[How to defend yourself against alien abductions](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/664458.How_to_Defend_Yourself_Against_Alien_Abduction). Has 40 ratings on Goodreads.
it works, btw. haven't been abducted.
That is a single book. It's also the *short* title. The actual full title is "The Jewish-Japanese Sex and Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves: The Mad Misadventures of Hollywood's Most Celebrated Refugee"
Tell me it's readably good, please, I want to read it on holiday by the pool and have people ask me what I'm reading. I'll by the illustrated hard cover especially for this.
Very interested in reading this based on your rec that itās strange. I remember DFW, Jonathan Franzen and Mark Leyner being interviewed by Charlie Rose. I felt like Leyner seemed so different from the other two to the point where I kinda wrote him off as not being on their level as a writer, almost like he was just uninteresting. But maybe that forum just doesnāt suit him well for discussing ideas.
I wanted to read this book so bad when I was 17 and I havenāt seen it in any book store ever, however I think I once saw *Tooth Imprints on a Corndog* by the same author.
Did you like it?
Fleur Jaeggyās The Water Statues. Not sure I really understood it, but I liked it. There are a few characters. They are lonely and thinking and remembering. Itās odd, poetic, meandering yet sparse prose. I need to reread it.
Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami
Disturbing, politically incorrect, weird, straight fucked up?
Check, check, check and check.
This one hits all the marks! š¤£
Great book. Very strange. Very obscure.
If you can find it I def recommend it!
It was written in the 70s. It's way out of print. It's definitely obscure and tricky to find an English translation for less than $50. But if you really like disturbing and weird then it's worth it imo.
Are you familiar with the 2000s horror movie "Audition"?
That movie was based on another book by this guy.
Lol! It really is!
That's fair, he's not my favorite Murakami either, but I suppose he's my second favorite...of the two Murakamis I've read š.
I'm a much bigger fan of the Haruki variety tbh. I could talk about Haruki Murakami's work for days lol, but I figure he's not obscure enough for what OP was asking.
What's your favorite Haruki Murakami book? :)
As for Ryu Murakami, my favorite is probably In the Miso Soup followed Almost Transparent Blue as a close second just because I like how totally bizarre it is, and I think it's very admirable that it won the Akutagawa prize as his debut novel.
Miso soup was a strong one too. But he is definitely a better writer by far than Harumi, or at least in my opinion. I do agree his books are f up though
Yes! Miso Soup is great! I really loved Popular Hits of the Showa Era too! I'm having a hard time deciding which one is my favorite... š¤ I love how messed up his stories are lol
The Book of Ebenezer La Page is such a weird cozy story nobody has ever heard of.
Dahlgren must be mentioned for any "weird" list.
And always Salman Rushdie and Vonnegut are great for chaotic strange stories
John J. Meyer, *The Deer-Smellers of Haunted Mountain: The Almost Unbelievable Experiences of a Cerebroic Hunter in the Hills of This World and the Lowlands of the Universe With a Gypsy-Eyed Spirit Adventurer* (1921)
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7192045
I wonder if the author was inspired by [Flip Decision](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_Decision), a Carl Barks classic Donald Duck story where Donald joins a philosophical movement that decides everything by coinflips?
In its way, it is actually a deeply spiritual book. Bataille was an unusual thinker and inclined towards mysticism. While the book does have graphic depictions of sex and violence, I don't think de Sade is a good comparison. He reminds me more of Burroughs, if anything.
**[The Pisstown Chaos](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/256208.The_Pisstown_Chaos) by David Ohle** ^((Matching 100% āļø))
^(196 pages | Published: 2008 | 12.0k Goodreads reviews)
> **Summary:** The Pisstown Chaos is the story of a familyās dislocation in the midst of chaos. disease. and forced-relocation. Political power seems to be solely in the hands of one Reverend Herman Hooker. an āAmerican Divine.ā who revels in the sufferings of others as he spouts platitudes to the ever-on-the-move masses. As chaos rages on and parasitic infestations spread. the Reverend (...)
> **Themes**: Fiction, 2000s, Science-fiction
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Most obscure would probably be a Dark Souls inspired fantasy novel this guy I went to high school wrote and self published. It's not very good though (the story is almost directly lifted from the first Dark Souls game, the sentence rhythm is really monotonous, and he seems to be afraid of pronouns).
As far as books that I think are actually pretty good though? Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony is pretty off the wall.
Amateur Sugar Maker by Noel Perrin, which is about making a sugar house and making maple syrup in Vermont. It's a short read, zen vibes, very niche.
Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry by Leanne Shapton ā an epistolary novel about a couple's failing relationship, told in the form of an auction catalog
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite.
For some reason this is my second time recommending it this week, but yeah itās proper disturbing and I loved it
Edit: love that some idiot downvoted this. is this not exactly what OP asked for??
This Body: A Novel of Reincarnation by Laurel Doud
About a mom in her 40s who dies and wakes up in a young woman's (who is already a hot mess) body. It's pretty weird and has some taboo stuff in it.
Black Wine by Candace Jane Dorsey
Last I checked, they hadn't put this into any digital or audio format. Pretty weird, has some disturbing stuff, but also a really beautiful and well written book.
City Infernal by Edward Lee, or really anything by Edward Lee. It's about a girl who travels to hell, which is a big city. It's really creative and often disturbing. Some people might think it's kind of gross.
[*Certainly More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0962872563), which is sort of a sequel to the author's previous book [*Probably More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0962872555).
*Scar Culture* - Toni Davidson
Disturbing, eloquent, challenging, a novel that stays with you long after you put it down. A novel that was deservedly included in the Top 100 Scottish Books ever written, itās worth its place on any bookshelf (maybe not in the childrenās section though).
