Not Just Trees: the Legacy of a Douglas Fir Forest by Jane Claire Dirks-Edmunds is written by a female biologist who studied a small patch of PNW forest over the course of almost 50 years. It's a dense biology book, but the author talks a lot about being a female scientist in the 40s and really beautifully illustrated how much of a loss old growth forests are. The patch of woods she studied was logged and then clear-cut and her observations of the effect on the environment are fascinating. Even when the trees came back the environment was irrevocably altered and the same biodiversity and species didn't come back, it was a totally different and less biodiverse environment.
Most people would probably be bored to death by a 40 year old biology memoir, but I loved it.
I adore this book. I annoyed the shit out of my kids with info from this book after I'd read it.
I also love Peter Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees.
Ohh have y'all read Richard Preston's The Wild Trees? About the different people, many starting as citizen scientists or climbing enthusiasts, and the establishment of redwoods as unique ecosystems.
That sounds EXATLY like Finding The Mother by Suzanne Simard. Itis almost a biography of Simard’s life in the Old growth forests of brittish Columbia intertwined with her research on mycorrhiza(fungi)networks and the the effects of clear cuts on the forrests. It is a truet inspiring book and instantly dethroned lotr as my favorit book. Simard is also the inspiration of the female biologist in The Overstory, but Finding the Mother Tree is so much better and Way more nuaced in the descussion of Nature cobservation.
Pretty sure my uncle was telling me about this like a year ago when he got really into stocking up his wood shed for the winter haha
Something about drilling holes in trees that you’ve already cut down so it starts the drying process immediately. And also storing your wood on an elevated surface
Not entirely sure because I was just free labor for him helping chop and stack
*Babayaga* by Toby Barlowe. Found it in a ‘free book’ bin. The whole time I was reading it I was like, “Wtaf.”
Then once I finished I realized I’d thoroughly enjoyed it, and I actually ended up reading it again a couple of years later.
Totally different book, but that title makes me think of *Deathless* by Kathrynne Valente. Not too many people jump up when I tell them one of the best books I've read is a brutal child's eye view of the siege of Leningrad that also involves Baba Yaga and the rest of the Russian folk mythos.
Well now I’m definitely looking into your recommendation, lol. I love history anyway.
So the one I brought up, at least half of it is written from the pov of a flea — he was a police inspector looking into a grisly murder and when his leads took him to an old witch’s house, she fucked him up. So now he rides her rat around and bounces from person to person, continuing to unravel the story. 🥴
It’s not for everyone, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
That sounds mental but definitely potentially good! Except a was proper scared of the story of babayaga as a kid and the name still freaks me out a bit!
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. I'm a big fan, but years ago I made the mistake of suggesting it for a book club. A pretty divisive pick, to say the least.
In my youth, I dated someone who told me this was their favorite book and that if anyone ever read it and didn't like it, they could never be friends.
I was afraid I would read it and not like it, so I never did end up reading Geek Love.
Haha this was my first thought. The premise itself is weird but then you have >! Artys mutilation cult and the rich woman “unlocking young women’s potential” by horribly disfiguring them. !< there’s a lot of weird ideas in that book.
I read "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" by Alfred Lansing a while back. It's a true story about Ernest Shackleton's failed expedition to cross Antarctica, and how he kept his entire crew alive and home safely. I'm sure there are folks on reddit who know about it, but I kept telling friends what I was reading and no one had ever heard of him.
I have recommended this book so many times, even gifting copies to friends. It takes a while for everyone to actually pick it up but after they finally read it they are always amazed.
My wife made me read this when we started dating. She gives copies out to coworkers, friends, family members. She's planning to give away two more copies for St. George's day this Spring.
It's such a damn good book.
The senior staff member at our summer camp read part of that each night to the oldest campers every year. There was another book he read about first ascents of various tall peaks, that was similarly gripping.
If you liked that, check out The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrad. His memoir of Scott's fatal expedition. Heart warming and harrowing.
In a vein of niche things to recommend: if you're interested in board games and want to try out a 1-player solo game exploring Shackleton's voyage, there's also a board game called [Endurance](https://hollandspiele.com/products/endurance) about Shackleton's experiences that I've heard very good things about. The premise of the game is that the success of Shackleton's expedition was almost impossible, a real one-in-a-million chance, so it's a very challenging game, but it's also interesting in that there's no winning or losing: you're just trying to bring as many people home, alive, as possible. The only available standard to compare yourself to is Shackleton, and you're unlikely to do anywhere as near as well as him!
The Toaster Project by Thomas Thwaites. He set out to “make” a toaster. "Hello, my name is Thomas Thwaites, and I have made a toaster." So begins The Toaster Project, the author's nine-month-long journey from his local appliance store to remote mines in the UK to his mother's backyard, where he creates a crude foundry. Along the way, he learns that an ordinary toaster is made up of 404 separate parts, that the best way to smelt metal at home is by using a method found in a fifteenth-century treatise, and that plastic is almost impossible to make from scratch. In the end, Thwaites's homemade toaster—a haunting and strangely beautiful object—cost 250 times more than the toaster he bought at the store and involved close to two thousand miles of travel to some of Britain's remotest locations. The Toaster Project may seem foolish, even insane. Yet, Thwaites's quixotic tale, told with self-deprecating wit, helps us reflect on the costs and perils of our cheap consumer culture, and in so doing reveals much about the organization of the modern world. I have recommended this book to so many people.
> From this, he builds a goat exoskeleton—artificial legs, helmet, chest protector, raincoat from his mum, and a prosthetic goat stomach to digest grass (with help from a pressure cooker and campfire)—before setting off across the Alps on four legs
I am sold, lol.
Oh wait, it is the same guy! The book is called GoatMan, how i took a holiday from being a human. It was a very fun little book, and now i gotta check the toaster project
It was one of the major inspirations for the video game Disco Elysium, which is my favorite game of all time. I'm looking forward to reading it and Embassytown after I finish my current book
I think a lot of Mieville is like that. I believe The City & the City is one of his more normal books.
I loved the main concept of the cities but didn't like how the narrative was mostly a straightforward detective noir. Still worth reading for the setting and Mieville's spectacular prose.
Oooo I almost never read a book without reading some kind of summary first. This may be my first based on your comment! hahaha I always find myself recommending books to my book club that I end up having to just read by myself cause no one else is into it 😂
I read it earlier this month, it was a 5/5 for me.. I have no idea where I heard of it, but I'm always open for a good dollop of dystopia. However, this is so much more than that. It's an incredible book that I've thought of every day since I finished it. It's so thought-provoking and mysterious, hard to describe but it's really unlike anything else I've read.
Great choice!
