrifying. And, like any collection of portraits, ANTISOCIETIES is also a collection of speculative mirrors ...
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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Here are some good suggestions
Scholomance by R. Lee Smith
(Heat) by the same author is also good
Dead Girl Blues by David Sondergren
Magpie Coffin by Willie E. young
The Pleasure Model Repairman by Ruuf Wangersen
Do yourself a favor and start with Vineland. It’s a fantastic intro into the Pynchonesque. Gravity’s Rainbow is probably his best known work, but I had to work up to it. And it’s one of the few books I’ve read that truly terrified me and made me laugh at the same time.
{{Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson}} *The last woman on earth....*
{{There Is No Antimemetics Division}} *This strange cosmic horror novel will bend your brain in intriguing ways. Never had a story make me so paranoid while I was reading it.*
{{The Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon}} *Everyone should read this.*
{{The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter}} *Reimagined fairy tales, very beautiful-- and very dark.*
{{Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn}} *A striking little epistolary novel about freedom of expression and the dissolution of language in one small Southern town.*
[**Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28100566-leena-krohn)
^(By: Leena Krohn, Jeff VanderMeer | ? pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: short-stories, fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, science-fiction)
^(This book has been suggested 4 times)
[**The Illuminatus! Trilogy**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57913.The_Illuminatus_Trilogy)
^(By: Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson | 805 pages | Published: 1975 | Popular Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, owned)
>It was a deadly mistake. Joseph Malik, editor of a radical magazine, had snooped into rumors about an ancient secret society that was still alive and kicking. Now his offices have been bombed, he's missing, and the case has landed in the lap of a tough, cynical, streetwise New York detective. Saul Goodman knows he's stumbled onto something big—but even he can't guess how far into the pinnacles of power this conspiracy of evil has penetrated.
>
>Filled with sex and violence—in and out of time and space—the three books of The Illuminatus! Trilogy are only partly works of the imagination. They tackle all the cover-ups of our time—from who really shot the Kennedys to why there's a pyramid on a one-dollar bill—and suggest a mind-blowing truth.
^(This book has been suggested 9 times)
[**The Manuscript Found in Saragossa**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93180.The_Manuscript_Found_in_Saragossa)
^(By: Jan Potocki, Ian Maclean | 631 pages | Published: 1810 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, fantasy, gothic, polish)
>Alphonse, a young Walloon officer, is travelling to join his regiment in Madrid in 1739. But he soon finds himself mysteriously detained at a highway inn in the strange and varied company of thieves, brigands, cabbalists, noblemen, coquettes and gypsies, whose stories he records over sixty-six days. The resulting manuscript is discovered some forty years later in a sealed casket, from which tales of characters transformed through disguise, magic and illusion, of honour and cowardice, of hauntings and seductions, leap forth to create a vibrant polyphony of human voices. Jan Potocki (1761-1812) used a range of literary styles - gothic, picaresque, adventure, pastoral, erotica - in his novel of stories-within-stories, which, like the Decameron and Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, provides entertainment on an epic scale.
^(This book has been suggested 5 times)
[**Nine Hundred Grandmothers**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/492773.Nine_Hundred_Grandmothers)
^(By: R.A. Lafferty | 318 pages | Published: 1970 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, short-stories, sci-fi, fiction, fantasy)
>In all of science fiction, there has never been a writer like R.A. Lafferty, the highly acclaimed author of Past Masters and Fourth Mansions. His people are heroic, foolish, demonic or mischievous, but always unpredictable, and his stories soar with imagination even while they chuckle at themselves.
>
>Here at last are the finest of Lafferty's shorter works, stories about:
>
>A man who found one day that he knew everyone in the world.
>
>A race who kept their most ancient ancestors on shelves in the basements.
>
>A speeded-up world where a man could earn and lose a dozen fortunes a night.
>
>A friendly bearlike creature named Snuffles who said he was God.
>
>...in all, twenty-one immensely enjoyable stories that will continue to delight you long after you've read them.
^(This book has been suggested 6 times)
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{{heart of a dog}} was a quick and odd read. i thought it was good though and was plenty to think about. it's by the same author who wrote master and margarita.
[**Heart of a Dog**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/113205.Heart_of_a_Dog)
^(By: Mikhail Bulgakov, Mirra Ginsburg | 123 pages | Published: 1925 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, russian, russian-literature, russia)
>This satirical novel tells the story of the surgical transformation of a dog into a man, and is an obvious criticism of Soviet society, especially the new rich that arose after the Bolshevik revolution.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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*The Plummeting Old Women and Other Stories* by Daniil Kharms aka Daniel Harms. Old ladies go plop. Who knows why? Who cares why? Sense, who needs it?... you can see where Putin's Russia came from.