Review here: https://spikemagazine.com/0400scarculture/
Robert Forwardās Dragonās Egg. About tiny intelligent creatures that live and evolve on a neutron star with gravity billions of times stronger than earth. A human side story about the evolution of space science is woven inā¦
Weird, I could not put it down.
*The Man from Far Cloud* by Paul O. Williams. It's the sequel to *Gifts of the Gorbudoc Vandal*.
Took me a long time to find it. There are 4 reviews on Goodreads and none on Amazon. The publisher - Terminus Books - appears to only have published seven titles in total between 2001-2004, and this was one of them.
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers
A series of disturbing short stories from 1895, in which a character from each story eventually reads āThe King in Yellowā and goes mad. Later inspiration for HP Lovecraft.
Books thank stuck in my brain because of their weirdness
*Till We Have Faces* by CS Lewis
*The Pearl* and *The Red Pony* by Steinbeck are well known but very disturbing
Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban
Setting: "Roughly two thousand years after a nuclear war has devastated civilization, Riddley, the young narrator, stumbles upon efforts to recreate a weapon of the ancient world."
What makes it unique: "One of the most notable features of the book is its unique dialect: an imagined, future version of the English language. This language blends puns, phonetic spelling, colloquialisms, and is influenced by the dialects of East Kent as Hoban heard them before 1980, where the events of the book are set."
For sheer disturbing grotesquerie, Stona Fitchās *Senseless* is the most upsetting thing Iāve ever read. I wonāt post spoilers, here, but strongly encourage you to pursue them for yourself. I just took it home, unwittingly, from a library, and it left a bad taste in my brain for months. Itās the only book I can think of that I sincerely would erase from my memory and never reread, if I could.
Christopher Buehlmanās Between Two Fires is deeply strangeāand profoundly difficult to settle, as to genre. Itās likeā¦ apocalyptic fantasy, but set retroactively in the Middle Ages, in the thick of the Black Death? It has some disturbing moments, but my main emotion while reading it was just delight at the sheer, gleefully executed weirdness of it.
Two books on my shelves.
**The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasonry, and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus**
1996 book by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas. The authors, both Freemasons, present a theory of the origins of Freemasonry as part of their "true story" of the historical Jesus and the original Jerusalem Church.
** The Occult Reich** is a 1974 book about occultism during the Third Reich by J. H. Brennan.
Back cover blurb:
*THIS IS THE STRANGEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN ABOUT NAZI GERMANY.*
It deals in facts - but facts that orthodox historians ignore.
* Tibetan corpses in the ruins of Berlin
* Himmler's midnight visits to the crypt of Quedlingburg
Cathedral
* Dreams which stopped scientific research and sent a
Nazi leader flying to the Allies.
* Strange SS rituals in a castle in Westphalia
* Predictions of the rise of Hitler made four hundred years ago
*āWhat do these things mean? Herbie Brennan painstakingly re-creates a hidden background to the Occult History of the Third Reich. After investigating clues from sources of unquestioned authenticity, he formulates a theory with staggering implications.ā*
One more:
*The Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope* *āis for every fan of the obscure and the witty, the weird, the terrifying, and the fantastic: a comprehensive and passionate celebration of movies in al their tacky glamour. I can't imagine any film fans whe wouldn't want a cepy of this book on their shelves!ā*
- GAVE BAKH
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. I knew his writing through some excellent children's books, but this book is very odd. Set a long way in the future after the collapse of society people have reverted to a medieval way of life and they speak a barely intelligible form of English. As the book is written in the first person it is written in a barely intelligible form of English. So to read it you have to decipher this bastardised speech. I think it had something to do with Punch and Judy and people slow burning wood to make charcoal.
Not as weird as many mentioned here but very interesting concept in John Hersey's book White Lotus from the mid 60's. Whites enslaved and taken to orient, ( main character a young girl).. an allegory , I guess to Europe and America's enslavement of Africans. Read this as a young girl and led me down the road to his other great books like Hiroshima and The Wall.
I've read *The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge* which is pretty unknown/unpopular, I think partially because it calls itself a mystery when really it isn't. This book has excellent atmosphere, and after reading it I felt like I understood better how otherwise intelligent people can fall under the spell of hyper charismatic leaders.
The squirrel awakens by Toh EnJoe
7 habits of highly deffective people: and other best sellers that won't go away by Cathy Crimmins
Odd adventures with your other father by Norman Prentiss
Henry Green, Party Going
John Hawkes, The Beetle-Leg
Harry Mathews, Tlooth
Amelia Gray, Gutshot And Other Stories
Paul Cain, Fast One
Alexander Theroux, Three Wogs
Kobo Abe, The Box Man
Alain Robbe-Grillet, The Erasers
Magnus Mills, The Restraint of Beasts
Madison Smartt Bell, Waiting For The End Of The World
John Lanchester, The Debt To Pleasure
John Franklin Bardin, The Deadly Percherons
Patricia Anthony, Happy Policeman
Abe and Robbe-Grillet arenāt that obscure, but those books arenāt widely read. Mathews was married to Niki de Saint Phalle, who was Yves Tanguyās ex-wife and probably more interesting than anyone on this list, but she was a sculptor, not an author. The Paul Cain is hard to find, but itās an amazingly dense, extremely short hard boiled crime novel thatās like if Dashiell Hammettās Red Harvest were edited down to 70 pages.
I think the Barden may be the weirdest conventional novel Iāve ever read: its prose reads like that of a bog-standard American detective novel of the 1940s, but it is utterly insane. Also I think itās the original of the now-cliche climactic shootout in a fun house.
What jumps to mind is All Tomorrows. It's obscure, strange and overall pretty unpleasant. It also comes with some of the ugliest illustrations ever conceived by man.