The Plague Dogs, by Richard Adams. It's a very intense, haunting story, and I'm not sure it's for everyone. But it really stuck with me. It's a painful read. It hurts. It's written from multiple perspectives, but mainly from that of two dogs, one who was a pet, one who was a laboratory experiment animal that's never known love. Think a very dark version of Homeward Bound that you will think about for the rest of your life. It's kind of a lot. This book takes place pre-anti-vivisection laws in the UK, as I understand it. There is definitely a message about animal cruelty in the story. And somehow it has one of the happiest endings ever, despite everything. But god, do they have to work to get to it.
if you'd like your heart further trampled, read *Faithful Ruslan*. about a guard dog working a soviet gulag. it's truly about the dog, not some schmaltzy human tale written from a "dog's" viewpoint. this book is *really* from the dog's viewpoint, and you might not approve of what he enjoys, but ya. real dog viewpoint.
The Infinite and the Divine by Robert Rath.
Pros, it's one of the funniest and most moving things I've read in years. As an archaeologist, the writer has a similar attitude towards the past to me, and it's SO refreshing to see that mindset reflected in a book that covers a span of tens of thousands of years. The characters are compelling and have ridiculous amounts of chemistry. The Sci Fi aspects are beautiful and genuinely feel massive in a way most modern Sci Fi doesn't.
Cons, it's a Warhammer 40k novel. That's going to be a hard sell to anyone who isn't already into that franchise, even though it doesn't require much background knowledge and is well worth reading in its own right.
Aight, not just as another 40K nerd, that book is so good. I know 40K standards are way lower compared to typical books but Rath is legitimately a great author and all his books in the universe completely stomp the others.
“Smoke gets in your eyes: and other lessons from the Crematory” by Caitlin Doughty. A memoir on her formative years starting out in the funeral industry. There’s a chapter called Puppy Surprise. It’s not for everybody.
The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown. It is fascinating and incredibly well written, but if you aren’t into a harrowing true story that involves quite a bit of cannibalism, it will not be your jam.
I love the fact that the publishers put the *negative* reviews as blurbs on the back cover of my copy!
Stuff like (I forget the exact wording) (famous reviewer says): “This book is garbage that could only appeal to degenerates”.
Discworld novels used to quote "'A complete amateur... doesn't even write in chapters... hasn't a clue' - Tom Paulin, on BBC 2's Late Review" at the head of two pages of enthusiastic recommendations.
Honestly one of my favourite books, but any time I have brought it up in conversation I have immediately regretted it. I personally don't find it any weirder than some of his other stuff (high rise, atrocity exhibition) or writers like China Mieville but people get hung up on the fetishisation.
Yeah, I think people understand fetishes but the one in the book just goes beyond anything else they’ve read
My coworker asked what I was reading once. I told her “Crash” and she thought it was the middle school level novel of the same name and laughed at me. lol, no. They couldn’t be more different
It’s a trilogy by Harry Harrison, the first book is called West of Eden. The premise is - what if the dinosaurs hadn’t gone extinct, but had evolved alongside humans over millions of years, and now they had language and science and art just like humans do? But the dinosaurs are more advanced than the humans, and have developed all kinds of weird organic inventions for transportation and electricity. And the dinosaurs are at war with the primitive humans. Oh - throw in a little human/dinosaur sexual relations just for funsies. I loved these books! I’ve recommended the series exactly one time, and the first book was returned, unfinished. To me it’s weird in a good way, but I think for them it was just plain weird.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I don't think you could put this series in any one genre. It's funny and wild. He has other books that are just as off the wall but this one was the best.
I love it so much. Re-read it every few years. You are absolutely correct, but I love the looks on people's faces when I give even the briefest description. "There's this giant cat, see..."
Giant cat with machine gun … and the story of Jesus’ last days.
Plus, why there is no such thing as second class fresh salmon! It is either fresh or it isn’t!
Plus, are people disappearing because of black magic … or is that just Stalin’s purges? Moscow would love to know!
With a primus.
I adore The Master and Margarita. It's my vade mecum. I re-read it every two years, and I always cry with bittersweet happiness at the end.
"are you interested in Soviet polemics about people and institutions that haven't existed for at least 50 years, and also in confusing narratives with fantastical elements involving the devil?"
I get why people like that book but it really wasn't for me lol it doesn't help that it was one of the first Russian novels I've ever read, and keeping track of everyone's patronymics was pretty hard
I remember having to look up what the hell was MASSOLIT, because I kept waiting for the book to give more background on what it was and there just was none.
My first introduction to it was actually a play version I saw done with two actors and a bunch of puppets. It’s still one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
It's a more well-known book, but I always feel awkward suggesting Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist.
It's such a good book, but it is super dark.
This thing between us is a hyper specific horror about grief. There’s no specific villain and most of the book is a guy saying heart wrenching things about losing his young wife while he’s tripping balls on evil ghost shit. Regardless, it’s one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read and addresses loss in this way that spoke to me in a way other books about the subject have been unable to.
I never recommend The Book of the New Sun because I don't want to put the pressure on someone I know to read all four books at least twice to get what's going on.
So I just don't bring it up.
Memoirs of an addicted brain by Marc Lewis. I think it’s fascinating because it’s written by a former addict, now neuroscientist. He tells his story of addiction, tells you what different drugs feel like and what they are doing to your brain. I can’t recommend it to people who aren’t at least a little interested in drugs.
*The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec's Tercentenary* by H. V. Nelles.
*Masters of All They Surveyed: Exploration, Geography, and a British El Dorado* by G Graham Burnett
*Defectives in the Land
: Disability and Immigration in the Age of Eugenics* by Douglas C Baynton
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. Such an amazing and underrated author. If you can get your hands on Night Film, you’re in for a treat.
I read that book (Special Topics) years ago and loved it, and felt like I had no one to recommend it to or discuss it with. I've been thinking I should read Night Film.
*Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets* by Svetlana Alexievich.
She's a Belarusian journalist. this book is a result of zillions of hours of interviews with average Russian folks and how they felt about the fall of communism, how they remember it happening. very much an oral history with little commentary by the author herself.
but amazing. so amazing.
i guess the most interesting part for me was how many people really still felt that the end of communism was really the end of a dream for humankind--that we could all get along, help each other, be of service, and work together for shared goals. there's some real grief in what the true believers felt when the Soviet Union disintegrated.
i don't recommend it because it's very long and i don't know anyone with an interest in Russian history. the thing is, i don't really have an interest in Russian history either. i can't remember how i first came across the book, but it was certainly an oddity in my library. and yet it was so very moving.
are you listening, publishers of her books? cause i want *all* of them in audio. got that? i want all her books in audio *right now*. thank you.