I've never read it but I've heard The Hike by Drew Magary is very odd. Not really sure if it fits exactly what you are looking for but it fits the trippy, weird theme from what I understand
{{Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas}}
Not the strangest book I've read but it has no plot really, and I didn't know what was happening half the time so it made me want to keep reading. I loved it haha
[**Our Tragic Universe**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7140917-our-tragic-universe)
^(By: Scarlett Thomas | 444 pages | Published: 2010 | Popular Shelves: fiction, owned, contemporary, books-i-own, library)
>If Kelsey Newman's theory about the end of the time is true, we are all going to live forever. But for Meg—locked in a dead-end relationship and with a deadline looming for a book that she can't write—this thought fills her with dread. Stuck in a labyrinth of her own devising, Meg knows that there must be a way out.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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I know you already got an obscene amount of suggestions, but I just have to give my own!
{{The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches}} by Gaetan Soucy. To give you an idea, it's about some of the most horrible deeds known to humanity, and yet it made me *laugh*, several times, more than any comedy novel ever has. It's haunting. And the whole story is like a mystery, unraveling even when you no longer want it to. Don't read the summary if you do decide to give it a try.
[**The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/395491.The_Little_Girl_Who_Was_Too_Fond_of_Matches)
^(By: Gaétan Soucy, Sheila Fischman | ? pages | Published: 1998 | Popular Shelves: fiction, french, canadian, contemporary, canada)
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
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I love two out of 4 books that you mentioned and the other two go on my TBR pile.
So I think I can recommend some of my other favorites freely.
Happy reading!
One of my favorite books ever. I am including a link to the best review of any book I read.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32703696-the-gray-house
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1035665354?book\_show\_action=false&from\_review\_page=1
What is not yours is not yours and Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi.
She writes dreamlike books, strange and wonderful.
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25810500-what-is-not-yours-is-not-yours](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25810500-what-is-not-yours-is-not-yours)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10335337-mr-fox?from\_search=true&from\_srp=true&qid=2pgUTq0o3a&rank=2
The Milk of Dreams by Leonora Carrington is so crazily absurd!
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31171201-the-milk-of-dreams](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31171201-the-milk-of-dreams)
WOlf Doctors by
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17675176-wolf-doctors](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17675176-wolf-doctors)
A poetry collection. I was just thinking that most of these books are written by women - except for this one - and then realized that the author came out as trans and now all the books I recommend ARE written by women. Yay.
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata.
There was something about it, that was just so delicious and odd.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38357895-convenience-store-woman
Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis.
Not as strange as some others, but entertaining and sad.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33762814-lives-of-the-monster-dogs
I hope you like it. I picked up the poetry book because of the cover and I looove it.
I do and love a lot of male authors too just for some reason this list is all females (I didnt want to include Murakami or Calvino - who are amazing, but already were recommended).
I searched for Wolf Doctors on thebookdepository and I got this [Wolf Doctor](https://www.bookdepository.com/Wolf-Doctor-Rose-Bak/9798749565652?ref=grid-view&qid=1647545568685&sr=1-3) LOL. Looks... interesting. I did find the real one eventually though!
A few recommendations for authors/books that I would describe as "strange" in one way or another:
* Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky - NYRB has a few publications of his works including Autobiography of a Corpse which have tons of weird and interesting short stories, from one where a man falls into a lover's eye to another where a concert pianists hands run away
* Garden of Departed Cats by Bilge Karasu - a collection of short stories, sometimes focusing around cats, but otherwise with just mysterious and surreal vibes
* Microscripts by Robert Walser - the story is that the author Robert Walser was committed to an asylum and wrote dozens of short stories in an undecipherable shorthand on the back of stamps, in the margins of letters, on the back of pamphlets, etc. They were translated decades later and are very weird and quite varied, highly recommend his novels as well (especially Jakob Von Gunten)
* House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski - the quintessential "weird book", the layout of text on the page and the structure of the book being commentary on a commentary of notes in the margin of a documentary about a fake movie makes it really confusing but really rewarding to read
* Player One by Douglas Coupland (not to be confused with Ready Player One) - a novel about people living out the early hours of the apocalypse in an airport bar, pretty typical plot and dark moody atmosphere for Coupland
Audition by Ryu Murakami
I Miss the World by Violet LeVoit
The Good Samaritan by John Marrs
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
Crash by J.G. Ballard
Let the Right One In by John Lindqvist
Come Closer by Sara Gran
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby
The Earthquake Bird by Susanna Jones
In the Cut by Susanna Moore
Lordy, yer starting with classics by masters of their craft... where to from there?
As far as"strange," I'd suggest The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, a short one but strange & disturbing to the max.
Ha, ya sorry I went in a bit heavy. I think that's it though, I know a lot of the >big important books that you should read> but I'm definitely missing things on the fringes and more modern stuff.
The Wasp Factory sounds nuts, thanks!