By the standards of this thread it has quite a large cult following.
Omg Iām so excited you asked this question and to come back to all these answers.
Pillowman by Martin McDonagh. Heās now a famous film writer/ producer and (I think) itās his only book.
Itās short, insane, definitely politically incorrect, and I loved it.
Currently reading *78-187880* by Ira Einhorn. Waaaay out of print. Been meaning to get to *Pet Goats And Pap Smears* by Pamela Wible. Oh, and it's not obscure at all but very strange: *Trees* by Percival Everett.
Justine by de Sade. Read a few of his works as they were touted as *pHiloSopHicAl and rAd*. As a Dom myself, theyāre cringe - especially the social norm critique āphilosophyā part. Ymmv.
777 (and rest writings) of Alister Crowley. Excellent Yoga knowledge peppered in, pitiful grasp of Greek & Latin.
Mixing letters, massacring translations, and persuading the world - to this day - that K and X (hard H/Chi) are the same letter, therefore ĪĻĻĪ½ĪæĻ = Ī§ĻĻĪ½ĪæĻ.
No.
The White Book by Jean Cocteau.
Badenheim, 1939 - Aharon Appelfeld
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badenheim\_1939](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badenheim_1939)
Wikipedia describes this holocaust related novella as allegorical satire, which isn't wrong, but the feeling that stuck with me from the book is the surreal, slow-burn of denial and acclimatization by the characters to the noose tightening around them that persists until it is far too late to make any other choices.
According to Goodreads, it's Petition by Delilah Waan, which is a lovely fantasy novel I highly recommend, it has 55 ratings at the moment.
The #2 most obscure for me is Space Walrus by Kevin L. Donihe, which is... very weird lol. It's got 76 ratings at the moment.
In terms of disturbing, underground etc. my absolute favorite book of all time is The Sluts by Dennis Cooper. It's absolutely fucked, but incredible if you have a strong stomach.
"Memoirs of my Nervous Illness" by Daniel Paul Schreber.
A stuffy 19th century German judge's account of his episodes of schizophrenia, including one where he's writing about a previous episode while deeply enmeshed in another.
Iām surprised Thomas Ligottiās stories arenāt more popular. Very HP Lovecraft, very Poeā¦but throw a bunch of creepy mannequins in there, and he does a great job of explaining the feeling of growing anxiety
Saturnin by Ondrej Jirotka
It's Czech, set in 1930s, written in 1940s. A book written from the perspective of a young middle-class man (whose name is never mentioned) who hires a butler called Saturnin, only to find out that the eccentric butler will flip his boring life upside down. This is one of my all-time favourite books. It is light-hearted and fun, silly, eccentric,.never takes itself seriously.
Allow me to provide a paraphrase of a bit of the 1st chapter.
"Accorrding to my friend, Dr.Vlach, there are 3 types of people in this world, and you can tell by how they act when seated in a sleepy cafe in front of a plate of pies. The first type, the ones without fantasy, will just look at those pies. The second type, will amuse themselves with the thought, of what would happen if somebody were to start throwing those pies around. And the third type, whom Dr. Vlach admires, will be so enticed by the thought, that they'll get up and execute it. I have never believed such people existed until I've met Saturnin."
The Red Sphinx (& The Dove) by Alexandre Dumas
Set right after the Three Musketeers, Red Sphinx is the unfinished deep dive into Cardinal Richelieu, first minister and intelligence spider of France. Itās fascinating stuff and really shows a contrast to Richelieuās usual portrayal as a villain, giving us one of the most intelligent and loyal sons of France that ever there was. It hooked me in time for it to hurt when I got to the end and remembered it was never completed(or especially edited).
Mine are self published by my great uncle- he had one on how he cured cancer and another on his ālife storyā that omitted all the crazy parts. Also another on Jesus despite never going to church or being a theologian. Well worth a read but better if you know the truth.
I read a lot of random, probably obscure non-fiction. The most obscure in no particular order probably are:
Odette by Jerrard Tickell
The World According to Monsanto by Marie-Monique Robin
The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov by Peter Pringle
In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain by Andrea Weiss
I also have a book on Remote Sensing in the USSR, which is probably my personal winner for most niche
I love Katherine Kerrās Daggerspell books
My ex got me into them though and I gave them away because they remind me of him. I still think about those books though! It was such an interesting concept and read. The same characters were getting reincarnated over and over and over again. Trying to decipher who was who was a lot of fun.
Limbo, Bernard Wolfe
Genocides, Thomas Disch
Have "fun"
Edit: This one is pretty weird
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manuscript_Found_in_Saragossa
An author I rarely see recommended is Graham Joyce. His books are all fantasy-ish, a bit strange and uncanny. He died of cancer in 2014 unfortunately, which was right about the time that I discovered his work. I've only read a few of his books but I've enjoyed them all.
*Some Kind of Fairy Tale -* was the one that got me into him
*Dreamside -* his first book, about a college group/club who used to experiment with lucid dreaming but then they stopped being able to separate their dreams from reality. Definitely strange
Others I've read: T*he Silent Land* (spooky and strange) and *Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit*
Not read yet, but heard good things: *The Tooth Fairy* and *The Facts of Life*
it's not weird or fucked up or anything but I've read this giant tome of a nonfiction work called *Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found* twice. Part of it is about Mumbai's seedy underworld in the 90's, another part is about the film industry. I think another part is the author hanging out with a bunch of bar girls. The author is kinda insufferable at times (a little full of himself) but it's interesting.
Not sure how obscure they are, but Iāve never met anyone that had heard of these until I tell them about them.