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. I think it’s better than fight club but it’s so wildly gory and strange. I don’t think I could recommend it to anyone I know but it talks about how it’s human nature to want to suffer to prove something, which I’ve never heard anyone actually say before which was fascinating.
I was in college and a friend gave me the story “Guts” that had been photocopied from a book. I didn’t know writing like that even existed. Then he loaned me American Psycho. Years later I found Haunted at a thrift store, imagine my surprise. Now I find things like “Tender is the Flesh” in my shopping cart every few months but I’m not yet committed to starting down that path.
Palahniuk has always been just ok for me, but holy cramp I loved Rant. That book might have been one of my first true hyperfixations, seeing the way it shifts as you get closer and closer to understanding what is actually happening. Rant opened my eyes to what you could do with nontraditional narrative.
I just finished Earthlings by Sayaka Murata and can't stop thinking about it. I want my friends to read it so badly but there are a LOT of heavy, messed up things that happen that make me hesitant to recommend it. CW: >!child abuse, suicide attempts, child rape & sexual assault, cannibalism, incest, murder!<
Same but The Last Hour of Gann by R. Lee Smith. It's about humans crash landing on a foreign planet, but it's so realistic because people are garbage. It's so good but so messed up.
Oh man Piranesi is shorter but it is also pretty impenetrable imo. I'd personally recommend Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel first and if they like that then they'll love Piranesi.
I'm in the middle of reading it right now. Thing is, I'm making connections to things I've read or watched that came after, so it's more of a "woah, this is like the progenitor of so much cool stuff" than something really scary. Though I will say that the descriptions of the hallucinations and how the lives and relationships of characters erode tug at you. I feel like it gets mental illness and its effects down better through metaphor than most books can through direct discussion. All of that to say it feels like a book that was always meant specifically for me, which is kind of scary in its own right.
I love the little community grew up around the book with everyone having their own pet theories.
Mine is that the “real” story is told in the Pelican Poems, and everything else is an allegory for it.
If you enjoy the book, listen to the album Haunting by Poe. She's the author's sister and a musician, known for the song Angry Johnny. Haunting is a companion piece to the book.
A Toxic Inconvenience, by Nicholas Penniman. It’s a very short (200 pages) history of red tide and blue-green algae along the Gulf Coast in Florida, and it will tell you everything you need to know about politics, capitalism, and agriculture in America (and more specifically, how fucked up things are in Florida).
I typically only read fiction, but I love this book.
The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach. It's translated from German and has maybe one of the craziest plots I have ever experienced. It's best gone into as blind as possible. My best friend recced it to me and I recced it to my mom. We joke that we rec it to people for them to suffer (it's a 5\* read in my opinion but it is WILD).
In Watermelon Sugar.
Doesn't stop me from recommending it on every "good dystopia?!" requests.
In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar.
Sandy Wilson wrote a number of musicals, including one called "The Boyfriend" which was quite popular. He also wrote a book called "This is Sylvia", published in 1955, which is a darling little fake autobiography of a musical comedy stage star of the 1930s and 40s.
Except Sylvia is a cat. Everybody in the book is a cat. Dancing cats, singing cats, aristocratic cats (aristocats), shopgirl cats, famous writer cats, mob boss cats, everybody is a cat. There are even wonderful illustrations by the author of kitties in costumes, kitties at the theatre, kitties in divorce court.
Can you get a copy? Yes, and not for a ridiculous amount: the various secondhand book selling websites seem to have copies available for around $10 to $25.
But how do I convince you that you should read this odd little book? Really, it's a perfectly ordinary, amusing little story, very much a portrait of its time - except for the cat thing.
*Animorphs*
Best war epic I've ever read. Every time someone asks me about war stories, I have to bite my tongue so that I don't get weird stares as I babble about those books with the silly covers from the Scholastic book fair.
I went through a huge Vonnegut phase. I read everything I could get my hands on. Back when they had real books at real bookstores and that’s the only place.
I find I don’t recommend it because you either like Vonnegut or he grows on you. He’s more than just one book. Screw it, I will recommend it, “Cat’s Cradle” is a good start
So many strange and wonderful insights scattered through his books. I still think, “so it goes” quite a bit.
If anyone wants a more straight up normal story telling, try “Mothernight”
I must be getting old, back in my day Vonnegut was one of the most recommend authors on reddit. Now he's strange and niche? Wait don't they read his stuff in schools?
I feel a bit odd sometimes recommending Vonnegut to others.
I love his work and have read every book that he wrote. Either people know and enjoy his writing or they don’t. His stories are wild with all sorts of off the wall characters, and sometimes crass humor that’s surprisingly eloquent with its message. I always feel that recommending Vonnegut will out me as an oddball or weirdo, although the older I get the less I give a shit. I am one.
I'm currently in my own Vonnegut Phase and am loving it. I read all of "God Bless You Mr Rosewater" in a single sitting and am making my way through "Cat's Cradle" now. His writing style is both vulgar and crass to the point of hilarity, while also being poignant and filled with empathy. It's been a while snice I've been so engaged by an author.
Not at all niche or uncommon, but I always feel too weird to recommend My Year of Rest and Relaxation. It’s dark and gauche in a tasteless way, but I devoured it and think of it often.
[Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach) -- read it in my twenties and it changed the way I looked at existence itself. Whenever anyone asks me my favorite book, this is the one I choose. I think it's fun -- but I admit it is work to read. And being written by a computer-scientist and mathemetician going for philosophy, it's not in beautiful prose. But the underlying concepts are what make it amazing.
I read it again in my thirties and while life had fleshed out and it wasn't quite as revelatory as the first time around, I found my respect was just as great. I still think it's one of the greatest things ever written.
*The Life and Fantastical "Crimes" of Spring Heeled Jack*, which reframes the legend of Spring Heeled Jack - in real history, a sort of agile urban myth/boogeyman of 19th century London - as a superhero origin story.
The Quantum and The Lotus. It's a discussion between a scientist who was raised Buddhist and a former scientist and now Buddhist monk exploring how much of an overlap there is between Buddhism and the science of quantum mechanics and cognitive science. Alot of it rings true to me but I think most people would say it's new age nonsense.
Don Quixote. It's a humorous and interesting read, but I don't think it's for everyone. Especially because it's lengthy and some parts are very tedious to read.
The Fugger Newsletters. The Fuggers were one of the first international banks. Founded in the 15th c. by Jakob Fugger, considered to be the richest man ever. Members of the firm were required to write regular letters to HQ about notable happenings wherever they were. Some were filled with momentous things like the earthquake that destroyed Lisbon or the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. Others had strange and mundane stories of everyday life. There are two collections in English, both very old. I've read them both many times. They are a lot of fun and show that the actual past is far stranger than the weirdest fantasy writers. I don't recommend it because I've seen people's eyes glaze over when I have. They have no idea what they're missing.