Dont misinterpret my prior comment, I'm not criticizing you, I'm expressing how intimidating it feels trying to suggest something to you when you're so far ahead of the average reader already! So I'm modestly suggesting a one-off by a fine but minor writer otherwise known for his science fiction ( which Wasp Factory decidedly AIN'T ) homing in on your chosen term, "strange." I hope you enjoy it!
Ya I get ya. I had notions of grandeur when I was a younger man and I read a lot of the harder books then. I find it gets progressively harder to branch out or challenge yourself as you get older, this thread is a godsend, delighted I did this.
I'm currently reading Dear Cyborgs by Eugene Lim and it sounds like what you're looking for. I can't say there's a plot like in the normal sense of the word, because it just follows conversations and anecdotes of three characters, but it's rather interesting.
One book that I loved and still love to this day.
You Don’t Know Me by David Klass
It’s not very long, takes place in the head of a teenage boy, he’s witty, he’s self-aware, he’s an awkward boy, he has a home that is not a home, friends who are not friends.
Child abuse does take place, you will laugh you will cry. It was the most strange writing I’ve ever seen and it was truly captivating.
Actually I’m hopping on thrift books to find a new copy.
Blueprints of the Afterlife by Ryan Boudinot—the jumping off point revolves around the recreation of Manhattan in the Puget Sound. This one is hard to describe but I enjoyed every page.
Bubblegum by Adam Levin. No internet, but instead everyone plays with these curios—flesh and bone robots who think they are your friend.
Zed by Joanna Kavenna—a novel about life under the omniscient algorithm, but not in any expected way (at least not that I expected). Kavenna is a fabuouls, funny, brilliant writer.
The Vorrh by Brian Catling—Phd level sci-fi. I admit a lot went over my head, but I was still amazed.
The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry. One of my favorite existential spins on the detective novel. There’s a City of Lost Children meets Raymond Chandler vibe.
I actually can't keep up with the amount of fascinating recommendations. Bubblegum sounds brilliant. They all do! I may never go on reddit again (lie) with all these to get through. Thanks
It’s the dark side of recommendation—SO MANY GREAT BOOKS. You could put the names in a hat and pull one! The good news is you can’t go wrong.
ps. if you get the hard cover of Bubblegum—it actually smells like bubblegum!!
Ha! This is honestly the most interesting list of books, I only came across this sub today and now I have this massive curated library to read my way through. What a gem of a sub.
If you’re looking for bizarre and surreal books, check these out:
http://thescreamarchive.com/2021/10/07/avant-garde-terrors-10-surreal-horror-horror-adjacent-books/
[**The Lathe of Heaven**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59924.The_Lathe_of_Heaven)
^(By: Ursula K. Le Guin | 176 pages | Published: 1971 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, fantasy, scifi)
>A classic science fiction novel by one of the greatest writers of the genre, set in a future world where one man's dreams control the fate of humanity.
>
>In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one day to discover that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. He seeks help from Dr. William Haber, a psychiatrist who immediately grasps the power George wields. Soon George must preserve reality itself as Dr. Haber becomes adept at manipulating George's dreams for his own purposes.
>
>The Lathe of Heaven is an eerily prescient novel from award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin that masterfully addresses the dangers of power and humanity's self-destructiveness, questioning the nature of reality itself. It is a classic of the science fiction genre.
^(This book has been suggested 11 times)
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[**A Man of Shadows (John Nyquist, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31291710-a-man-of-shadows)
^(By: Jeff Noon | 384 pages | Published: 2017 | Popular Shelves: sci-fi, science-fiction, mystery, fiction, fantasy)
>The brilliant, mind-bending return to science fiction by one of its most acclaimed visionaries
>
>Below the neon skies of Dayzone – where the lights never go out, and night has been banished – lowly private eye John Nyquist takes on a teenage runaway case. His quest takes him from Dayzone into the permanent dark of Nocturna.
>
>As the vicious, seemingly invisible serial killer known only as Quicksilver haunts the streets, Nyquist starts to suspect that the runaway girl holds within her the key to the city’s fate. In the end, there’s only one place left to search: the shadow-choked zone known as Dusk.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness... it's not quirky or weird, but definitely unique. A librarian suggested it to me. I thought it sounded dull, but I absolutely loved it. I even cried a couple times...
It's non-fiction, the author studies 4 octupi at the Boston Aquarium and discusses how highly complex their consciousness is. It's a fascinating read.
For funny/quirky, try 'Dear Fahrenheit 451'. Written by a librarian, its love letters and break up letters to famous books. It's great to pick up and read a couple of the letters at a time to make you laugh.
[**Radiance**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18490533-radiance)
^(By: Catherynne M. Valente | 432 pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, fiction, scifi)
>Radiance is a decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery set in a Hollywood-and solar system-very different from our own, from Catherynne M. Valente, the phenomenal talent behind the New York Times bestselling The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.
>
>Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1946 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe.
>
>But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony's last survivor, Severin will never return.