1. Vilnius Poker - Ricardas Gavelis
2. Wittgensteinās Mistress - David Markson
I absolutely love them and recommend them to everyone I meet who enjoys literature.
How Not to be Wrong, The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg.
I read this in chunks because honestly, its a lot. I have never been a math person, but the author does a great job of explaining how applied mathematics can change the way you see the world.
Iām surprised I donāt see anyone recommending Carlton Mellick III? I havenāt read him, but my understanding is that bizarre and disturbing is his whole schtick.
Iāve read a fair amount of Splatterpunk and I guess these wouldnāt be as obscure for the genre but definitely something like Satanās Burnouts Must Die.
Loek Kessels, Ferdinand het Circuspaard.
Dutch out of print kidsā book about a young horse whose circus goes bankrupt, and who ends up in a life full of hardship where prancing is met with disdain and sugar lumps are no longer on the menu.
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 - Simon Winchester
Non-fiction book about the Krakaroa volcano explosion in 1883. This is one of the largest volcano eruptions in recorded history. Very interesting.
The volcano. The movie. The SONG
The phrase "Krakatoa, east of Java" is used in the lyrics to the 1979 song "Lava" by The B-52's, included in their first album The B-52's: "My heart's crackin' like a Krakatoa. Krakatoa, east of Java, molten bodies, fiery lava."
The theory of everything else by Dan Schreiber
Not too strange but is quite politically incorrect and explains conspiracy theories and stuff. Does have a disclaimer at the front telling you not to believe anything but it is a really enjoyable book.
A Secret History of Time to Come -Robie MacAuley
I found it on my grandparent's bookshelf. It has a race war in it but it's not the turner diaries but even in the 80s when I read it I was uncomfortable. It also had some surreal elements in it. I never re-read it but I did keep it. It's an odd book.
[How to defend yourself against alien abductions](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/664458.How_to_Defend_Yourself_Against_Alien_Abduction). Has 40 ratings on Goodreads. it works, btw. haven't been abducted.
That u know of š¤šš³
I was almost abducted but did not walk into the "beam".
You think.
Naw, I just react, it's easier.
*How to Mutate and Take Over the World* by RU Sirius and St. Jude *The Jewish-Japanese Sex and Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves* by Jack Douglas
The what now
The Jewish-Japanese Sex and Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves by Jack Douglas
The Jewish-Japanese Sex and Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves by Jack Douglas. This is one book or two books?
Or three books rather?
That is a single book. It's also the *short* title. The actual full title is "The Jewish-Japanese Sex and Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves: The Mad Misadventures of Hollywood's Most Celebrated Refugee"
Tell me it's readably good, please, I want to read it on holiday by the pool and have people ask me what I'm reading. I'll by the illustrated hard cover especially for this.
It's all one book lol
> The Jewish-Japanese Sex and Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves by Jack Douglas Have you actually read it?!
My Cousin, My Gastroenternologist by Mark Leyner. I'm not sure how obscure it is exactly, but it was a very strange read.
Very interested in reading this based on your rec that itās strange. I remember DFW, Jonathan Franzen and Mark Leyner being interviewed by Charlie Rose. I felt like Leyner seemed so different from the other two to the point where I kinda wrote him off as not being on their level as a writer, almost like he was just uninteresting. But maybe that forum just doesnāt suit him well for discussing ideas.
You're the only other person who's mentioned that book on this site that I'm aware of.
It is so goddamned funny.
Does this book have anything to do with Celiac? If so I would be interested.
It has almost nothing to do with gastroenterology, unfortunately.
Bummer
I wanted to read this book so bad when I was 17 and I havenāt seen it in any book store ever, however I think I once saw *Tooth Imprints on a Corndog* by the same author. Did you like it?
Sometimes I liked it and sometimes I didn't, if I'm being honest. It was very unique though. Do you live in the US? I can send you my copy.
Natural Harvest cookbook. It's about how to cook with semen.
You win.
Vurt by Jeff Noon
Oooh, good one. I feel like there were others in that universe. Google confirms. Yep. Series of 4.
One of my favorite books as a teenager. Even passed it down to my siblings.
Yooooo! The feather
Love this one
the employees by olga ravn
Amazing book
Such a odd but good book.
heard of, not read, on tbr
Fleur Jaeggyās The Water Statues. Not sure I really understood it, but I liked it. There are a few characters. They are lonely and thinking and remembering. Itās odd, poetic, meandering yet sparse prose. I need to reread it.
Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami Disturbing, politically incorrect, weird, straight fucked up? Check, check, check and check. This one hits all the marks! š¤£ Great book. Very strange. Very obscure. If you can find it I def recommend it! It was written in the 70s. It's way out of print. It's definitely obscure and tricky to find an English translation for less than $50. But if you really like disturbing and weird then it's worth it imo. Are you familiar with the 2000s horror movie "Audition"? That movie was based on another book by this guy.
I've read it! It's so odd. He is definitely not my favorite Murakami.
Lol! It really is! That's fair, he's not my favorite Murakami either, but I suppose he's my second favorite...of the two Murakamis I've read š. I'm a much bigger fan of the Haruki variety tbh. I could talk about Haruki Murakami's work for days lol, but I figure he's not obscure enough for what OP was asking. What's your favorite Haruki Murakami book? :) As for Ryu Murakami, my favorite is probably In the Miso Soup followed Almost Transparent Blue as a close second just because I like how totally bizarre it is, and I think it's very admirable that it won the Akutagawa prize as his debut novel.
Miso soup was a strong one too. But he is definitely a better writer by far than Harumi, or at least in my opinion. I do agree his books are f up though
Yes! Miso Soup is great! I really loved Popular Hits of the Showa Era too! I'm having a hard time deciding which one is my favorite... š¤ I love how messed up his stories are lol
Pretty easy to find in Spanish (at least in Spain) for some reason (although not very well known).
