Whats the strangest book you've ever read?

[dirk45]

Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein, what else
No, I'd say Mona Lisa Overdrive by W.Gibson. Cyberpunk at its best yet totally weird. There were probably lots more that I forgot about.

 

[ntomlin63]

I think my three strangest were Johnathon Livingston Seagull, Things Fall Apart and The Mountain People.

 

[Lothae]

Metamorphosis by Kafka

That is a weird one, but to be honest there are MANY books that can be considered pretty surreal.

However, I have to say Douglas Adams' series are probably some of the weirdest out there, his Dirk Gently series even moreso than the Hitchhiker's.

 

[rob_d]

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.

I'm still building up courage to read it for a second time somewhere this year.

The book is practically unreadable, plus it begins in the middle of a sentence and ends with the beginning of that sentence. The theory behind it is that besides being unreadable it's also never ending.

 

[Pseudonym2]

Here's a panel from Seaguy by Grant Morison and Cameron Stewart. This doesn't include the talking flying tuna fish.

Other mentions are everything by grant Morrison Mike Allard, Kurt Vonnegut, Terry Pratchett, and Philip K. Dick.

 

[Jackson - Deathclaw]

red dwarf book series
if you havent seen the series it is almost impossible to actually envision
such as Rimmer being turned into a sound wave and then thrown into prison as a sound wave
and half of the book is set in a game created by the subconcious of the user

 

[New Troll]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
All of them.
They're like "What."

Best five book trilogy ever. Most books I've read are pretty understandable. My favorite is Crime and Punishment. The Hitchhikers Guide series is one of my favorites.

Trilogy means three, though...
Hitchhiker's would be a..
Uh...
Filogy?
...No, that's dumb.
Anyway, whatever. It is an awesome series, yes.

Quintet.

And my vote would go for H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" for not only being strange, but starting a whole genre of strangeness still called upon to this day. A new way of thinking, and fearing.

 

[agentCDE]

Third on House of Leaves. All I can really say about it is to quote the dedications. This is not for you. Don't read it. You might not trust your own sense of space and time any more. Pretty soon you'll be measuring the walls. It just gets worse after that.

 

[ntomlin63]

Oh I also have to nominate anything by Kilgore Trout and Stanilaw Lem I think. Yes I know Trout was a psuedonym of Vonneguts.

 

[The Extremist]

My weirdest has to be "Sewe Dae by die Silbersteins", an Afrikaans novel by Etienne Le Roux. It was translated by Charles Eglington and is available in English as "Seven days at the Silbersteins."

 

[GloatingSwine]

House of Leaves takes it.

 

[New Troll]

"Hey, lookit me, I'm Captain SMARTASS"
Just kidding. I appreciate it.

Hehe, only reason I know is because I read The Cleric Quintet by R.A. Salvatore. Favorite author. Least favorite of his series.

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
All of them.
They're like "What."

Best five book trilogy ever. Most books I've read are pretty understandable. My favorite is Crime and Punishment. The Hitchhikers Guide series is one of my favorites.

Trilogy means three, though...
Hitchhiker's would be a..
Uh...
Filogy?
...No, that's dumb.
Anyway, whatever. It is an awesome series, yes.

I think it would be a pentology.

But for strangest book I'll say If on a winters night a traveller by Italo Calvino.

 

[Fingerprint]

I've just finished reading "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami and the surrealism of it is incredible. This and "Kafka On The Shore" by Murakami again, got me wondering what other strange books are out there.

Funnily enough, when I saw this thread, Kafka on the Shore is the first book that popped into my mind. That said, pretty much any fiction by Murakami would fit this category. Have you read "A Wild Sheep Chase" yet?


I'd also recommend Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Not exactly the strangest read (though the way it is written is quite different from the norm) but a damn good one and the concept was brilliant, I thought.

Thanks, no I haven't read either but I will check them both out. I agree wholeheartedly about most of Murakami's work fitting in this thread, he has an imagination that I can hardly begin to comprehend.

 

[Fingerprint]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
All of them.
They're like "What."

Very true but at the same time they are amazing. If you like them, have a look at Jasper Fford's "Bookworld" Series - they are some of the funniest books I've read.

 

[Ancalagon]

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.

I'm still building up courage to read it for a second time somewhere this year.

The book is practically unreadable, plus it begins in the middle of a sentence and ends with the beginning of that sentence. The theory behind it is that besides being unreadable it's also never ending.

The wierdest book I've ever read is Ulysses by James Joyce, but only because I've never read Finnegans Wake. May I ask why you read it, and plan to read it for a second time? Did you get anything from it, bar a headache?

 

[Vern]

Trilogy means three, though...
Hitchhiker's would be a..
Uh...
Filogy?
...No, that's dumb.
Anyway, whatever. It is an awesome series, yes.

Well Douglas Adams himself called them a trilogy in five parts. They're still considered a trilogy, just that they have five books. It fits in very well with the overall absurd humour of the series. I think it was supposed to end with Life the Universe and Everything, thus making it a trilogy, but he kept going with it. And unlike George Lucas, he didn't ruin the next two installments.