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!
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.
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.)
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.
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.
Confederacy of Dunces is a very sharp satire, and for my money, a great book. I loved Third Policeman, and if you want more of similar, read At Swim-Two-Birds by the same author. 📚💝
Weird books are my metier. Off the top of my head, Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall comes to mind. But for sheer weirdness, my favorite is Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. BTW, Jeff Van der Meer has single-handedly renewed the Weird Tale with his Southern Reach Trilogy of books (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance).
Nathanael West's novels- "The Dream Life Of Balso Snell", "Miss Lonelyhearts", "A Cool Million" and "The Day Of The Locust"- are all weird in both good and bad ways. "Cool Million" in particular is very relevant to our times, if only in how it ends....
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.
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.
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!
Of late, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, that was a weird read but definitely worth it.
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.
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.)
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.
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
Confederacy of Dunces is a very sharp satire, and for my money, a great book. I loved Third Policeman, and if you want more of similar, read At Swim-Two-Birds by the same author. 📚💝
Weird books are my metier. Off the top of my head, Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall comes to mind. But for sheer weirdness, my favorite is Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. BTW, Jeff Van der Meer has single-handedly renewed the Weird Tale with his Southern Reach Trilogy of books (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance).
Nathanael West's novels- "The Dream Life Of Balso Snell", "Miss Lonelyhearts", "A Cool Million" and "The Day Of The Locust"- are all weird in both good and bad ways. "Cool Million" in particular is very relevant to our times, if only in how it ends....
Deathbird by Harlan Ellison, and Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan