The Weirdest Books I've Ever Read
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ต.ค. 2024
- Here are some of the most fully insane novels that I've read.
But wait, there's more!
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I don't know if this counts as the same flavor of weird but the star diaries by Stanislaw Lem have this thing where out of nowhere the main character is accused of some intergalactic crime and then starts a 35-page story about how the intricacies of alien societal relations have lead a convoluted legal system that legislates lower civilizations or something, only for the main character to somehow flee from the situation, the chapter ends, it's never mentioned again
The weirdest book I've read is probably House of Leaves, I've never had to read a book using 3 bookmarks, a translator, and a notepad before, while having to turn the page 90° every couple chapters
That's a lot! I haven't read that one yet.
Yes!!
" House of Leaves " is a book I did not like reading, but love having read. That book stays with you a long time.
Breakfast of champions is my favorite book of all time, and I've been reading once a year or every couple years since the first time I picked it up at my library when I was 14. I'm so glad to finally see a booktuber talking about it :)
That's a great book. Next to Siren's of Titan...my favorite Vonnegut.
Galapagos is easily Vonnegut’s funniest, most prescient, and truest novel. Nobody understood American idiocy and hubris like him
I see House of Leaves and The Third Policeman already have their supporters, so I'm going to go with one of my all time favourite authors Will Self and his early novel My Idea of Fun for absolute peak weirdness.
The weirdest book I've read is The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia. The characters realize they're in a book and go to war against the author... and then a lot of other weird stuff goes on.
I knew Sal in college. Cool guy. His girlfriend had a Betty Paige hairdo. He was a big fan of Patrick McCabe but didn't like his novel Carn.
Glad to see Kurt Vonnegut on here, however I think Cat's Cradle takes the cake in terms of weird. Vonnegut is my favorite author because if how weird his writing is.
Vonnegut is a great writer.
I read William S. Burroughs "Cities of the Red Night" when I was about 15 and I realised half way through - I had no idea what was going on but I couldn't put the book down lol!
It's a wild experience when you don't understand but also can't stop.
Sounds like the boss was trying to make a pass at you! LOL Also, I don't know if you're too far from your mic or what, but I had to turn my volume way up to listen, and then an ad blasted the hell out of me.
Thank you for mentioning the 'shock value just for shock value' point! That’s exactly how I felt about most of the Chuck Palahniuk I’ve read, but I couldn’t put it into words. His name came to me the second you mentioned that.
Palahniuk is a GREAT example of that in action. I've only read one of his books and don't feel compelled to do more.
Palahniuk’s Lullaby is the shittiest novel I have ever finished
@@SupposedlyFunI just hope that one book was Fight Club
Flann O'Brien's 'The Third Policeman' is the by far weirdest book from my experience. I highly recommend it!
I read that in high school and it is DEFINITELY a weird book.
I really don’t under how people can dislike Dick’s writing so much. I loved Valis! Maybe I’m just crazy enough to enjoy this and basically all of his books. 🤷🏻♂️
Methinks it's an issue where people have trouble separating art and artist. That, and the whole cat food thing.
The weirdest book I've ever read is The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara. A lot of the book is about a scientific discovery of a turtle that when eaten increases longevity.
Some great reviews here, man. How does this only have 53 views?
A year later people still don’t know the experience in which books provide.
I lost myself in House of Leaves the same way the characters may because the bookmark that was in HOL. It just disappeared. Never have I lost a bookmark in my life.
The Third Policeman... by Flann O'Brien, people turning into bicycles and other strange things, apparently it's a classic, and by far the weirdest thing I've ever read.
I read The Third Policeman in high school and you are absolutely right--it's totally bizarre.
Fantastic book. It came to my mind before opening this video.
@@rodrigovalerosancho2234 Yes, it should top any weird books list! Glad to hear from someone else who's read and liked the book. I found it enjoyable in parts but also unsettling. It reads to be re-read, I think.
It’s absolutely hilarious, too
The Third Policeman is a masterpiece in absurdism. It was the first book I thought of as well.
Agreed as to Palanhiuk. I like edgy stuff but it has to have a greater purpose, especially to avoid collapsing under the weight of an entire novel.
Anything by Kurt Vonnegut is strange indeed. John Irving's work is also a little weird, in a different way. Of course the granddaddy of weird Franz Kafka, I woke as a giant beetle stuck on his back lul.
'Geek Love' is both strange and disturbing. Geek here is the old school carnival freak use of the term. In short a couple side show performers breed their own freaks because momma says “What greater gift could you offer your children than an inherent ability to earn a living just by being themselves?”. And don't get me started on how creepy Jar Kin are....
