The Broke and the Bookish runs this business.
I do what I want I do what I want I do what I want. I should've photoshopped that logo. My opinion is no less legitimate a day late, so here are the then most unique books I can think of right now. I wish I was done with S. by Doug Dorst, so I could stick it on here. Oh well.
Most Unique Books I've Read
1. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I have so much love for this weird, complex book, I don't even know where to begin. If you haven't read it, it's a story narrated by a guy who finds a manuscript written by a man who just died. So the book is all this manuscript with footnotes from the narrator. The manuscript is a research kind of book about a documentary that doesn't exist in our world or in the narrator's world. The documentary is about a house that's increasingly bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It's mad creepy, crazy stuff happens with the formatting, and you can't tell who's going crazy. One of my all-time favorites.
2. Selected Unpublished Blog Posts of a Mexican Panda Express Employee by Megan Boyle. This book of poetry is unique in that it doesn't feel like poetry. It's an unabashedly honest, stream of consciousness account of a 20-something's life. It felt fresh and surprising and true. I'd never read any alt-lit before, so it was very unique to me. And highly recommended.
3. Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme. Experimental fiction at its finest and sort of earliest. These stories range from unique subject matter to unique formatting and storytelling techniques. Sometimes there are pictures. They're all surprising and they stick with you. Here's one of my favorites, called The School.
4. Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. This is not a novella for the faint of heart. Some of the weirdest, most cringe-worthy subject matter of my life. This was my first (and only) experience with erotica, and it also included things like urine play, necrophilia, egg obsessions, eye obsessions... I'm not going to continue. Very shocking. Very unique. And also, at times, a surprisingly beautiful ode to freedom. For the record: I am not into any of this stuff. Not that it's any of your business.
4. Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. This is not a novella for the faint of heart. Some of the weirdest, most cringe-worthy subject matter of my life. This was my first (and only) experience with erotica, and it also included things like urine play, necrophilia, egg obsessions, eye obsessions... I'm not going to continue. Very shocking. Very unique. And also, at times, a surprisingly beautiful ode to freedom. For the record: I am not into any of this stuff. Not that it's any of your business.
5. Embassytown by China Mieville. Maybe I don't read enough sci-fi about aliens, but this is the most unique portrayal of aliens I've ever read. They don't feel human-like at all. The plot is also vast and complicated, the world is fascinatingly new yet familiar, and the story structure is interesting.
6. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I just finished this and OH MAN. It filled the hole LOST left in my heart. There's so much weird going on in this sci-fi/horror. It's about an expedition going into a place called Area X where inexplicable stuff happens and the groups never really return. There's so much crazy, I can't even begin. I'm going to write a review soon, though, and try my best. Thank god it's the first in a trilogy.
7. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell. I love this book. The plot is one of the most unique I have ever read. Like I read some dark stuff where I can kind of see how a person would come up with it or how I could come up with it, but Swamplandia! is all sorts of fresh and surprising. It's about a theme park in a swamp where they alligator wrestle and then sort of ghosts and birdmen and so many things, I can't even. Also, it's beautifully written.
8. The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski. I don't want to seem like a Danielewski fangirl, but here I am. I am one. This is actually a short story, but it's printed on every other page, so it looks bigger. Unique, right? It's being told by four narrators and each narrator is represented with different color quotation marks. There are embroidered illustrations. And the plot is a weird, fantastical story, as well. And it gets kind of dark, too, which is nice. For me.
9. Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball. I just read this recently, and I was really into it. It's about a man who confesses to a string of crimes in Japan, though it seems like he didn't actually do them. But he's silent after that. The story is presented mostly in transcripts of interviews with the man and with other people who knew him. Sometimes there are photos. Sometimes the narrator who is researching the situation long after the fact interjects. Very interesting way to structure a story that is about the event as well as the narrator's experience with silence.
10. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I didn't want to put this on a second list in a row, but how could I not include it? A language was basically created for this book. I mean, it's slang interspersed in normal English, but it's so frequent that at first you have no idea what anybody is saying. You just have to learn it like you would acquire a language as a baby. It's fascinating, and it's a dark, weird dystopian story to boot. This will long be a favorite of mine.
What are the most unique books you've read? Have you stuck through terrifying erotica without knowing why? Suggest weirder things, please!
What are the most unique books you've read? Have you stuck through terrifying erotica without knowing why? Suggest weirder things, please!