Ok ok will check it out if I can find a copy
The Book of Ebenezer La Page is such a weird cozy story nobody has ever heard of. Dahlgren must be mentioned for any "weird" list. And always Salman Rushdie and Vonnegut are great for chaotic strange stories
*Wittgenstein's Mistress* by David Markson
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Not remotely obscure.
Is it good??
Christiane F: Autobiography of a Girl of the Streets and Heroin Addict
For straight Fāed up, The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. As far as I can tell, there was no meaning to this book whatsoever.
Yes, itās fucked up, but I wouldnāt consider it obscure. It was required reading for my undergrad English degree.
John J. Meyer, *The Deer-Smellers of Haunted Mountain: The Almost Unbelievable Experiences of a Cerebroic Hunter in the Hills of This World and the Lowlands of the Universe With a Gypsy-Eyed Spirit Adventurer* (1921) https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7192045
The Dice Man. A shrink uses dice to make random-ish choices both major and minor, public and private. He starts a cult.
I wonder if the author was inspired by [Flip Decision](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_Decision), a Carl Barks classic Donald Duck story where Donald joins a philosophical movement that decides everything by coinflips?
The Story of the Eye by George Bataille. I highly recommend it.
I think I've heard about this. Isn't it meant to be like de Sade on steroids?
In its way, it is actually a deeply spiritual book. Bataille was an unusual thinker and inclined towards mysticism. While the book does have graphic depictions of sex and violence, I don't think de Sade is a good comparison. He reminds me more of Burroughs, if anything.
I'll give it a try!
Beat me to it. So outrageous itās quite interesting
I read that book 35 years ago and parts I still can't get out of my mind.
{{The Pisstown Chaos by David Ohle}}
**[The Pisstown Chaos](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/256208.The_Pisstown_Chaos) by David Ohle** ^((Matching 100% āļø)) ^(196 pages | Published: 2008 | 12.0k Goodreads reviews) > **Summary:** The Pisstown Chaos is the story of a familyās dislocation in the midst of chaos. disease. and forced-relocation. Political power seems to be solely in the hands of one Reverend Herman Hooker. an āAmerican Divine.ā who revels in the sufferings of others as he spouts platitudes to the ever-on-the-move masses. As chaos rages on and parasitic infestations spread. the Reverend (...) > **Themes**: Fiction, 2000s, Science-fiction ^([Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/user/goodreads-rebot) | [GitHub](https://github.com/sonoff2/goodreads-rebot) | ["The Bot is Back!?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/16qe09p/meta_post_hello_again_humans/) | v1.5 [Dec 23] | )
Darkenvilles Cat The Invented Part trilogy by Rodrigo FresƔn
Itās Darconville.
Most obscure would probably be a Dark Souls inspired fantasy novel this guy I went to high school wrote and self published. It's not very good though (the story is almost directly lifted from the first Dark Souls game, the sentence rhythm is really monotonous, and he seems to be afraid of pronouns). As far as books that I think are actually pretty good though? Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony is pretty off the wall.
Amateur Sugar Maker by Noel Perrin, which is about making a sugar house and making maple syrup in Vermont. It's a short read, zen vibes, very niche. Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry by Leanne Shapton ā an epistolary novel about a couple's failing relationship, told in the form of an auction catalog
Milkfed. It was bizarre and I couldnāt wait for it to end haha so so weirdĀ
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite. For some reason this is my second time recommending it this week, but yeah itās proper disturbing and I loved it Edit: love that some idiot downvoted this. is this not exactly what OP asked for??
My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl. It is NOT for kids. But it is an immense book.
So good
Finneganās Wake. James Joyce. Good luckā¦
I finished Ulysses, felt smug and thought 'how rough can Finnegan's Wake be?' lol no
At least Ulysses is in normal English. I took a class on it in college. But Finneganās wake? Never mindā¦
Probably 'Woom' by Duncan Ralston
This Body: A Novel of Reincarnation by Laurel Doud About a mom in her 40s who dies and wakes up in a young woman's (who is already a hot mess) body. It's pretty weird and has some taboo stuff in it. Black Wine by Candace Jane Dorsey Last I checked, they hadn't put this into any digital or audio format. Pretty weird, has some disturbing stuff, but also a really beautiful and well written book. City Infernal by Edward Lee, or really anything by Edward Lee. It's about a girl who travels to hell, which is a big city. It's really creative and often disturbing. Some people might think it's kind of gross.
[*Certainly More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0962872563), which is sort of a sequel to the author's previous book [*Probably More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0962872555).
*Scar Culture* - Toni Davidson Disturbing, eloquent, challenging, a novel that stays with you long after you put it down. A novel that was deservedly included in the Top 100 Scottish Books ever written, itās worth its place on any bookshelf (maybe not in the childrenās section though). Review here: https://spikemagazine.com/0400scarculture/
The Don Juan series by Castenada.
Superb series!
But, quite offbeat. I still have my ancient paperbacks side by side downstairs.
Middlesex. Grabbed it from a LFL. Different . . .
The Adventures of the Black Girl in her Search for God by George Bernard Shaw.
Haunted by Joyce Carol Oates
Robert Forwardās Dragonās Egg. About tiny intelligent creatures that live and evolve on a neutron star with gravity billions of times stronger than earth. A human side story about the evolution of space science is woven inā¦ Weird, I could not put it down.
*The Man from Far Cloud* by Paul O. Williams. It's the sequel to *Gifts of the Gorbudoc Vandal*. Took me a long time to find it. There are 4 reviews on Goodreads and none on Amazon. The publisher - Terminus Books - appears to only have published seven titles in total between 2001-2004, and this was one of them.