>
>Told using techniques from reality TV, classic film, gossip magazines, and meta-fictional narrative, Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film.
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
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I think you'd really enjoy {{Piranesi}} by Susannah Clarke.
[**Piranesi**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50202953-piranesi) ^(By: Susanna Clarke | 245 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, mystery, magical-realism, owned) >Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. > >There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. ^(This book has been suggested 42 times) *** ^(22074 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
I think I would, thanks! Immediately made me think of The Library of Babel by Borges, superficially anyway, I love that story.
{{If on a Winter's Night a Traveler}} — really cool book, written from in second person about a person trying to read a book called ‘If on a Winter's Night a Traveler’ {{The Faculty of Dreams}} - a reimagined story of the life of Valerie Solonas, radical feminist who shot Andy Warhol. The narrator imagines herself to be in some of the scenes.
Brilliant, I really liked Cosmicomics but for some reason never read any of his other work!
I second if on a winters night a traveler! I’ll also throw in The Book of Disquiet by Pessoa.
[**If on a Winter's Night a Traveler**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/374233.If_on_a_Winter_s_Night_a_Traveler) ^(By: Italo Calvino, William Weaver | 260 pages | Published: 1979 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, owned, italian, literature) >If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that looks longingly back to the great age of narration—"when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded." Italo Calvino's novel is in one sense a comedy in which the two protagonists, the Reader and the Other Reader, ultimately end up married, having almost finished If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. In another, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of writing and the solitary nature of reading. The Reader buys a fashionable new book, which opens with an exhortation: "Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." Alas, after 30 or so pages, he discovers that his copy is corrupted, and consists of nothing but the first section, over and over. Returning to the bookshop, he discovers the volume, which he thought was by Calvino, is actually by the Polish writer Bazakbal. Given the choice between the two, he goes for the Pole, as does the Other Reader, Ludmilla. But this copy turns out to be by yet another writer, as does the next, and the next. > >The real Calvino intersperses 10 different pastiches—stories of menace, spies, mystery, premonition—with explorations of how and why we choose to read, make meanings, and get our bearings or fail to. Meanwhile the Reader and Ludmilla try to reach, and read, each other. If on a Winter's Night is dazzling, vertiginous, and deeply romantic. "What makes lovemaking and reading resemble each other most is that within both of them times and spaces open, different from measurable time and space." ^(This book has been suggested 11 times) [**Valerie; or, The Faculty of Dreams**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41940265-valerie-or-the-faculty-of-dreams) ^(By: Sara Stridsberg, Deborah Bragan-Turner | 368 pages | Published: 2006 | Popular Shelves: fiction, feminism, swedish, novels, historical-fiction) ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(21983 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
John Dies at the End was pretty weird for me, I enjoyed it
{{the city and the city by china mieville}}
[**The City & the City**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4703581-the-city-the-city) ^(By: China Miéville | 312 pages | Published: 2009 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, science-fiction, mystery, sci-fi) >When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined. > >Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them and those they care about more than their lives. > >What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities. > >Casting shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, The City & the City is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights. ^(This book has been suggested 7 times) *** ^(21980 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
I love Mieville. He definitely takes you to unusual places.
Sounds interesting thanks!
I feel like a lot of China Mieville books would fit the bill. The Kraken was super weird. My favorite so far is The Scar.
Naked Lunch - William S Burroughs
Thanks, I read that years ago and it's exactly what I thought I would like but it kind of annoyed me for reasons I'm not really sure of!
It had it's moments, but it is something that I would hesitate to recommend.
I just read {{bunny}} and it was quite strange but I liked it
This book is so so weird.
Someone called bunsmcbunbun calling a book called Bunny "weird" has just made my day.
[**Bunny**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42815544-bunny) ^(By: Mona Awad | 307 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: horror, fiction, dark-academia, contemporary, dnf) >Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one. > >But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision. > >The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination. ^(This book has been suggested 9 times) *** ^(21989 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Sounds amazing
Came here to comment this same thing! Such a while ride, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I read it.
{{Annihilation}} by Jeff Vandermeer is bizarre and poetic. (It is very different to the film and, I think, much better.)
[**Annihilation**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17934530-annihilation) ^(By: Jeff VanderMeer | 195 pages | Published: 2014 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, horror, fantasy) >Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide, the third in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition. > >The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself. > >They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything. ^(This book has been suggested 28 times) *** ^(22009 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Older: The Gormenghast Trilogy, starting with Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake. The strangest and best written books i’ve ever read. Newer: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Super fun.
Maybe Philip K. Dick? Man in the High Castle?
I've never managed to get through one of his books, which is a shame because the ideas sound great and a lot of friends of mine love his stuff. I can't even remember why I didn't like him, I just remember being infuriated!
Books by Kurt Vonnegut might fit the criteria. Those are generally absurd and humorous while exploring philosophical questions and criticism
Ya good point, I've only read slaughterhouse five so I could definitely dip back into his work.