'Through the Arc of the Rain Forest' is just flat strange. The story is told in the first person perspective of conscious extraterrestrial ball that floats six inches from the head of one of the character's heads.... There's multiple other characters; railroad engineer, an Amazon native, French Ornithologist..... and a rock.
Reading that last book description: ...wtf?
Yeah, granpa' Franz and Gregor the beetle with the apple rotting away in his back...
Per Wikipedia, "In 2002, Neil Gaiman wrote some drafts of a screenplay based on The Fermata, to be directed by Robert Zemeckis."
Uh.....
How the Two Ivans Quarrelled
by Nikolai Gogol
Haruki Murakami’s first person singular was trippy as fuck, and really well written
A weid book that I really love is "Tainaron. Mail From Another City" by Leena Krohn.
I think House of Leaves is the weirdest book I’ve read. Both its page layout and its premise are strange and unsettling, I loved it
I've heard a lot about that being a weird book.
Bro this is so funny,, thank you for this video! Not enough people talk about weird books but I LOVE them and it's cool seeing the things other people have read and found to be weird. Added the fermata to my to be read just because it sounds ridiculous and I want to see how much I can take.
I hope you like it better than I did!
The weirdest novels I ever read, excluding some postmodern works by Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas Pynchon, and the magical realism novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, were The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov and The Skin of Our Teeth by Thorton Wilder. I had to read a few scholarly assessments before I could fully appreciate them, but I enjoyed reading both. I like to be challenged by the novels I read as intellectual growth means exposing yourself to something new and difficult.
The weirdest book i ever read was Perfume. Its basically about a mentally ill man in the 1700s who becomes obsessed with the fact that he has no body oder. It is a good read, but is sooooo bizarre.
I'm in
I’ve been hoping to read this book
I love that book!
Is the movie "Perfume the story of a murderer" about that book?
@@rameezraza8268 I'm not sure. The character in the book does become a murderer.
To Your Scattered Bodies Go is a bat shit crazy, weird 1960s sci fi. It’s short and worth the read, but I kept saying to myself....this is batshit fucking crazy. Like PKD on LSD
That one is fkn awesome
Kind of need to finish books before passing full judgement I think. I've powered through quite a few books that I've found uncomfortable to read and then found out that there has been more to it than i gave it credit for.
Lobster, a novella by French author Guillaume Lecasble, is the weirdest book I ever read.
I've never thought Kurt Vonnegut writing is weird! I just love love LOVE all of his books, my heart and mind are wide open when I read him
The Book of Dave by Wil Self is pretty bonkers
8:52 - Better watch the movie "The Tin Drum', One of the best.
I read Valis back in 1992 (?) and really liked it. Not really sci-fi and definitely an autobiographical work of some of the weird sht that PKD was experiencing in his own mental state. I guess it’s a definite good read if you’re a fan of his.
Oh for sure, but it was definitely an out there book.
Always down for new reading materials, thanks.
Lindsay Gresham's Nightmare Alley despite Del Toro's good work has a depth whose particularities have not yet been fully explored. One of the most underrated novels of all time. I would also add Danielewski's House of Leaves
i feel like all of nicholson baker’s books are probably just shock value for no reason, i read house of holes a few years back and it is safely the most fucked up thing i’ve ever read. great video idea though!
Super cool selection. I appreciate the synopses and justifications too.
Thank you!
Refreshing list, free from the usual predictable entries. You should check put Joy Williams’ The Changeling (not to be confused with other novels of the same title). It’s excellent, Joy Williams is a singular voice, and it’s certainly a weird one. Fantastic and overlooked novel by a brilliant force of a writer.
Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan certainly belongs on a list of weird books.
Totally agree and everything else he wrote. In watermelon sugar highly recommended if you like a bonkers read. He was a genius for sure.
lol my older sister gave me a copy of VURT to read when I was 16 and it sure did confuse me.
It's a WILD book.
The Vanishing Hours by Barney Norris for me. Found it in a tiny bookshop in the countryside and proceeded to not have a clue what was happening. Thought it was pretty great though
I haven't even heard of that one. Interesting.
The illuminati trilogy! Anything by PKD!
I usually despise sex scenes because they're "They have sex, the end." with nothing interesting added.
I read Fermata as a vouyeristic fantasy and the MC's love for women. The authour is fully aware of his actions and the moral implications.
Vurt kind of sounds like Synchronic to me.
