Before I start listing them, I have to warn you guys that the definition of “weird” might differ from one person to another. What I find weird, may not be unusual for someone else and that’s okay because we don’t have the same life.
THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN BY GENE WOLFE
I started this book so excited thinking it would be a normal fantasy hahah. It’s a great book but I would lie to myself if I didn’t mention how odd it was. You have a torturer’s guild, and they have a machine that makes you uncontrollably suicidal so the character would mutilate herself to death. YEAH, Harsh to read I know. And that’s just the beginning, the actual plot is vague but it’s one of those books you need a re-read to understand everything. The narrator has a very unique perspective, almost a schizophrenic approach, it doesn’t make sense sometimes.
GEEK LOVE BY KATHERINE DUNN
This book has the most memorable characters you can find, they form a carnival and it’s freak-ish to the bones. Imagine a family that will do whatever it takes to maintain it’s abnormality for the carnival to have a business and live. The amount of efforts the parents would be willing to go is exorbitant. The mother would poison herself so she can have children with deformities and disabilities for their traveling carnival.
INVISIBLE MONSTERS BY CHUCK PALAHNIUK
This book was one hell of a ride. It is about everything our society is obsessed and is disturbed about. It’s one of those books where it can get confusing, but if you follow the narrator and you just go along with the pace, you’ll get use to it. It’s a social critic of beauty and everything that stands between our perception of beauty and ugliness.
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE BY ANTHONY BURGESS
You may know this book because of the movie or vice versa, but I think we can all agree that its story is bizarre. We start the book with little to no idea what they are saying because it has its own vocabularies. All the worldbuilding is also very absurd , where bar serves milk as a delicacy but the deep theme of personal values and its character development is one of the most memorable elements I’ve read.
The only book I’ve read on this list is Invisible Monsters and I agree with you that it is weird. I liked it but it was also so bizarre in the way the story is told.
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Woaa glad to see someone has read it too! 😀 The writing style was very weird indeed haha but I guess it needed to be done like that for the effect to be fully majestic in the end XD
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Definitely agree with A Clockwork Orange – it took me so long to understand the flow of the language!
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I have tried to re-read the book the other day and I still struggle LOL The mixing of Russian and English make it really difficult.
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The first one sounds wild!!
I’ve only watched ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and gotta agree. It is definitely one of the weirdest stories out there. Still worth the watch for sure!
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I have read ‘Book of the New Sun’, ‘Clockwork Orange’, and Geek Love’, but not ‘Invisible Monsters’, though, I have read several Palahniuk books.
‘Book of the New Sun’ and ‘Clockwork Orange’ are more science fiction, than what I would call weird.
Luv Palahniuk.
‘Geek Love’ changed me in some way, it was so odd.
My weird book recommendation is ‘Gojiro’, by Mark Jacobson.
Happy Trails!
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Geek Love is probably the strangest book I’ve ever read. Glad to see it made your list too.
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I think the weirdest book I have read was The Last Days of New Paris by China Mieville, which is a surrealist novella about an alternate Paris after World War II, after rogue artists dropped a surreality bomb on the city. It’s completely bizarre, but that’s surrealism for you.
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I absolutely loved Book of the New Sun. Like you I went into it expecting something very different than I found, but ended up enjoying it much more because of that. Great book! I don’t know what my weirdest reads have been. Though I haven’t read any of his novels yet, I’ve read some stories by Paolo Bacigalupi. Very good, and to me a bit weird. I also found The Vagrant trilogy by Peter Newman a bit weird, not the typical fantasy I was used to.
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‘Tarantula’ by Bob Dylan
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The weirdest book I’ve read is ‘The Exploding Book’ by Mike Russell, which I was offered for review last year. I’ve read a lot of books indeed and that is the most bizarre.
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I was getting excited about The Book of the New Sun and went to add it on Goodreads and then when I saw the page count- I was like- yeah, um, no. I absolutely can’t commit to this 😀 I have done so many tomes lately, I just want something that’s 300 pages 😀 hahaha.
Great post!
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Normal by Warren Ellis. It’s described as a techno-thriller and is about futurists. It’s very interesting.
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As soon as I spotted your post Geek Love came to my mind! I usually love weird plots and strange characters but I have to admit that I did struggle to get into that one, despite so many people loving it! The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks is another weird book for me
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Hhmm… (puts thinking cap on)
1. The Emissary by Yoko Tawada
2. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
3. The Children’s Home by Charles Lambert
4. The Hike by Drew Magary
5. I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
6. Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton
Mind you, I’m practically a connoisseur of weird movies! (not so much books, unfortunately)
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I usually like weird things, but I think I’ve never read any weird books yet! 🤔
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Thanks for sharing!
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“The Laughing Man” was really … strange.
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Actually, that’s “The Man Who Laughs”, by Victor Hugo…
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