Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat is an unnerving and weird meditation on free will.
I really love weird children’s books. Silly or strange, they capture something that can be lost in adult fiction. The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash (on the silly side); most Maurice Sendak (on the strange side), etc.
Everything by Tom Robbins! Recently completed a re-read of my favorite author from my college years. Spiritual classics in their own wacky way, start with “Another Roadside Attraction”, or “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, or “Still Life with Woodpecker” or “Jitterbug Perfume” or…
From your list, “Master” is a definite re-read in my future!
Hmmm. Tim Powers' books tend to be pretty weird though maybe that's not the kind of weirdness you're talking about? Yeah, Pinnochio is weird if all you've ever known is the Disney version. If you've read lots of the original Grimm fairy tales or Calvino's collection of Italian folktales, Pinnochio is just business as usual. But he does it delightfully well. (The rabbits are a nice touch.)
I’m apparently way behind the curve on the fairytale thing! I have a collection of Russian fairytales, and they’re all totally bizarre; I didn’t know that was par for the course.
The weirdest thing I've read is a short story by Algernon Blackwood called The Willows. Two men are on a camping and canoeing trip up the Danube, and they reach a marshy section where strange, booming noises are heard. They see a body float past them. It seems that that area impinges on another dimension, and ancient beings are able to step into ours. It's really creepy while being ambiguous about what the danger truly is.
Have you ever heard of a book called THE HORSE IS DEAD? It is a book from the early 60s and to try to get a copy of this book today is impossible. I have seen it for sale for like $300 for a paper bag that is probably 90 pages long. I read it but can’t recall it. My family is obsessed with this book.
I don’t remember who the author is. I just know that the book was published somewhere around 1963 or 64. My family has been obsessed with trying to find this book and when we found it it was on eBay selling for like $300.
One of the weirdest books I've read recently was non-fiction: 'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' by Thomas de Quincey. De Quincey was decidedly eccentric, a child prodigy who ran off and nearly starved in the streets of London because his guardian wouldn't let him go to university early. He began taking opium because suffered intense digestive pain, which he attributed to having nearly starved but which sounds to me like Crohn's disease. His wild and weird descriptions of the mental effects of opium clearly influenced much subsequent weird Victorian literature, including Dickens, R. L. Stevenson, and Wilkie Collins.
The strangest book I ever read I had found in a free little library: All Quiet on the Orient Express by Magnus Mills. The cover was intriguing and the Times review printed on the front stated "Absorbing, darkly worrying, and very, very funny". It was quite bizarre, oddly captivating, and I kept waiting for something to happen. I read it faster than I usually do because I truly had no clue where this story was going.
I love weird books! The weirdest one I can think of at the moment is IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER by Italo Calvino, It's mind-bending and a lot of fun.
It’s hard to beat R. A. Lafferty when it comes to oddness. He’s so strange that his stuff is mostly out of print. There’s a nice selection of his stories called The Best of R. A. Lafferty. Between “Slow Tuesday Night”, “Narrow Valley”, and “Nine Hundred Grandmothers”, you get quite a spectrum of truly strange stories. In the Best volume there are introductions to the stories by several well-known writers.
Barbara Comyn's The Juniper Tree (which is based on a very, very dark Grimm's Tale of the same name) is probably the weirdest thing I've read recently. From what I've heard, weird is just Comyn's style.
Ishiguro's The Unconsoled might be the weirdest thing I've read period.
I have read some weird stuff over the years but I think "A Confederacy of Dunces" takes the cake. I enjoyed the book but it is a strange read.
Oh, man. It’s been years since I’ve read that. I need to read it again! What a hilarious book.
Good Call! ⚜️🌭🦜🩳😏
Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat is an unnerving and weird meditation on free will.
I really love weird children’s books. Silly or strange, they capture something that can be lost in adult fiction. The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash (on the silly side); most Maurice Sendak (on the strange side), etc.
I’m with you on weird children’s books. My daughter and I are almost finished reading through most of Roald Dahl. So great!