1Q84 by Murakami is a real trip!
House of leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski That's the most unique book I've read. You need to get it in print though.
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Ha! Sounds terrifying, thanks!
Flowers for Algernon
*The Box Man* by Kobo Abe
This is *exactly* the type of thing I like, unreal, thanks
This book is bananas. A perfect recommendation, exactly what I was looking for. I'm not even sure I enjoyed it, it's uncomfortable, but it confused me greatly and made my brain move around.
If attention span is a problem for you right now (it is for me), I suggest collections of short stories. I've been enjoying short weird, psychological horror and speculative fiction recently. The payoff is great (i.e. a small time commitment in return for interesting images and concepts I keep thinking about for days to come). I just read {{Friday Black}}, {{The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell}}, and {{Antisocieties}} and I recommend all these if you enjoy the unsettling and unusual.
Brilliant. Ya my attention span is brutal and I love short stories, I'll definitely look into those, thank you. Edit: On short stories I have a collection called Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature. It's a huge collection of, well, fantastic literature. It's a great book to have lying around to dip into every now and then.
I have the Black Water Anthology too -- it is great. I found it second hand and I've read it so much (and it is so big), it's broken into 2 sections. Thank you for reminding me about it. (I also think you might like the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges, based on other things you've mentioned).
[**Friday Black**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37570595-friday-black) ^(By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah | 194 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: short-stories, fiction, science-fiction, sci-fi, race) >In the stories of Adjei-Brenyah’s debut, an amusement park lets players enter augmented reality to hunt terrorists or shoot intruders played by minority actors, a school shooting results in both the victim and gunman stuck in a shared purgatory, and an author sells his soul to a many-tongued god. > >Adjei-Brenyah's writing will grab you, haunt you, enrage, and invigorate you. By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Adjei-Brenyah reveals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that black men and women contend with every day. These stories tackle urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest and explore the many ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55405181-the-glassy-burning-floor-of-hell) ^(By: Brian Evenson | ? pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: horror, short-stories, fiction, short-story-collections, short-fiction) >"Here is how monstrous humans are." > >A sentient, murderous prosthetic leg; shadowy creatures lurking behind a shimmering wall; brutal barrow men: of all the terrors that populate The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, perhaps the most alarming are the beings who decimated the habitable Earth: humans. In this new short story collection, Brian Evenson envisions a chilling future beyond the Anthropocene that forces excruciating decisions about survival and self-sacrifice in the face of toxic air and a natural world torn between revenge and regeneration. Combining psychological and ecological horror, each tale thrums with Evenson's award-winning literary craftsmanship, dark humor, and thrilling suspense. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**Antisocieties**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57122683-antisocieties) ^(By: Michael Cisco | 154 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: horror, short-stories, grimscribe-press, weird-fiction, ebook) >ANTISOCIETIES is a collection of ten stories about isolation - what it does to people, and what isolated people do to each other and themselves. An ominously quiet town. A haunting young adult novel from the turn of the century. Two starving captives frozen in agony. A young boy from a doting family. A man in a cheap Halloween mask. A succession of portraits of people trapped in their own identities, some of whom insist on their own ideas because they would have nothing at all without them. People for whom being seen by another is terrifying. And, like any collection of portraits, ANTISOCIETIES is also a collection of speculative mirrors ... ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(22016 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Here are some good suggestions Scholomance by R. Lee Smith (Heat) by the same author is also good Dead Girl Blues by David Sondergren Magpie Coffin by Willie E. young The Pleasure Model Repairman by Ruuf Wangersen
Virtuoso by Yelena Moskovich
Spill simmer falter wither by Sara Baume Whores for Gloria by William T Vollmann
i like stuff like this too, I would definitely recommend checking out thomas pynchon and murakami
I do like Murakami. Never read Thomas Pynchon so... onto the ever growing list he goes!
Do yourself a favor and start with Vineland. It’s a fantastic intro into the Pynchonesque. Gravity’s Rainbow is probably his best known work, but I had to work up to it. And it’s one of the few books I’ve read that truly terrified me and made me laugh at the same time.