Oh, that's easy. I found a book called the "Necronomicon" once. Starts out with an essay about how all of HP Lovecraft's monsters and elder gods were actually real, because the author and Arthur Machen also had supernatural experiences. Then a lot of pages of someone trying to decipher John Dee's occult writings with a computer, followed with supposedly real magic spells. And then a few little essays about Lovecraft again. I googled it, and turns out, it was a hoax from the beginning.
Definitely sounds like a weird one!
That’s funny since there’s a large collection of HP Lovecraft’s work with the same name.
Okay, The Fermata is WEIRD 😱😱😱
SO WEIRD.
Oh I remember Vurt! Not sure I still have my copy, it was a trippy sort of thing for sure
Very trippy indeed!
Vurt sounds somewhat remiscent of the movie Existenz.
Günther Grass in gerneral is very weird.
Great picks!! I totally subbed immediately
Thank you!
I'm finishing 'the Other Side' by Alfred Kubin (1908) - shocking and baffling - counterpoint novel to Hilton's "Lost Horizon".
How are you liking the other side? I was obsessed with it when I was fourteen because Kubin was my favourite artist. It's still probably the best dystopia that I've read to this day. Nobody ever talks about it though!
@@klauslispector I found the book beautifully written (kudos to the translator) and very strange. It started like a travelogue, became Jonathan Swift then ended like the book of Revelations. But without more historical context and information about the obsessions of its writer, I'm a little at sea about what his purpose for the book was. By the end I felt I was being slammed with heavy German tome that I've never read by a crazy writer several generations removed from me. I need more info about this fellow. I feel similarly about Meyrink's Der Golem!
Solaris. Both movies manage to turn it into something else. But that's hollywood I guess
I love Lem!! and his novels- particularly his robot stories such as Cyberiad.
Tarkovsky’s film version certainly isn’t Hollywood, thank God.
Gravity's Rainbow was weird.
I loved Valis! It’s a book that is Gnostic.
I will suggest two which I don’t think anyone has mentioned. ‘Venus on the Half Shell’ by Philip Jose Farmer though he originally wrote it under the name of Kilgore Trout after getting permission of Kurt vonnegut to use that name. The second book is ‘The Hearing Trumpet’ by British-Mexican surrealist artist Leonora Carrington.
Haruki Murakami
Any thoughts re A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS?
Sorry, I haven't read it!
Great to see a book reviewer who doesn't love everything. Read Grass' The Tin Drum. Weird and awesome.
Gotta take the good with the bad, I think. 😉
And I thought Hitchhiker's Guide was weird
2:58 The Fermata why does that book sound sooo familiar does he go into like this brain scan thing where the scientist ask him to pretend he’s typing on a fake computer and he writes an erotic story
Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn. Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out-with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes-to breed their own exhibit of human oddities.
YES, while watching this I also thought Geek Love should be on this list. I felt dirty while reading it yet could not put it down!
Great book!
One of the weirdest books I've ever read is Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Absolutely wild. But I love it. Most Philip K. Dick novels are weird, but Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said stands out. Same with The Simulacra. Also, anything by Steve Erickson. I recommend starting with Days Between Stations. His books are sort of hard to describe, very meta. He often uses a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles in his novels as do I, where strange things happen like a time warp forming in the middle of the city, or a ring of fire separating the city into grids, and political refugees filling up chic hotels, etc.
I read Galapagos first from Vonnegut and was all in.
Yep. His best novel bar none. Scathing critique of Reagan, and really America’s collective cognitive decline
Check out The man who laughs it's a creepy unusual book.
Thanks for the recommendation.
@@SupposedlyFun No problem, plus here's more recommendations.
Taken by the Orc warrior
The Orc of many questions
My cheating Elf girlfriend
An Orc at college and sequels
The Orc Wife
An Elf and an Orc had a little baby
I really love stories about Orc and Elves!
It's no rush, I figure you probably won't get to them right way.
I read a big batch of Vonnegut in the 70s in college. Recently I retread Breakfast of Champions (which I liked) and did not like it this time. Same for reading 1984. Now it’s just a huge downer.
I'm a little worried that if I reread Breakfast of Champions I would have the same response. Definitely understand how you feel about 1984.
Interesting that I was just reading Nicholson Bakers Human Smoke, a fascinating book on world war 2, but had no idea he wrote a nearly pornigraphic novel… huh..
I've never read any of Baker's other work but should probably try it at some point.
Mine would have to be The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas. Like I understood some of it but some of the descriptions and things made me do double takes at times.
Beautiful book. Nearly became a David Lynch film with a Dennis Potter script in 1989
Awesome
_V_ by Thomas Pynchon is the weirdest book I've ever read.