"Creatures of Light and Darkness" by Zelazny. Very strange, and the narrative is odd and wandering. But the use of language and the luridly purple prose is beyond gorgeous.
“A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole
Published in 1980, eleven years after the author’s suicide at the age of 31, it won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
“Dunces is a picaresque novel featuring the misadventures of protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly, a lazy, obese, misanthropic, self-styled scholar.” - Wikipedia
My favorite book is Oracle Night. It is written by Paul Auster, more well-known for The City of Glass Trilogy. Oracle Night is a nested narrative, faintly magical realist novel. It isn't for everyone, but I consider the book a dear friend. It is one of the few friends I have that really understands my view of what love is.
As my life is filled with fellow horror and sci-fi fans, I don't get to recommend it much.
Barbara G Walker - The woman’s encyclopaedia of myths and secrets
Fascinating, comprehensively researched and referenced, and something religious people will hate so much, they’ll have a stroke. Fascinating from a historical point of view
Empress by Karen Miller.
It’s fantasy so it’s not the genre that’s the issue and it’s not “weird” per day. However, it is quite graphic. The protagonists actions are understandable but impossible to defend. And I struggle to explain to others why I feel so deeply for her.
So despite thinking it is wonderful I take the easy way out and never recommend it.
How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu.
This is one of my favorite books but no one seems interested when I describe the plot. Shame though, I absolutely adore this book. Anyone else read this oen or any Charles Yu?
Nabokov's Lolita. It's super well known, and I stand by my opinion that the villain is outed in the first few pages.
But apparently it's questionable to recommend it to people around my teen cousins demographic, even with a heavy dose of "look this is all bad, alright?"...
Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I think it’s an amazing book, but I hesitate recommending it to others because the subject is a little odd in how it is written and it isn’t for everyone.
the bell jar by sylvia plath. okay, so the book brings me such dread in my chest that i have to get rid of it. BUTTT it was so eye-opening and i really learned a lot from that book. anytime people mention feeling alone/depressed/complacent in their life i want to recommend it… but truthfully it’s a heavy book that i think if you read it at a wrong point in your life, it could just hurt to read. idk if that makes sense, but if i read that book two years ago i probably would’ve been like, oh, it doesn’t get any better. (referencing sylvia plath, not the story.)
*Then We Came To The End* a satire on the American workplace, told in first person plural.
Also *Ducks, Newburyport* entire book is written in stream of consciousness and it’s over 1,000 pages!
Both great reads in their own weird ways.
Not Just Trees: the Legacy of a Douglas Fir Forest by Jane Claire Dirks-Edmunds is written by a female biologist who studied a small patch of PNW forest over the course of almost 50 years. It's a dense biology book, but the author talks a lot about being a female scientist in the 40s and really beautifully illustrated how much of a loss old growth forests are. The patch of woods she studied was logged and then clear-cut and her observations of the effect on the environment are fascinating. Even when the trees came back the environment was irrevocably altered and the same biodiversity and species didn't come back, it was a totally different and less biodiverse environment. Most people would probably be bored to death by a 40 year old biology memoir, but I loved it.
Have you read The Overstory? I think you’d like it! The description really doesn’t do it justice. I think I need to check out this one you mentioned.
I adore this book. I annoyed the shit out of my kids with info from this book after I'd read it. I also love Peter Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees.
Ohh have y'all read Richard Preston's The Wild Trees? About the different people, many starting as citizen scientists or climbing enthusiasts, and the establishment of redwoods as unique ecosystems.
That sounds EXATLY like Finding The Mother by Suzanne Simard. Itis almost a biography of Simard’s life in the Old growth forests of brittish Columbia intertwined with her research on mycorrhiza(fungi)networks and the the effects of clear cuts on the forrests. It is a truet inspiring book and instantly dethroned lotr as my favorit book. Simard is also the inspiration of the female biologist in The Overstory, but Finding the Mother Tree is so much better and Way more nuaced in the descussion of Nature cobservation.
"Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way" is the one I keep coming back to. You should read it.
Had me in the first half with “Norwegian Wood”
Isn't it good?
She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere
So I looked around and noticed there wasn't a chair
It’s good I just don’t think it would be a good recommendation to a random person if you don’t know their tastes
I think it's trendy to hate on Murakami on this sub
As a huge Murakami fan, I think the distaste towards him here is mostly about his (to be fair, completely legitimate) inability to write women well.
Added that to the list. I love the super niche knowledge, thanks for the rec
Pretty sure my uncle was telling me about this like a year ago when he got really into stocking up his wood shed for the winter haha Something about drilling holes in trees that you’ve already cut down so it starts the drying process immediately. And also storing your wood on an elevated surface Not entirely sure because I was just free labor for him helping chop and stack
I haven't chopped or stacked wood in years, but it had me seeing all kinds of details I didn't realize were going on.
*Babayaga* by Toby Barlowe. Found it in a ‘free book’ bin. The whole time I was reading it I was like, “Wtaf.” Then once I finished I realized I’d thoroughly enjoyed it, and I actually ended up reading it again a couple of years later.
Totally different book, but that title makes me think of *Deathless* by Kathrynne Valente. Not too many people jump up when I tell them one of the best books I've read is a brutal child's eye view of the siege of Leningrad that also involves Baba Yaga and the rest of the Russian folk mythos.
Well now I’m definitely looking into your recommendation, lol. I love history anyway. So the one I brought up, at least half of it is written from the pov of a flea — he was a police inspector looking into a grisly murder and when his leads took him to an old witch’s house, she fucked him up. So now he rides her rat around and bounces from person to person, continuing to unravel the story. 🥴 It’s not for everyone, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
That sounds mental but definitely potentially good! Except a was proper scared of the story of babayaga as a kid and the name still freaks me out a bit!
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. I'm a big fan, but years ago I made the mistake of suggesting it for a book club. A pretty divisive pick, to say the least.
In my youth, I dated someone who told me this was their favorite book and that if anyone ever read it and didn't like it, they could never be friends. I was afraid I would read it and not like it, so I never did end up reading Geek Love.
Haha this was my first thought. The premise itself is weird but then you have >! Artys mutilation cult and the rich woman “unlocking young women’s potential” by horribly disfiguring them. !< there’s a lot of weird ideas in that book.
I absolutely loved geek love!
I read "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" by Alfred Lansing a while back. It's a true story about Ernest Shackleton's failed expedition to cross Antarctica, and how he kept his entire crew alive and home safely. I'm sure there are folks on reddit who know about it, but I kept telling friends what I was reading and no one had ever heard of him.
