Goodreads has a challenge where one of the sections is books that fit a certain weird vibe, described as “I'll Read Any Book with a Great/Wacky/Unhinged Premise”.
These books include: Sky Daddy (Kate Folk); The Extinction of Irena Rey (Jennifer Croft); The Husbands (Holly Gramazio); Cleaner (Jess Shannon); Just Watch Me (Lior Torenberg); Maggie (Katie Yee); Out of the Loop (Katie Siegel); and The Country Under Heaven (Frederic S. Durbin).
I absolutely love weird books. All of these books are ones that I’ve absolutely loved, or ones that sound great to me! So please recommend some books that could fit on this list! What are the weirdest / wackiest / unhinged books you’ve loved?
by macthepenn
6 Comments
I’ve recommended this here a few times. The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett.
From Thriftbooks: The Clothes They Stood Up In is Alan Bennett’s first story. Like Charles Dickens’ novels which were first published in magazines, it originally appeared in the London Review of Books – which the author says ‘seems to me (and not just because I occasionally contribute to it) the liveliest, most serious and also the most radical literary periodical we have’.
The Clothes They Stood Up In is a witty novella by Alan Bennett about an elderly couple, the Ransomes, who return from the opera to find their flat completely stripped bare by burglars, forcing them to confront their lives without possessions and question their identities. Originally published in the London Review of Books, the story is a comic fable exploring themes of materialism, identity, and the absurdities of English life, known for Bennett’s sharp dialogue and dark humor.
I adored *Open Throat* by Henry Hoke. I came across it completely by accident and it was one of the best books I read last year. It’s narrated by a sympathetic queer mountain lion who lives in a park under the Hollywood sign. He doesn’t know how to read or write, so sometimes he spells things phonetically like LA becomes Ellay. His grasp of punctuation and paragraphing is shaky. It is a total wild ride and it is so good! It’s actually quite touching.
I don’t tend to love weird books (at least not on the whole) but Kayla from Booksandlala probably has a TON of good recs for you!
The Canticle Of Leibowitz, or Coldheart Canyon were the weirdest, but really good, books I’ve read recently
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
I’d say pretty much anything by George Saunders is bizarre, my favorite is CivilWarLand in Bad Decline.
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins went in a really chaotic direction that I wasn’t expecting.
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde definitely has a wacky dystopian society written in a sarcastic and irreverent tone.
Someone to Build a Nest in is about a Blob Monster that falls in love with a human