Everything by Tom Robbins! Recently completed a re-read of my favorite author from my college years. Spiritual classics in their own wacky way, start with “Another Roadside Attraction”, or “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, or “Still Life with Woodpecker” or “Jitterbug Perfume” or…
From your list, “Master” is a definite re-read in my future!
I don’t know anything about Tom Robbins. I’m gonna have to check him out.
You are in for a treat my literary friend!
Hmmm. Tim Powers' books tend to be pretty weird though maybe that's not the kind of weirdness you're talking about? Yeah, Pinnochio is weird if all you've ever known is the Disney version. If you've read lots of the original Grimm fairy tales or Calvino's collection of Italian folktales, Pinnochio is just business as usual. But he does it delightfully well. (The rabbits are a nice touch.)
I’m apparently way behind the curve on the fairytale thing! I have a collection of Russian fairytales, and they’re all totally bizarre; I didn’t know that was par for the course.
Yes, indeed. You should go to Wikipedia and read the summary of "The Girl Without Hands." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Without_Hands
Of late, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, that was a weird read but definitely worth it.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - anything, short stories, novels. A Hundred Years of Solitude was so weird and so good. He’s a master at magic realism.
Weird and heartwarming: Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett
Weird and disturbing: I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Ian Reid
Just plain weird: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The weirdest thing I've read is a short story by Algernon Blackwood called The Willows. Two men are on a camping and canoeing trip up the Danube, and they reach a marshy section where strange, booming noises are heard. They see a body float past them. It seems that that area impinges on another dimension, and ancient beings are able to step into ours. It's really creepy while being ambiguous about what the danger truly is.
Have you ever heard of a book called THE HORSE IS DEAD? It is a book from the early 60s and to try to get a copy of this book today is impossible. I have seen it for sale for like $300 for a paper bag that is probably 90 pages long. I read it but can’t recall it. My family is obsessed with this book.
Are you talking about the book by Robert Klane?
I don’t remember who the author is. I just know that the book was published somewhere around 1963 or 64. My family has been obsessed with trying to find this book and when we found it it was on eBay selling for like $300.
One of the weirdest books I've read recently was non-fiction: 'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' by Thomas de Quincey. De Quincey was decidedly eccentric, a child prodigy who ran off and nearly starved in the streets of London because his guardian wouldn't let him go to university early. He began taking opium because suffered intense digestive pain, which he attributed to having nearly starved but which sounds to me like Crohn's disease. His wild and weird descriptions of the mental effects of opium clearly influenced much subsequent weird Victorian literature, including Dickens, R. L. Stevenson, and Wilkie Collins.
Conrad's "Lord Jim" 🌏🚢🏝️⛵🧭 is right up there for me...
The strangest book I ever read I had found in a free little library: All Quiet on the Orient Express by Magnus Mills. The cover was intriguing and the Times review printed on the front stated "Absorbing, darkly worrying, and very, very funny". It was quite bizarre, oddly captivating, and I kept waiting for something to happen. I read it faster than I usually do because I truly had no clue where this story was going.
Weird but delightful: “Conversation with the Supplicant” by Kafka and "Just Before the War with the Eskimos" by Salinger and Pale Fire by Nabokov.
Weird and just plain weird: Pynchon’s Vineland
Apotheosis of literary prowess: The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
I love weird books! The weirdest one I can think of at the moment is IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER by Italo Calvino, It's mind-bending and a lot of fun.
It’s hard to beat R. A. Lafferty when it comes to oddness. He’s so strange that his stuff is mostly out of print. There’s a nice selection of his stories called The Best of R. A. Lafferty. Between “Slow Tuesday Night”, “Narrow Valley”, and “Nine Hundred Grandmothers”, you get quite a spectrum of truly strange stories. In the Best volume there are introductions to the stories by several well-known writers.
Barbara Comyn's The Juniper Tree (which is based on a very, very dark Grimm's Tale of the same name) is probably the weirdest thing I've read recently. From what I've heard, weird is just Comyn's style.
Ishiguro's The Unconsoled might be the weirdest thing I've read period.