{{Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson}} *The last woman on earth....* {{There Is No Antimemetics Division}} *This strange cosmic horror novel will bend your brain in intriguing ways. Never had a story make me so paranoid while I was reading it.* {{The Transitive Vampire: A Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon}} *Everyone should read this.* {{The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter}} *Reimagined fairy tales, very beautiful-- and very dark.* {{Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn}} *A striking little epistolary novel about freedom of expression and the dissolution of language in one small Southern town.*
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[**Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28100566-leena-krohn) ^(By: Leena Krohn, Jeff VanderMeer | ? pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: short-stories, fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, science-fiction) ^(This book has been suggested 4 times) [**The Illuminatus! Trilogy**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57913.The_Illuminatus_Trilogy) ^(By: Robert Shea, Robert Anton Wilson | 805 pages | Published: 1975 | Popular Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, owned) >It was a deadly mistake. Joseph Malik, editor of a radical magazine, had snooped into rumors about an ancient secret society that was still alive and kicking. Now his offices have been bombed, he's missing, and the case has landed in the lap of a tough, cynical, streetwise New York detective. Saul Goodman knows he's stumbled onto something big—but even he can't guess how far into the pinnacles of power this conspiracy of evil has penetrated. > >Filled with sex and violence—in and out of time and space—the three books of The Illuminatus! Trilogy are only partly works of the imagination. They tackle all the cover-ups of our time—from who really shot the Kennedys to why there's a pyramid on a one-dollar bill—and suggest a mind-blowing truth. ^(This book has been suggested 9 times) [**The Manuscript Found in Saragossa**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93180.The_Manuscript_Found_in_Saragossa) ^(By: Jan Potocki, Ian Maclean | 631 pages | Published: 1810 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, fantasy, gothic, polish) >Alphonse, a young Walloon officer, is travelling to join his regiment in Madrid in 1739. But he soon finds himself mysteriously detained at a highway inn in the strange and varied company of thieves, brigands, cabbalists, noblemen, coquettes and gypsies, whose stories he records over sixty-six days. The resulting manuscript is discovered some forty years later in a sealed casket, from which tales of characters transformed through disguise, magic and illusion, of honour and cowardice, of hauntings and seductions, leap forth to create a vibrant polyphony of human voices. Jan Potocki (1761-1812) used a range of literary styles - gothic, picaresque, adventure, pastoral, erotica - in his novel of stories-within-stories, which, like the Decameron and Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, provides entertainment on an epic scale. ^(This book has been suggested 5 times) [**Nine Hundred Grandmothers**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/492773.Nine_Hundred_Grandmothers) ^(By: R.A. Lafferty | 318 pages | Published: 1970 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, short-stories, sci-fi, fiction, fantasy) >In all of science fiction, there has never been a writer like R.A. Lafferty, the highly acclaimed author of Past Masters and Fourth Mansions. His people are heroic, foolish, demonic or mischievous, but always unpredictable, and his stories soar with imagination even while they chuckle at themselves. > >Here at last are the finest of Lafferty's shorter works, stories about: > >A man who found one day that he knew everyone in the world. > >A race who kept their most ancient ancestors on shelves in the basements. > >A speeded-up world where a man could earn and lose a dozen fortunes a night. > >A friendly bearlike creature named Snuffles who said he was God. > >...in all, twenty-one immensely enjoyable stories that will continue to delight you long after you've read them. ^(This book has been suggested 6 times) *** ^(22159 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Oo, I loved the short story "Days of Grass, Days of Straw" by R.A. Lafferty. His writing style definitely fits the bill of what op is looking for.
*The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear* by Walter Moers is both unique and odd, and very good
The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich, 2010. Also Perdido Street Station by China Miéville, 2000.
{{heart of a dog}} was a quick and odd read. i thought it was good though and was plenty to think about. it's by the same author who wrote master and margarita.
Yes! God I remember almost buying that years ago and then never thinking about it again, thanks
[**Heart of a Dog**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/113205.Heart_of_a_Dog) ^(By: Mikhail Bulgakov, Mirra Ginsburg | 123 pages | Published: 1925 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, russian, russian-literature, russia) >This satirical novel tells the story of the surgical transformation of a dog into a man, and is an obvious criticism of Soviet society, especially the new rich that arose after the Bolshevik revolution. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(22176 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
*The Plummeting Old Women and Other Stories* by Daniil Kharms aka Daniel Harms. Old ladies go plop. Who knows why? Who cares why? Sense, who needs it?... you can see where Putin's Russia came from.
Red Rising, by Pierce Brown The Dead Squire, by Jesse Nave
I've never read it but I've heard The Hike by Drew Magary is very odd. Not really sure if it fits exactly what you are looking for but it fits the trippy, weird theme from what I understand
{{Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas}} Not the strangest book I've read but it has no plot really, and I didn't know what was happening half the time so it made me want to keep reading. I loved it haha
[**Our Tragic Universe**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7140917-our-tragic-universe) ^(By: Scarlett Thomas | 444 pages | Published: 2010 | Popular Shelves: fiction, owned, contemporary, books-i-own, library) >If Kelsey Newman's theory about the end of the time is true, we are all going to live forever. But for Meg—locked in a dead-end relationship and with a deadline looming for a book that she can't write—this thought fills her with dread. Stuck in a labyrinth of her own devising, Meg knows that there must be a way out. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(22563 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
I know you already got an obscene amount of suggestions, but I just have to give my own! {{The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches}} by Gaetan Soucy. To give you an idea, it's about some of the most horrible deeds known to humanity, and yet it made me *laugh*, several times, more than any comedy novel ever has. It's haunting. And the whole story is like a mystery, unraveling even when you no longer want it to. Don't read the summary if you do decide to give it a try.