I've heard that Pynchon is quite a trip.
@@SupposedlyFun Yes. If you like beautiful prose, I highly recommend Pynchon. However, he's essentially the American James Joyce. He's writing for a very select few and reader notes that go along with his material can sometimes dwarf the actual work itself. _V_ is more of a post modern work than a standard novel written in the modern canon, but it has some beautiful writing, and some funny social commentary.
@@jasonuerkvitz3756 I've been thinking of trying Grvaity's Rainbow as an addendum to my Pulitzer Prize project but that feels a little like jumping straight into the deep end.
@@SupposedlyFun LoL, that's how I feel. You're certainly sharp enough you can wade in. There are several reader's guides, but I felt they're a bit like cheating. I wanted to attempt it on my own and if I failed miserably, only then consider getting one. I say for you, go for it!
@@SupposedlyFun Start with The Crying of Lot 49, much shorter, but not less bizarre.
Great video. I’m with you on Fever Dream and Breakfast of Champions but with your boss on The Fermata, which I think is an amazing book.
It was certainly well written.
Potatoes are the plebeians of food. Power to the potatoes.
Omg yes Fever Dream is the perfect surreal nightmare lmao.
The Fermata sounds a lot like the 2006 film Cashback, albeit a bit more sexually charged.
If you haven't seen it, I highly suggest watching! It does a better job presenting the concept with less "shock value" and more emphasis on the aspect of art, emotions, and relationships.
Saw the movie recently and I totally agree with you! Its more like a "sense of wonder" for the female form.
Fever Dream is a metaphor about the glyphosate crisis in Argentina
valis is a good book
Lol, your boss read basically a time stop hentai plot without knowing it. I'm dying hahaha
Read Ancient Evenings by Mailer. there's nothing like it
Thanks, some I've read, Animal Farm, Ray Bradbury stories, Slapstick, Geek Love, Stephen King stories, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Phantom Tollbooth
Thx , I love crazy reads. The weirdest book I've ever read was " Cows ".
I don’t know man, The Flounder sounds pretty cool to me 😜. Interesting list!
I freakin’ loved it. A great mash-up of fantasy, stark realism, philosophy, and gross things.
Gass's The Tunnel is one of the weirdest books I've read. And some things by William T. Vollmann.
I've heard that Vollmann can be pretty out there.
Vollmann ‘s nonfiction is stunning. He is an incredible journalist
Read Unwind by Neal Shusterman. I can't even begin to explain.
Noon's Vurt is a terrific book. Very bizarre and funny. Never read Baker. I've read all of Vonnegut, starting with Slaughterhouse 5 which I love. I've also read Breakfast of Champions. Hysterical novel. One of his best. I also loved Galapagos. It's off the wall. I like Dick's Valis trilogy. The first book is very good. I'll have to read Fever Dream. Not familiar with Schweblin. I've read Grass' Tin Drum but nothing else by him. I've heard The Flounder is very weird.
00:50 i’m already just i- 🙃
Some books are wild!
New subscriber catching up. You handled the boss's book recommendation extremely well. A professor in graduate school, in his office for a routine meeting, pressed me to reply as to whether his assignment of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure impacted me on an erotic level. (This was years and years ago.) I think I just shrugged and said "well, it's kinda racey stuff" and eventually he stopped asking. But yeah...weird.
you called nicholson baker weird. wow
I can't imagine not liking VALIS. it's using his psychosis, but it really is a conventional novel.
Mine is Schismatrix
I love the film cashback but the fermata just sounds cringy 😂. vurt sounds fun. oh no another valis recommendation without mentioning the exegesis.
I would never recommend The Story of the Eye..
Bunny by Mona Awad
You actually convinced me to get vurt
I hope you like it!
But wait, there's more! Suffer the Children, John Saul
But wait, there's more! innocence dies so easily. Evil lives again...and again...and again.
One hundred years ago in Port Arbello a pretty little girl began to scream. And struggle. And die. No one heard. No one saw. Just one man whose guilty heart burst in pain as he dashed himself to death in the sea.
Now something peculiar is happening in Port Arbello. The children are disappearing, one by one. An evil history is repeating itself. And one strange, terrified child has ended her silence with a scream that began 100 years ago.
why cant I make comments befoe YT switches me to a different video? beyond annoying
Intrigued by the suject of this video. I might have been motivated to pursue an investigation of these but w the real psyops relentlessly waged against humanity, l choose to focus on constructive realism. I'm a flatearther. Truth is the greatest adventure. ✝️
Günther Grass is not a good writer. He is a regime author. Big difference.
What’s the difference?