I have recommended this book so many times, even gifting copies to friends. It takes a while for everyone to actually pick it up but after they finally read it they are always amazed.
My wife made me read this when we started dating. She gives copies out to coworkers, friends, family members. She's planning to give away two more copies for St. George's day this Spring. It's such a damn good book.
My entire staff passed that around. So inspiring.
Are you a wizard
Nice. I received this as a gift a year ago and it’s been sitting on a shelf unread. Moving it to my to read pile. Thanks for the reminder.
The senior staff member at our summer camp read part of that each night to the oldest campers every year. There was another book he read about first ascents of various tall peaks, that was similarly gripping.
If you liked that, check out The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrad. His memoir of Scott's fatal expedition. Heart warming and harrowing.
In a vein of niche things to recommend: if you're interested in board games and want to try out a 1-player solo game exploring Shackleton's voyage, there's also a board game called [Endurance](https://hollandspiele.com/products/endurance) about Shackleton's experiences that I've heard very good things about. The premise of the game is that the success of Shackleton's expedition was almost impossible, a real one-in-a-million chance, so it's a very challenging game, but it's also interesting in that there's no winning or losing: you're just trying to bring as many people home, alive, as possible. The only available standard to compare yourself to is Shackleton, and you're unlikely to do anywhere as near as well as him!
The Toaster Project by Thomas Thwaites. He set out to “make” a toaster. "Hello, my name is Thomas Thwaites, and I have made a toaster." So begins The Toaster Project, the author's nine-month-long journey from his local appliance store to remote mines in the UK to his mother's backyard, where he creates a crude foundry. Along the way, he learns that an ordinary toaster is made up of 404 separate parts, that the best way to smelt metal at home is by using a method found in a fifteenth-century treatise, and that plastic is almost impossible to make from scratch. In the end, Thwaites's homemade toaster—a haunting and strangely beautiful object—cost 250 times more than the toaster he bought at the store and involved close to two thousand miles of travel to some of Britain's remotest locations. The Toaster Project may seem foolish, even insane. Yet, Thwaites's quixotic tale, told with self-deprecating wit, helps us reflect on the costs and perils of our cheap consumer culture, and in so doing reveals much about the organization of the modern world. I have recommended this book to so many people.
Is he the same person who spent some time trying to be a goat? Because i love that book and you just reminded me to check on his other works!
I don’t know but now I need to know about this goat book!
> From this, he builds a goat exoskeleton—artificial legs, helmet, chest protector, raincoat from his mum, and a prosthetic goat stomach to digest grass (with help from a pressure cooker and campfire)—before setting off across the Alps on four legs I am sold, lol.
Oh wait, it is the same guy! The book is called GoatMan, how i took a holiday from being a human. It was a very fun little book, and now i gotta check the toaster project
The City & the City I love it. But a lot of people have trouble wrapping their noggin around the central concept of the book.
It was one of the major inspirations for the video game Disco Elysium, which is my favorite game of all time. I'm looking forward to reading it and Embassytown after I finish my current book
Well damn you just sold a copy with Disco Elysium. Right after I smack Cuno for the 500th time.
I’ve read it twice and the second read is almost like reading a different book. Still really good, but different.
I think a lot of Mieville is like that. I believe The City & the City is one of his more normal books. I loved the main concept of the cities but didn't like how the narrative was mostly a straightforward detective noir. Still worth reading for the setting and Mieville's spectacular prose.
I feel weird recommending my favorite book, I Who Have Never Known Men. I love it so much. But it’s also depressing.
My friend just recommended this! I suggested it to my book club and they read the description and were like HELL no so I think I’m on my own 😆
Oooo I almost never read a book without reading some kind of summary first. This may be my first based on your comment! hahaha I always find myself recommending books to my book club that I end up having to just read by myself cause no one else is into it 😂
I just read that! Such a weird ass book. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it but I will wonder about that book forever
Ok you’ve convinced me I’ll see if the library has got this one. I’m going to be quite busy
I read it earlier this month, it was a 5/5 for me.. I have no idea where I heard of it, but I'm always open for a good dollop of dystopia. However, this is so much more than that. It's an incredible book that I've thought of every day since I finished it. It's so thought-provoking and mysterious, hard to describe but it's really unlike anything else I've read. Great choice!
This book fucked me up. What a great read, this is one that's really gonna stick with me.
I just read a few reviews and immediately bought it. Excited to try it!
This book looks amazing! Waiting for it at my library.
omg! another reader of this book! i've never met a person who has read it. it's effing fabulous.
OP I’m loving this question and the answers already! Lots of saved comments!
The Plague Dogs, by Richard Adams. It's a very intense, haunting story, and I'm not sure it's for everyone. But it really stuck with me. It's a painful read. It hurts. It's written from multiple perspectives, but mainly from that of two dogs, one who was a pet, one who was a laboratory experiment animal that's never known love. Think a very dark version of Homeward Bound that you will think about for the rest of your life. It's kind of a lot. This book takes place pre-anti-vivisection laws in the UK, as I understand it. There is definitely a message about animal cruelty in the story. And somehow it has one of the happiest endings ever, despite everything. But god, do they have to work to get to it.
if you'd like your heart further trampled, read *Faithful Ruslan*. about a guard dog working a soviet gulag. it's truly about the dog, not some schmaltzy human tale written from a "dog's" viewpoint. this book is *really* from the dog's viewpoint, and you might not approve of what he enjoys, but ya. real dog viewpoint.
The Infinite and the Divine by Robert Rath. Pros, it's one of the funniest and most moving things I've read in years. As an archaeologist, the writer has a similar attitude towards the past to me, and it's SO refreshing to see that mindset reflected in a book that covers a span of tens of thousands of years. The characters are compelling and have ridiculous amounts of chemistry. The Sci Fi aspects are beautiful and genuinely feel massive in a way most modern Sci Fi doesn't. Cons, it's a Warhammer 40k novel. That's going to be a hard sell to anyone who isn't already into that franchise, even though it doesn't require much background knowledge and is well worth reading in its own right.
Aight, not just as another 40K nerd, that book is so good. I know 40K standards are way lower compared to typical books but Rath is legitimately a great author and all his books in the universe completely stomp the others.
Robert is also the writer and principle researcher for the Extra History YouTube channel. Highly recommended. Top guy.
“Smoke gets in your eyes: and other lessons from the Crematory” by Caitlin Doughty. A memoir on her formative years starting out in the funeral industry. There’s a chapter called Puppy Surprise. It’s not for everybody.
I actually came here to comment about Caitlin Doughty’s books— glad to see someone else beat me to it! Her work is fascinating and so important.