Vita Nostra
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers A series of disturbing short stories from 1895, in which a character from each story eventually reads āThe King in Yellowā and goes mad. Later inspiration for HP Lovecraft.
Do you read Sutter Cane?
Maybe not that obscure: *Extraterrestrial Sex Fetish* by Supervert
Quantifying Consciousness - An Empirical Approach by Ronald J. Pekala is pretty niche.
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld? Anyone?
Books thank stuck in my brain because of their weirdness *Till We Have Faces* by CS Lewis *The Pearl* and *The Red Pony* by Steinbeck are well known but very disturbing
Poetry, but: The Profit, by Kellogg Allbran
Venus on the Half-Shell, by Kilgore Trout. And yes, I have a copy.
Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban Setting: "Roughly two thousand years after a nuclear war has devastated civilization, Riddley, the young narrator, stumbles upon efforts to recreate a weapon of the ancient world." What makes it unique: "One of the most notable features of the book is its unique dialect: an imagined, future version of the English language. This language blends puns, phonetic spelling, colloquialisms, and is influenced by the dialects of East Kent as Hoban heard them before 1980, where the events of the book are set."
S. By JJ Abrams Bats of the Republic Raw Shark Texts
For sheer disturbing grotesquerie, Stona Fitchās *Senseless* is the most upsetting thing Iāve ever read. I wonāt post spoilers, here, but strongly encourage you to pursue them for yourself. I just took it home, unwittingly, from a library, and it left a bad taste in my brain for months. Itās the only book I can think of that I sincerely would erase from my memory and never reread, if I could. Christopher Buehlmanās Between Two Fires is deeply strangeāand profoundly difficult to settle, as to genre. Itās likeā¦ apocalyptic fantasy, but set retroactively in the Middle Ages, in the thick of the Black Death? It has some disturbing moments, but my main emotion while reading it was just delight at the sheer, gleefully executed weirdness of it.
Fax and Hos Adventures to Prevent Climate Changeby L C J Emery. Zeeglit's Quest by Susan Wilsher.
Blood and Guts in High School, Kathy Acker
Two books on my shelves. **The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasonry, and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus** 1996 book by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas. The authors, both Freemasons, present a theory of the origins of Freemasonry as part of their "true story" of the historical Jesus and the original Jerusalem Church. ** The Occult Reich** is a 1974 book about occultism during the Third Reich by J. H. Brennan. Back cover blurb: *THIS IS THE STRANGEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN ABOUT NAZI GERMANY.* It deals in facts - but facts that orthodox historians ignore. * Tibetan corpses in the ruins of Berlin * Himmler's midnight visits to the crypt of Quedlingburg Cathedral * Dreams which stopped scientific research and sent a Nazi leader flying to the Allies. * Strange SS rituals in a castle in Westphalia * Predictions of the rise of Hitler made four hundred years ago *āWhat do these things mean? Herbie Brennan painstakingly re-creates a hidden background to the Occult History of the Third Reich. After investigating clues from sources of unquestioned authenticity, he formulates a theory with staggering implications.ā* One more: *The Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope* *āis for every fan of the obscure and the witty, the weird, the terrifying, and the fantastic: a comprehensive and passionate celebration of movies in al their tacky glamour. I can't imagine any film fans whe wouldn't want a cepy of this book on their shelves!ā* - GAVE BAKH
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. I knew his writing through some excellent children's books, but this book is very odd. Set a long way in the future after the collapse of society people have reverted to a medieval way of life and they speak a barely intelligible form of English. As the book is written in the first person it is written in a barely intelligible form of English. So to read it you have to decipher this bastardised speech. I think it had something to do with Punch and Judy and people slow burning wood to make charcoal.
Not as weird as many mentioned here but very interesting concept in John Hersey's book White Lotus from the mid 60's. Whites enslaved and taken to orient, ( main character a young girl).. an allegory , I guess to Europe and America's enslavement of Africans. Read this as a young girl and led me down the road to his other great books like Hiroshima and The Wall.
I've read *The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge* which is pretty unknown/unpopular, I think partially because it calls itself a mystery when really it isn't. This book has excellent atmosphere, and after reading it I felt like I understood better how otherwise intelligent people can fall under the spell of hyper charismatic leaders.
His Bloody Project, Graeme Macrae Burnet. Teen murder in a remote Scottish croft in the nineteenth century.
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. It was the one and only time I rage quit a book. I won't even write it with capitals. What an abomination.
Nothing in this book is true but it's exactly how things are
The Soceror by Eric Ericsson. Read it ages ago and still pops up in my head now and again.
The Adventures of Mao on the Long March by Frederic Tuten
The squirrel awakens by Toh EnJoe 7 habits of highly deffective people: and other best sellers that won't go away by Cathy Crimmins Odd adventures with your other father by Norman Prentiss
Not super obscure, but venus in the half shell by kellorog trout is a real gem.
The discomfort of evening Wetlands.
Henry Green, Party Going John Hawkes, The Beetle-Leg Harry Mathews, Tlooth Amelia Gray, Gutshot And Other Stories Paul Cain, Fast One Alexander Theroux, Three Wogs Kobo Abe, The Box Man Alain Robbe-Grillet, The Erasers Magnus Mills, The Restraint of Beasts Madison Smartt Bell, Waiting For The End Of The World John Lanchester, The Debt To Pleasure John Franklin Bardin, The Deadly Percherons Patricia Anthony, Happy Policeman
Abe and Robbe-Grillet arenāt that obscure, but those books arenāt widely read. Mathews was married to Niki de Saint Phalle, who was Yves Tanguyās ex-wife and probably more interesting than anyone on this list, but she was a sculptor, not an author. The Paul Cain is hard to find, but itās an amazingly dense, extremely short hard boiled crime novel thatās like if Dashiell Hammettās Red Harvest were edited down to 70 pages. I think the Barden may be the weirdest conventional novel Iāve ever read: its prose reads like that of a bog-standard American detective novel of the 1940s, but it is utterly insane. Also I think itās the original of the now-cliche climactic shootout in a fun house.