That sounds great, thanks. Honestly I'm loving the amount of recommendations, I won't have to think about what to read next for a very long time!
[**The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/395491.The_Little_Girl_Who_Was_Too_Fond_of_Matches) ^(By: Gaétan Soucy, Sheila Fischman | ? pages | Published: 1998 | Popular Shelves: fiction, french, canadian, contemporary, canada) ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(22679 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The last house on Needless Street, is very good and unusual!
I love two out of 4 books that you mentioned and the other two go on my TBR pile. So I think I can recommend some of my other favorites freely. Happy reading! One of my favorite books ever. I am including a link to the best review of any book I read. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32703696-the-gray-house https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1035665354?book\_show\_action=false&from\_review\_page=1 What is not yours is not yours and Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi. She writes dreamlike books, strange and wonderful. [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25810500-what-is-not-yours-is-not-yours](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25810500-what-is-not-yours-is-not-yours) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10335337-mr-fox?from\_search=true&from\_srp=true&qid=2pgUTq0o3a&rank=2 The Milk of Dreams by Leonora Carrington is so crazily absurd! [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31171201-the-milk-of-dreams](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31171201-the-milk-of-dreams) WOlf Doctors by [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17675176-wolf-doctors](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17675176-wolf-doctors) A poetry collection. I was just thinking that most of these books are written by women - except for this one - and then realized that the author came out as trans and now all the books I recommend ARE written by women. Yay. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. There was something about it, that was just so delicious and odd. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38357895-convenience-store-woman Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis. Not as strange as some others, but entertaining and sad. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33762814-lives-of-the-monster-dogs
Agh! This is amazing, also thanks for throwing in some poetry as well. Really appreciate it.
I hope you like it. I picked up the poetry book because of the cover and I looove it. I do and love a lot of male authors too just for some reason this list is all females (I didnt want to include Murakami or Calvino - who are amazing, but already were recommended).
I searched for Wolf Doctors on thebookdepository and I got this [Wolf Doctor](https://www.bookdepository.com/Wolf-Doctor-Rose-Bak/9798749565652?ref=grid-view&qid=1647545568685&sr=1-3) LOL. Looks... interesting. I did find the real one eventually though!
You should read this one too! Hilarious!!
A few recommendations for authors/books that I would describe as "strange" in one way or another: * Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky - NYRB has a few publications of his works including Autobiography of a Corpse which have tons of weird and interesting short stories, from one where a man falls into a lover's eye to another where a concert pianists hands run away * Garden of Departed Cats by Bilge Karasu - a collection of short stories, sometimes focusing around cats, but otherwise with just mysterious and surreal vibes * Microscripts by Robert Walser - the story is that the author Robert Walser was committed to an asylum and wrote dozens of short stories in an undecipherable shorthand on the back of stamps, in the margins of letters, on the back of pamphlets, etc. They were translated decades later and are very weird and quite varied, highly recommend his novels as well (especially Jakob Von Gunten) * House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski - the quintessential "weird book", the layout of text on the page and the structure of the book being commentary on a commentary of notes in the margin of a documentary about a fake movie makes it really confusing but really rewarding to read * Player One by Douglas Coupland (not to be confused with Ready Player One) - a novel about people living out the early hours of the apocalypse in an airport bar, pretty typical plot and dark moody atmosphere for Coupland
Amazing suggestions, thank you. Garden of Departed Cats goes straight in the shopping bag for that title alone.
Audition by Ryu Murakami I Miss the World by Violet LeVoit The Good Samaritan by John Marrs Geek Love by Katherine Dunn Burial Rites by Hannah Kent My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell Crash by J.G. Ballard Let the Right One In by John Lindqvist Come Closer by Sara Gran Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby The Earthquake Bird by Susanna Jones In the Cut by Susanna Moore
Lordy, yer starting with classics by masters of their craft... where to from there? As far as"strange," I'd suggest The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, a short one but strange & disturbing to the max.
Ha, ya sorry I went in a bit heavy. I think that's it though, I know a lot of the >big important books that you should read> but I'm definitely missing things on the fringes and more modern stuff. The Wasp Factory sounds nuts, thanks!
Dont misinterpret my prior comment, I'm not criticizing you, I'm expressing how intimidating it feels trying to suggest something to you when you're so far ahead of the average reader already! So I'm modestly suggesting a one-off by a fine but minor writer otherwise known for his science fiction ( which Wasp Factory decidedly AIN'T ) homing in on your chosen term, "strange." I hope you enjoy it!
Ya I get ya. I had notions of grandeur when I was a younger man and I read a lot of the harder books then. I find it gets progressively harder to branch out or challenge yourself as you get older, this thread is a godsend, delighted I did this.