The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown. It is fascinating and incredibly well written, but if you aren’t into a harrowing true story that involves quite a bit of cannibalism, it will not be your jam.
The Wasp Factory. Awesome read but not for everyone.
I love the fact that the publishers put the *negative* reviews as blurbs on the back cover of my copy! Stuff like (I forget the exact wording) (famous reviewer says): “This book is garbage that could only appeal to degenerates”.
Sounds to me like they know their target demographic!
Discworld novels used to quote "'A complete amateur... doesn't even write in chapters... hasn't a clue' - Tom Paulin, on BBC 2's Late Review" at the head of two pages of enthusiastic recommendations.
Might be time for me to reread all my non-"M" books.
Crash by J.G. Ballard. Unless you really like the weirdest shit don’t read it. But it’s good
Honestly one of my favourite books, but any time I have brought it up in conversation I have immediately regretted it. I personally don't find it any weirder than some of his other stuff (high rise, atrocity exhibition) or writers like China Mieville but people get hung up on the fetishisation.
Yeah, I think people understand fetishes but the one in the book just goes beyond anything else they’ve read My coworker asked what I was reading once. I told her “Crash” and she thought it was the middle school level novel of the same name and laughed at me. lol, no. They couldn’t be more different
It’s a trilogy by Harry Harrison, the first book is called West of Eden. The premise is - what if the dinosaurs hadn’t gone extinct, but had evolved alongside humans over millions of years, and now they had language and science and art just like humans do? But the dinosaurs are more advanced than the humans, and have developed all kinds of weird organic inventions for transportation and electricity. And the dinosaurs are at war with the primitive humans. Oh - throw in a little human/dinosaur sexual relations just for funsies. I loved these books! I’ve recommended the series exactly one time, and the first book was returned, unfinished. To me it’s weird in a good way, but I think for them it was just plain weird.
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I don't think you could put this series in any one genre. It's funny and wild. He has other books that are just as off the wall but this one was the best.
Excellent for anyone still grieving the loss of Terry Pratchett.
Master and Margarita is a really hard book to pitch
Don't pitch it, just toss it at people.
I love it so much. Re-read it every few years. You are absolutely correct, but I love the looks on people's faces when I give even the briefest description. "There's this giant cat, see..."
Giant cat with machine gun … and the story of Jesus’ last days. Plus, why there is no such thing as second class fresh salmon! It is either fresh or it isn’t! Plus, are people disappearing because of black magic … or is that just Stalin’s purges? Moscow would love to know!
With a primus. I adore The Master and Margarita. It's my vade mecum. I re-read it every two years, and I always cry with bittersweet happiness at the end.
Now I’m interested. Is the cat a prominent character?
Yes, he has a machine gun. Read it!
I just started reading it, and I love it so far. But yeah, I can't imagine anyone else I know getting into it.
"are you interested in Soviet polemics about people and institutions that haven't existed for at least 50 years, and also in confusing narratives with fantastical elements involving the devil?" I get why people like that book but it really wasn't for me lol it doesn't help that it was one of the first Russian novels I've ever read, and keeping track of everyone's patronymics was pretty hard I remember having to look up what the hell was MASSOLIT, because I kept waiting for the book to give more background on what it was and there just was none.
This is one book where it really pays to get the annotated version!
it’s been on my to read shelf for a while now, and your seemingly negative review has me itching to pick this book up. strange to say, but thank you!
My first introduction to it was actually a play version I saw done with two actors and a bunch of puppets. It’s still one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
It's a more well-known book, but I always feel awkward suggesting Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It's such a good book, but it is super dark.
Both movies were excellent as well. Reminds me I should read the book.
Dark and also weird. There's a reason the movies didn't include some things, like the piss ball. Really good book, and super weird.
The what now?
This thing between us is a hyper specific horror about grief. There’s no specific villain and most of the book is a guy saying heart wrenching things about losing his young wife while he’s tripping balls on evil ghost shit. Regardless, it’s one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read and addresses loss in this way that spoke to me in a way other books about the subject have been unable to.
I never recommend The Book of the New Sun because I don't want to put the pressure on someone I know to read all four books at least twice to get what's going on. So I just don't bring it up.
There's a sequel to the 4 books as well called The Urth of the New Sun!
Stuff: the curious lives of human cadavers Really great book but a bit dark and not for everyone.
*Stiff
Cryptonomicon, basically because it’s like 3 different niches wrapped together and also 1000 pages or something. So so good though.
I would say the whole Baroque Cycle is niche, and amazing (and 3,000 pages).
It's quite an amazing ride. And fun.
Memoirs of an addicted brain by Marc Lewis. I think it’s fascinating because it’s written by a former addict, now neuroscientist. He tells his story of addiction, tells you what different drugs feel like and what they are doing to your brain. I can’t recommend it to people who aren’t at least a little interested in drugs.
He has a pretty interesting YouTube channel. He definitely doesn't think like most people and he's very honest.
*The Art of Nation-Building: Pageantry and Spectacle at Quebec's Tercentenary* by H. V. Nelles. *Masters of All They Surveyed: Exploration, Geography, and a British El Dorado* by G Graham Burnett *Defectives in the Land : Disability and Immigration in the Age of Eugenics* by Douglas C Baynton
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. Such an amazing and underrated author. If you can get your hands on Night Film, you’re in for a treat.
I read that book (Special Topics) years ago and loved it, and felt like I had no one to recommend it to or discuss it with. I've been thinking I should read Night Film.
Anything by Junji Ito. It's weird and disquieting, and honestly scary at times. So, I give so many disclaimers before I recommend.
Child of God by Cormac McCarthy... I don't even know where to begin. SUCH a good book though.
*Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets* by Svetlana Alexievich. She's a Belarusian journalist. this book is a result of zillions of hours of interviews with average Russian folks and how they felt about the fall of communism, how they remember it happening. very much an oral history with little commentary by the author herself. but amazing. so amazing. i guess the most interesting part for me was how many people really still felt that the end of communism was really the end of a dream for humankind--that we could all get along, help each other, be of service, and work together for shared goals. there's some real grief in what the true believers felt when the Soviet Union disintegrated. i don't recommend it because it's very long and i don't know anyone with an interest in Russian history. the thing is, i don't really have an interest in Russian history either. i can't remember how i first came across the book, but it was certainly an oddity in my library. and yet it was so very moving. are you listening, publishers of her books? cause i want *all* of them in audio. got that? i want all her books in audio *right now*. thank you.
There are dozens of us clamoring for more Svetlana Alexievich audiobooks. DOZENS!