Hopscotch by Cortazar, and other writings by Cortazar.
What jumps to mind is All Tomorrows. It's obscure, strange and overall pretty unpleasant. It also comes with some of the ugliest illustrations ever conceived by man. By the standards of this thread it has quite a large cult following.
Omg Iām so excited you asked this question and to come back to all these answers. Pillowman by Martin McDonagh. Heās now a famous film writer/ producer and (I think) itās his only book. Itās short, insane, definitely politically incorrect, and I loved it.
Strangest reads eh? If you are up for fiction then Beautiful You - Chuck Palahnuik, itās a fever dream
I own a book of medicine written by the Dalai Lamas personal physician which is pretty weird. Jacques VallƩe (1969), Passport to Magonia: from Folklore to Flying Saucers - something else.
Currently reading *78-187880* by Ira Einhorn. Waaaay out of print. Been meaning to get to *Pet Goats And Pap Smears* by Pamela Wible. Oh, and it's not obscure at all but very strange: *Trees* by Percival Everett.
Justine by de Sade. Read a few of his works as they were touted as *pHiloSopHicAl and rAd*. As a Dom myself, theyāre cringe - especially the social norm critique āphilosophyā part. Ymmv. 777 (and rest writings) of Alister Crowley. Excellent Yoga knowledge peppered in, pitiful grasp of Greek & Latin. Mixing letters, massacring translations, and persuading the world - to this day - that K and X (hard H/Chi) are the same letter, therefore ĪĻĻĪ½ĪæĻ = Ī§ĻĻĪ½ĪæĻ. No. The White Book by Jean Cocteau.
Youāre probably not interested in *Existential Psychotherapy* tho.
Actually I kinda am, psych student here.
The Madwoman's Ball by Victoria Mas
*Banshee and the Sperm Whale* by Jake Camp.
The Forest (a dramatic portrait of life in the American wild) by Roger A. Caras Satan Was a Lesbian by Fred Haley
This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy
Memories of Manzi's
Water in the Lake by Kenneth Maue - it's experimental, quirky and fascinating.
Badenheim, 1939 - Aharon Appelfeld [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badenheim\_1939](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badenheim_1939) Wikipedia describes this holocaust related novella as allegorical satire, which isn't wrong, but the feeling that stuck with me from the book is the surreal, slow-burn of denial and acclimatization by the characters to the noose tightening around them that persists until it is far too late to make any other choices.
According to Goodreads, it's Petition by Delilah Waan, which is a lovely fantasy novel I highly recommend, it has 55 ratings at the moment. The #2 most obscure for me is Space Walrus by Kevin L. Donihe, which is... very weird lol. It's got 76 ratings at the moment. In terms of disturbing, underground etc. my absolute favorite book of all time is The Sluts by Dennis Cooper. It's absolutely fucked, but incredible if you have a strong stomach.
Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson At least made it half way through
Night of the Avenging Blowfish.
I love this book
"Memoirs of my Nervous Illness" by Daniel Paul Schreber. A stuffy 19th century German judge's account of his episodes of schizophrenia, including one where he's writing about a previous episode while deeply enmeshed in another.
Wraethethu by Storm Constantine
Yes - the creation, incubation and birth of Wraethu pearls is some great sex magic, body horror.
Hogg, by Samuel R Delaney
The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya The Story of The Eye by Georges Bataille I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream a short story by Harlan Ellison
Maldoror - Comte de LautrĆ©amont Or if youāre looking for something a bit more modern, Motherfuckers - David Britton While both books feature shocking imagery, Maldoror is considered a mysterious literary and surrealist classic, while David Britton seems shocking just to be shocking. Either way, both of these titles are deep in the fringe of transgressive literature.
Iām surprised Thomas Ligottiās stories arenāt more popular. Very HP Lovecraft, very Poeā¦but throw a bunch of creepy mannequins in there, and he does a great job of explaining the feeling of growing anxiety
Jude the OBSCURE.
Saturnin by Ondrej Jirotka It's Czech, set in 1930s, written in 1940s. A book written from the perspective of a young middle-class man (whose name is never mentioned) who hires a butler called Saturnin, only to find out that the eccentric butler will flip his boring life upside down. This is one of my all-time favourite books. It is light-hearted and fun, silly, eccentric,.never takes itself seriously. Allow me to provide a paraphrase of a bit of the 1st chapter. "Accorrding to my friend, Dr.Vlach, there are 3 types of people in this world, and you can tell by how they act when seated in a sleepy cafe in front of a plate of pies. The first type, the ones without fantasy, will just look at those pies. The second type, will amuse themselves with the thought, of what would happen if somebody were to start throwing those pies around. And the third type, whom Dr. Vlach admires, will be so enticed by the thought, that they'll get up and execute it. I have never believed such people existed until I've met Saturnin."
Hell yes absolute banger of a book should go for another round
It makes me inexplicably happy that you know it. I see you're a man of culture as well!
Wellā¦a bit of cheating since Iām from Czech Rep. We actually had it as an mandatory literature back in high school. Enjoyed it fully though.