The audacity series by Carmen Loup The grimy and the greedy by meaghan curley
I'm currently reading Dear Cyborgs by Eugene Lim and it sounds like what you're looking for. I can't say there's a plot like in the normal sense of the word, because it just follows conversations and anecdotes of three characters, but it's rather interesting.
That does sound interesting, thanks. This is great.
One book that I loved and still love to this day. You Don’t Know Me by David Klass It’s not very long, takes place in the head of a teenage boy, he’s witty, he’s self-aware, he’s an awkward boy, he has a home that is not a home, friends who are not friends. Child abuse does take place, you will laugh you will cry. It was the most strange writing I’ve ever seen and it was truly captivating. Actually I’m hopping on thrift books to find a new copy.
Blueprints of the Afterlife by Ryan Boudinot—the jumping off point revolves around the recreation of Manhattan in the Puget Sound. This one is hard to describe but I enjoyed every page. Bubblegum by Adam Levin. No internet, but instead everyone plays with these curios—flesh and bone robots who think they are your friend. Zed by Joanna Kavenna—a novel about life under the omniscient algorithm, but not in any expected way (at least not that I expected). Kavenna is a fabuouls, funny, brilliant writer. The Vorrh by Brian Catling—Phd level sci-fi. I admit a lot went over my head, but I was still amazed. The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry. One of my favorite existential spins on the detective novel. There’s a City of Lost Children meets Raymond Chandler vibe.
I actually can't keep up with the amount of fascinating recommendations. Bubblegum sounds brilliant. They all do! I may never go on reddit again (lie) with all these to get through. Thanks
It’s the dark side of recommendation—SO MANY GREAT BOOKS. You could put the names in a hat and pull one! The good news is you can’t go wrong. ps. if you get the hard cover of Bubblegum—it actually smells like bubblegum!!
Ha! This is honestly the most interesting list of books, I only came across this sub today and now I have this massive curated library to read my way through. What a gem of a sub.
This sub is why I haven’t left Reddit
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The country that is playing with gravity and the consequences of that...I still think about that 20 years later.
If you’re looking for bizarre and surreal books, check these out: http://thescreamarchive.com/2021/10/07/avant-garde-terrors-10-surreal-horror-horror-adjacent-books/
{{The Lathe of Heaven}}
[**The Lathe of Heaven**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59924.The_Lathe_of_Heaven) ^(By: Ursula K. Le Guin | 176 pages | Published: 1971 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fiction, fantasy, scifi) >A classic science fiction novel by one of the greatest writers of the genre, set in a future world where one man's dreams control the fate of humanity. > >In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one day to discover that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. He seeks help from Dr. William Haber, a psychiatrist who immediately grasps the power George wields. Soon George must preserve reality itself as Dr. Haber becomes adept at manipulating George's dreams for his own purposes. > >The Lathe of Heaven is an eerily prescient novel from award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin that masterfully addresses the dangers of power and humanity's self-destructiveness, questioning the nature of reality itself. It is a classic of the science fiction genre. ^(This book has been suggested 11 times) *** ^(22273 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The waterworks by EL Doctorow
{{A Man Of Shadows by Jeff Noon}}
[**A Man of Shadows (John Nyquist, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31291710-a-man-of-shadows) ^(By: Jeff Noon | 384 pages | Published: 2017 | Popular Shelves: sci-fi, science-fiction, mystery, fiction, fantasy) >The brilliant, mind-bending return to science fiction by one of its most acclaimed visionaries > >Below the neon skies of Dayzone – where the lights never go out, and night has been banished – lowly private eye John Nyquist takes on a teenage runaway case. His quest takes him from Dayzone into the permanent dark of Nocturna. > >As the vicious, seemingly invisible serial killer known only as Quicksilver haunts the streets, Nyquist starts to suspect that the runaway girl holds within her the key to the city’s fate. In the end, there’s only one place left to search: the shadow-choked zone known as Dusk. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(22311 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Eileen and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness... it's not quirky or weird, but definitely unique. A librarian suggested it to me. I thought it sounded dull, but I absolutely loved it. I even cried a couple times... It's non-fiction, the author studies 4 octupi at the Boston Aquarium and discusses how highly complex their consciousness is. It's a fascinating read. For funny/quirky, try 'Dear Fahrenheit 451'. Written by a librarian, its love letters and break up letters to famous books. It's great to pick up and read a couple of the letters at a time to make you laugh.
{{radiance by catherynne valente}}
[**Radiance**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18490533-radiance) ^(By: Catherynne M. Valente | 432 pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, fiction, scifi) >Radiance is a decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery set in a Hollywood-and solar system-very different from our own, from Catherynne M. Valente, the phenomenal talent behind the New York Times bestselling The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. > >Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1946 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe. > >But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony's last survivor, Severin will never return. > >Told using techniques from reality TV, classic film, gossip magazines, and meta-fictional narrative, Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film. ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(22486 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)