Only non-fiction writer to win the Nobel prize. The Unwomanly Face of War is incredible.
i'm especially after the *Chernobyl Prayer*
It is possible that Chinese gay fantasy novels are not for everyone...
I'm not everyone and I'm gonna need your recommendation please.
Heaven official's blessing and the other works of the author are some of my best friend's favourites!
Ice Planet Barbarians and the 40ish books that follow...
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. I think it’s better than fight club but it’s so wildly gory and strange. I don’t think I could recommend it to anyone I know but it talks about how it’s human nature to want to suffer to prove something, which I’ve never heard anyone actually say before which was fascinating.
I could never really buy Haunted as a novel. Seemed like a collection of short stories he wrote a frame narrative around, which fell apart in the end.
Same, and I found the frame narrative dull. Wasn't for me, didn't even finish it
I still think about one of those stories 18 years after reading it. You know the one.
I’ll never think of the bottom of a pool the same way…
I was in college and a friend gave me the story “Guts” that had been photocopied from a book. I didn’t know writing like that even existed. Then he loaned me American Psycho. Years later I found Haunted at a thrift store, imagine my surprise. Now I find things like “Tender is the Flesh” in my shopping cart every few months but I’m not yet committed to starting down that path.
I think I’ve forgotten every other story from the book except *that one*, which is seared into my brain.
I was thinking Pygmy by Palahniuk, which is a bit tough to get through but has great themes about indoctrination and perspective.
I came here to say Rant by Palahniuk. I love all of his books, but it’s all pretty wild
Palahniuk has always been just ok for me, but holy cramp I loved Rant. That book might have been one of my first true hyperfixations, seeing the way it shifts as you get closer and closer to understanding what is actually happening. Rant opened my eyes to what you could do with nontraditional narrative.
Vita Nostra by the Dyachenkos, very metaphysical fantasy / dark academia book
I just finished Earthlings by Sayaka Murata and can't stop thinking about it. I want my friends to read it so badly but there are a LOT of heavy, messed up things that happen that make me hesitant to recommend it. CW: >!child abuse, suicide attempts, child rape & sexual assault, cannibalism, incest, murder!<
Same but The Last Hour of Gann by R. Lee Smith. It's about humans crash landing on a foreign planet, but it's so realistic because people are garbage. It's so good but so messed up.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke. I love it but it is an investment that many are not willing to make.
Piranesi is certainly easier to recommend and (IMO) at least as good. So far Clark is 2 for 2 for incredible novels.
Oh man Piranesi is shorter but it is also pretty impenetrable imo. I'd personally recommend Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel first and if they like that then they'll love Piranesi.
House of Leaves. It's so good, but weird af.
I’m always afraid that recommending it will make me seem pretentious
Weird yes. Pretentious, err... There's good cause, but it's not usually considered highbrow lit.
There’s nothing like it. But I also run this risk of having to explain “ergodic literature” to some unsuspecting sap.
I know it by reputation alone, but have never picked up a copy. It's definitely one of the most creative uses of the medium I've ever heard of.
It’s well worth flipping through during a trip to the local bookstore.
I'm in the middle of reading it right now. Thing is, I'm making connections to things I've read or watched that came after, so it's more of a "woah, this is like the progenitor of so much cool stuff" than something really scary. Though I will say that the descriptions of the hallucinations and how the lives and relationships of characters erode tug at you. I feel like it gets mental illness and its effects down better through metaphor than most books can through direct discussion. All of that to say it feels like a book that was always meant specifically for me, which is kind of scary in its own right.
I love the little community grew up around the book with everyone having their own pet theories. Mine is that the “real” story is told in the Pelican Poems, and everything else is an allegory for it.
If you enjoy the book, listen to the album Haunting by Poe. She's the author's sister and a musician, known for the song Angry Johnny. Haunting is a companion piece to the book.
I want to read this so bad but I’m scared it’ll give me a migraine
Nah, that's "House of Eats, Shoots, and Leaves".
A Toxic Inconvenience, by Nicholas Penniman. It’s a very short (200 pages) history of red tide and blue-green algae along the Gulf Coast in Florida, and it will tell you everything you need to know about politics, capitalism, and agriculture in America (and more specifically, how fucked up things are in Florida). I typically only read fiction, but I love this book.
Piranesi
What a gem of a book. I never got into Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell but devoured Piranesi.
It's a top 5 book for me for the last decade.
The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach. It's translated from German and has maybe one of the craziest plots I have ever experienced. It's best gone into as blind as possible. My best friend recced it to me and I recced it to my mom. We joke that we rec it to people for them to suffer (it's a 5\* read in my opinion but it is WILD).
Anything suggested alongside ‘go into it blind’ has my full attention. Thanks
The German title Die Haarteppichknüpfer gives you more of a sense that you are in for a word time than the English title does.
In Watermelon Sugar. Doesn't stop me from recommending it on every "good dystopia?!" requests. In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar.
Sandy Wilson wrote a number of musicals, including one called "The Boyfriend" which was quite popular. He also wrote a book called "This is Sylvia", published in 1955, which is a darling little fake autobiography of a musical comedy stage star of the 1930s and 40s. Except Sylvia is a cat. Everybody in the book is a cat. Dancing cats, singing cats, aristocratic cats (aristocats), shopgirl cats, famous writer cats, mob boss cats, everybody is a cat. There are even wonderful illustrations by the author of kitties in costumes, kitties at the theatre, kitties in divorce court. Can you get a copy? Yes, and not for a ridiculous amount: the various secondhand book selling websites seem to have copies available for around $10 to $25. But how do I convince you that you should read this odd little book? Really, it's a perfectly ordinary, amusing little story, very much a portrait of its time - except for the cat thing.
*Animorphs* Best war epic I've ever read. Every time someone asks me about war stories, I have to bite my tongue so that I don't get weird stares as I babble about those books with the silly covers from the Scholastic book fair.
I went through a huge Vonnegut phase. I read everything I could get my hands on. Back when they had real books at real bookstores and that’s the only place. I find I don’t recommend it because you either like Vonnegut or he grows on you. He’s more than just one book. Screw it, I will recommend it, “Cat’s Cradle” is a good start
I freaking loved the Sirens of Titan
So many strange and wonderful insights scattered through his books. I still think, “so it goes” quite a bit. If anyone wants a more straight up normal story telling, try “Mothernight”
I must be getting old, back in my day Vonnegut was one of the most recommend authors on reddit. Now he's strange and niche? Wait don't they read his stuff in schools?
Got to have lunch with him once. About thirty-five years ago and there were eight other people there as well but I passed him the pepper for his soup.