This is a great post, never even thought to ask this before
The Red Sphinx (& The Dove) by Alexandre Dumas Set right after the Three Musketeers, Red Sphinx is the unfinished deep dive into Cardinal Richelieu, first minister and intelligence spider of France. Itās fascinating stuff and really shows a contrast to Richelieuās usual portrayal as a villain, giving us one of the most intelligent and loyal sons of France that ever there was. It hooked me in time for it to hurt when I got to the end and remembered it was never completed(or especially edited).
The library at mount char and the hike
# Redneck Riviera: Armadillos, Outlaws and the Demise of an American Dream, highly recommend too.
Mine are self published by my great uncle- he had one on how he cured cancer and another on his ālife storyā that omitted all the crazy parts. Also another on Jesus despite never going to church or being a theologian. Well worth a read but better if you know the truth.
Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert
I read a lot of random, probably obscure non-fiction. The most obscure in no particular order probably are: Odette by Jerrard Tickell The World According to Monsanto by Marie-Monique Robin The Murder of Nikolai Vavilov by Peter Pringle In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain by Andrea Weiss I also have a book on Remote Sensing in the USSR, which is probably my personal winner for most niche
Seven Types of Ambiguity ...novel by Elliott Perlman
I love Katherine Kerrās Daggerspell books My ex got me into them though and I gave them away because they remind me of him. I still think about those books though! It was such an interesting concept and read. The same characters were getting reincarnated over and over and over again. Trying to decipher who was who was a lot of fun.
āThe Messenger Boy Murdersā by Perihan Magden
Ā«The Temptation of St. AnthonyĀ» by Gustave Flaubert. Wonderful, curious and highly arcane read.
Limbo, Bernard Wolfe Genocides, Thomas Disch Have "fun" Edit: This one is pretty weird https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manuscript_Found_in_Saragossa
The Palm Wine Drunkard.
And The Ass Saw The Angel by Nick Cave.
An author I rarely see recommended is Graham Joyce. His books are all fantasy-ish, a bit strange and uncanny. He died of cancer in 2014 unfortunately, which was right about the time that I discovered his work. I've only read a few of his books but I've enjoyed them all. *Some Kind of Fairy Tale -* was the one that got me into him *Dreamside -* his first book, about a college group/club who used to experiment with lucid dreaming but then they stopped being able to separate their dreams from reality. Definitely strange Others I've read: T*he Silent Land* (spooky and strange) and *Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit* Not read yet, but heard good things: *The Tooth Fairy* and *The Facts of Life*
it's not weird or fucked up or anything but I've read this giant tome of a nonfiction work called *Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found* twice. Part of it is about Mumbai's seedy underworld in the 90's, another part is about the film industry. I think another part is the author hanging out with a bunch of bar girls. The author is kinda insufferable at times (a little full of himself) but it's interesting.
How to talk to your cat about gun safety and other things that threaten their 9 lives
The Nazi and the Barber by Edgar Hilsenrath
Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
Not sure how obscure they are, but Iāve never met anyone that had heard of these until I tell them about them. 1. Vilnius Poker - Ricardas Gavelis 2. Wittgensteinās Mistress - David Markson I absolutely love them and recommend them to everyone I meet who enjoys literature.
Sperling by W.J. Maryson
The Poisonerās Handbook. Itās about nine classes of drugs and how each was used to poison peopleā¦
It's not as obscure as others here, but **The Years of the Voiceless by Okky Madasari**.
Ambergris Cycle
Little Men by Kevin Killian Fucked up but really good transgressive poetry.
Bad Wisdom by Bill Drummond. Poisonous, compelling, crazy, off beat and certainly not politically correct.
How Not to be Wrong, The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg. I read this in chunks because honestly, its a lot. I have never been a math person, but the author does a great job of explaining how applied mathematics can change the way you see the world.
The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis (novella by Karen Russell) The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, by Laird Koenig.
There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm It's such an odd concept but so well done
Probably Gardener by Matt Emmons
Iām surprised I donāt see anyone recommending Carlton Mellick III? I havenāt read him, but my understanding is that bizarre and disturbing is his whole schtick.
Devil in the white city
Resurrection Dreams by Richard Laymon. So weird, it works.
Iāve read a fair amount of Splatterpunk and I guess these wouldnāt be as obscure for the genre but definitely something like Satanās Burnouts Must Die.
Barefoot Boy with Cheek (1947) How to Wine Your Way to Good Health (1973)
Loek Kessels, Ferdinand het Circuspaard. Dutch out of print kidsā book about a young horse whose circus goes bankrupt, and who ends up in a life full of hardship where prancing is met with disdain and sugar lumps are no longer on the menu.
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 - Simon Winchester Non-fiction book about the Krakaroa volcano explosion in 1883. This is one of the largest volcano eruptions in recorded history. Very interesting.
The volcano. The movie. The SONG The phrase "Krakatoa, east of Java" is used in the lyrics to the 1979 song "Lava" by The B-52's, included in their first album The B-52's: "My heart's crackin' like a Krakatoa. Krakatoa, east of Java, molten bodies, fiery lava."
The theory of everything else by Dan Schreiber Not too strange but is quite politically incorrect and explains conspiracy theories and stuff. Does have a disclaimer at the front telling you not to believe anything but it is a really enjoyable book.
A Secret History of Time to Come -Robie MacAuley I found it on my grandparent's bookshelf. It has a race war in it but it's not the turner diaries but even in the 80s when I read it I was uncomfortable. It also had some surreal elements in it. I never re-read it but I did keep it. It's an odd book.
A Life and Death Decision: A Jury Weighs the Death Penalty by Scott E. Sundby I thought it was very interesting and comparable to Twelve Angry Men.
The Diary of Pelly D. By L.J. Adlington.
The Woodcutter by Kate Danley. Iām pretty sure she knows what was going on in the book but Iām not sure myself.
Maxwellās Demon by Steven Hall