I'm looking for examples of stories that bring a creative approach to the format of the book, such as including diagrams, the order of how it's read, or crazy formatting. I'm also a huge fan of interconnected short stories. The examples I've gone through so far:
- House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski
- Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan
- Hopscotch – Julio Cortázar
- Multiple Choice – Alejandro Zambra
- The Things They Carried – Tim O'Brien
- Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
- The Gum Thief – Douglas Coupland
- Vox; The Mezzanine – Nicholson Baker
- Interior Chinatown – Charles Yu
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin
Any idea, similar ideas?
by Procrastineddit
14 Comments
h{{Invisible Monsters Remix}} by Chuck Palahniuk
1982, Janine by Alasdair Gray has that crazy formatting you’re asking for.
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid is fun. Written in interview format but is fiction.
Neil Patrick Harris’s memoir is set up as a “choose your own adventure” style. The end of each chapter gives you the option to jump to another chapter instead of reading straight through (which you can also do.)
Daniel Polansky’s *The Seventh Perfection* is an experiment worth the (short) time it takes to read. It’s a novella told in the second person that consists *solely* of dialog spoken to the reader-character.
It’s been a while, but I recall that I found it more interesting than good on its own merits, but it was really interesting. It’s a quick read, and very unique, so I recommend it for anyone feeling experimental.
Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
I Will Die in a Foreign Land by Kalani Pickhart
David Mitchell has a couple that fit the bill- Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlas, and The Bone Clocks. Cloud Atlas is my favorite book of all time, it’s really incredible.
Olive Kitteridge, ES
Seven Stories by Vespurtinambre is exactly what you’re looking for, i think. Tons of diagrams, invented languages, illustrations, framing narrative, appendix….
Life, a User’s Manual by Georges Perec.
Cloud Atlas is six stories “nested” together, where the first story cuts of halfway through, then there’s the first half of story 2, then the first half of story 3…. all the way on down so that the book ends with the second half of the first story. Not as out there as something like House of Leaves but interesting and a great book besides.
* How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
* There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
* Bats of the Republic by Zachary Thomas Dodson
* XX by Rian Hughes
* We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
* The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
* S. by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams
* A Most Puzzling Murder by Bianca Marais
h{{remember you will die}}
h{{in universes by emet north}}
The Athenian Murders by José Carlos Somoza