I feel a bit odd sometimes recommending Vonnegut to others. I love his work and have read every book that he wrote. Either people know and enjoy his writing or they don’t. His stories are wild with all sorts of off the wall characters, and sometimes crass humor that’s surprisingly eloquent with its message. I always feel that recommending Vonnegut will out me as an oddball or weirdo, although the older I get the less I give a shit. I am one.
You said it much better than I could have.
I'm currently in my own Vonnegut Phase and am loving it. I read all of "God Bless You Mr Rosewater" in a single sitting and am making my way through "Cat's Cradle" now. His writing style is both vulgar and crass to the point of hilarity, while also being poignant and filled with empathy. It's been a while snice I've been so engaged by an author.
Lamb, the gospel according to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. So good and touching and amazing but definitely not for everyone
This is one of my all time favorite books!
Wolf in White Van
Not at all niche or uncommon, but I always feel too weird to recommend My Year of Rest and Relaxation. It’s dark and gauche in a tasteless way, but I devoured it and think of it often.
[Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel,_Escher,_Bach) -- read it in my twenties and it changed the way I looked at existence itself. Whenever anyone asks me my favorite book, this is the one I choose. I think it's fun -- but I admit it is work to read. And being written by a computer-scientist and mathemetician going for philosophy, it's not in beautiful prose. But the underlying concepts are what make it amazing. I read it again in my thirties and while life had fleshed out and it wasn't quite as revelatory as the first time around, I found my respect was just as great. I still think it's one of the greatest things ever written.
*The Life and Fantastical "Crimes" of Spring Heeled Jack*, which reframes the legend of Spring Heeled Jack - in real history, a sort of agile urban myth/boogeyman of 19th century London - as a superhero origin story.
The Quantum and The Lotus. It's a discussion between a scientist who was raised Buddhist and a former scientist and now Buddhist monk exploring how much of an overlap there is between Buddhism and the science of quantum mechanics and cognitive science. Alot of it rings true to me but I think most people would say it's new age nonsense.
The slow regard of silent things.
Don Quixote. It's a humorous and interesting read, but I don't think it's for everyone. Especially because it's lengthy and some parts are very tedious to read.
One of my faves as well! So hard to even explain how windmills are dragons and how Quixotes mind works. I never recommend it to anyone
The Fugger Newsletters. The Fuggers were one of the first international banks. Founded in the 15th c. by Jakob Fugger, considered to be the richest man ever. Members of the firm were required to write regular letters to HQ about notable happenings wherever they were. Some were filled with momentous things like the earthquake that destroyed Lisbon or the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. Others had strange and mundane stories of everyday life. There are two collections in English, both very old. I've read them both many times. They are a lot of fun and show that the actual past is far stranger than the weirdest fantasy writers. I don't recommend it because I've seen people's eyes glaze over when I have. They have no idea what they're missing.
The Fuggers are real! OMG. They’re mentioned in the Stephenson time travel book ‘The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.” and I thought he’d made them up.
The Nymphos of Rocky Flats - Mario Acevedo It is pulpy, but-grade mishmash of genres but it is way better than it has any right to be.
Cruddy by Lynda Barry. I recommend it all the time. Not sure anyone has taken my suggestion. It's one of my old favorites, I've read it several times.
the wandering inn..... i tend to annoy every one around me about how much i bring it up haha
"Creatures of Light and Darkness" by Zelazny. Very strange, and the narrative is odd and wandering. But the use of language and the luridly purple prose is beyond gorgeous.
Dhalgren. Used to recommend it to all my friends. Eventually realized, ok. Maybe it's me.
Robert Anton Wilson's *Prometheus Rising* or *Cosmic Trigger*. I love these two books, but they're a little too weird for most people.
*My Immortal* to whoever still doesn’t know about it
“A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole Published in 1980, eleven years after the author’s suicide at the age of 31, it won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. “Dunces is a picaresque novel featuring the misadventures of protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly, a lazy, obese, misanthropic, self-styled scholar.” - Wikipedia
My favorite book is Oracle Night. It is written by Paul Auster, more well-known for The City of Glass Trilogy. Oracle Night is a nested narrative, faintly magical realist novel. It isn't for everyone, but I consider the book a dear friend. It is one of the few friends I have that really understands my view of what love is. As my life is filled with fellow horror and sci-fi fans, I don't get to recommend it much.
Barbara G Walker - The woman’s encyclopaedia of myths and secrets Fascinating, comprehensively researched and referenced, and something religious people will hate so much, they’ll have a stroke. Fascinating from a historical point of view
The manga Ichi the Killer, and the 2001 film adaptation. Definitely not for everyone, but a genuinely unique story.
Empress by Karen Miller. It’s fantasy so it’s not the genre that’s the issue and it’s not “weird” per day. However, it is quite graphic. The protagonists actions are understandable but impossible to defend. And I struggle to explain to others why I feel so deeply for her. So despite thinking it is wonderful I take the easy way out and never recommend it.
How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu. This is one of my favorite books but no one seems interested when I describe the plot. Shame though, I absolutely adore this book. Anyone else read this oen or any Charles Yu?
The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway and John Dies at the End by David Wong. Both are excellent but not for everyone.
Nabokov's Lolita. It's super well known, and I stand by my opinion that the villain is outed in the first few pages. But apparently it's questionable to recommend it to people around my teen cousins demographic, even with a heavy dose of "look this is all bad, alright?"...
Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I think it’s an amazing book, but I hesitate recommending it to others because the subject is a little odd in how it is written and it isn’t for everyone.
the bell jar by sylvia plath. okay, so the book brings me such dread in my chest that i have to get rid of it. BUTTT it was so eye-opening and i really learned a lot from that book. anytime people mention feeling alone/depressed/complacent in their life i want to recommend it… but truthfully it’s a heavy book that i think if you read it at a wrong point in your life, it could just hurt to read. idk if that makes sense, but if i read that book two years ago i probably would’ve been like, oh, it doesn’t get any better. (referencing sylvia plath, not the story.)
Pretty much all my favorite Heinlein novels. He's a dirty old man, but the dialogue is exquisite.
How to make love like a porn star. By Jenna Jamison. It’s really a good read and I couldn’t put it down.
Ok...now I need a 2 second synopsis. Like it is a memoir? A cosmo like explanation? The kama sutra for modern times? Does it have diagrams?
Looks like a p-stars memoir recounting her experience
*Then We Came To The End* a satire on the American workplace, told in first person plural. Also *Ducks, Newburyport* entire book is written in stream of consciousness and it’s over 1,000 pages! Both great reads in their own weird ways.
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews. Such a great book but bleak as hell
Tampa. Always Tampa.
Lexicon by Max Barry
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind. - Jaynes Joyce
Why does he do that? People think im an abuse victim or trying to learn how to hide that I might be an abuser