What do I mean by “weird”?
These are books that are unusual in some
way—they are told in a different or unusual style, have a strange plot or
theme, or twist some aspect of reality without being science fiction or fantasy
completely. They are, in a way, the
literary equivalent of surrealism.
*Adams, Douglas.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Seconds before Earth is demolished to
make room for a galactic freeway, an earthman is saved by his friend.
Together they journey through the galaxy. (This is the first in the
series of a number of “weird”
books by this author).
*Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s
Tale.
Set in the near future, America has
become a puritanical theocracy and Offred tells her story as a Handmaid under
the new social order.
*Auster, Paul.
Timbuktu.
Mr. Bones, canine sidekick and confidant
of the brilliant, troubled poet Willy G. Christmas, embarks on a Don
Quixote-like quest to find his master's beloved high-school teacher and mentor
Bea Swanson.
*Baker, Nicholson.The Mezzanine.
An extremely strange and entertaining
novel that takes place in the course of a single morning--perhaps even as little
time as 30 seconds, in which the narrator travels from his office down the
escalator to a nearby store to purchase new shoelaces. During the brief trip, he
reflects on everything he sees and experiences, expounding on relationships with
women, the "advances" he has made in his thinking, and the nature of
objects in the physical world.
*Bakis, Kristin. Lives of the Monster
Dogs.
A group of wealthy and glamorous monster
dogs are befriended by human Cleo Pira when they arrive in New York in 2008, and
though the elegant canines appear to lead charmed lives, Cleo soon realizes that
a strange, incurable illness threatens them all with extinction.
*Barker, Clive.
Thief of Always.
After a mysterious stranger promises to
end his boredom with a trip to the magical Holiday House, ten-year-old Harvey
learns that his fun has a high price.
Barth, John. The Sot-weed Factor.
*Block, Francesca Lia. Weetzie Bat.
Follows the wild adventures of Weetzie
Bat and her Los Angeles friends, Dirk, Duck, and My-Secret-Agent-Lover-Man.
*Bradbury, Ray.
Fahrenheit 451.
A bookburner official in a future
fascist state finds out books are a vital part of a culture he never knew.
He clandestinely pursues reading, until he is betrayed.
*Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange.
In the Slav-oriented state of the
future, the Lower Orders are in ascendence and happy hooligans roam the London
streets, bashing senior citizens in the eyes with bicycle chains.
Burroughs, William S. Naked Lunch.
Calvino, Italo.
If on a Winter’s Night a Stranger.
Caught in the grip of forces he does not
understand, a quiet, ordinary clerk in Algiers commits a murder.
*Connelly, Joe. Bringing Out the Dead.
Paramedic Frank Pierce's grip on reality
slowly slips away as he attempts to capture the thrill of saving lives while
also trying to deal with the death of a young girl he believes he helped kill.
*Cormier, Robert. Fade.
Paul Moreaux, the thirteen-year-old son
of French-Canadian immigrants, inherits the ability to become invisible, but
this power soon leads to death and destruction.
*Dickinson, Peter. Eva.
After a terrible accident, a young girl
wakes up to discover that she has been given the body of a chimpanzee.
Dunn, Katherine. Geek Love.
*Dunn, Mark. Ella, Minnow, Pea.
Residents of a small utopian society off
the coast of South Carolina have long revered the written word. But when letters
begin falling off the lipogrammatic statue in town, they panic and think that
the missing letters are no long to be used in writing or speech.
Ferris, Jean. Love Among the Walnuts.
*Fleischman, Paul.
Mind’s Eye.
A novel in play form in which
sixteen-year-old Courtney, paralyzed in an accident, learns about the power of
the mind from an elderly blind woman who takes Courtney on an imaginary journey
to Italy using a 1910 guidebook.
*Fleischman, Paul. Seek.
A teenager searches the airwaves for the
voice of the father he never knew in this novel written in the form of a play.
Fowles, John. The Magus.
Garfield, Henry. Tartabull’s Throw.
*Heller, Joseph.
Catch-22.
Set on a tiny Mediterranean island
during World War II, this comic novel recounts the amazing adventures of the
256th bombing squadron and its lead bombardier, Captain Yossarian.
*Hersey, John. My Petition for More
Space.
Jones, Diana Wynne. Fire and Hemlock.
Jones, Diana Wynne. Hexwood.
Jones, Diana Wynne. Howl’s Moving
Castle.
Kafka, Franz.
The Metamorphoses.
*Kerouac, Jack.
On the Road.
*Kesey, Ken.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Cowed by sadistic Nurse Ratched, the
inmates of a mental hospital are galvanized by a new patient, the free-spirited
McMurphy, who enters a pitched battle of wills with the nurse.
*Kindl, Patrice.
Goose Chase.
Rather than marry a cruel king or a
seemingly dim-witted prince, an enchanted goose girl endures imprisonment,
captured by several ogresses, and other dangers, before learning exactly who she
is.
Lem, Stanislaw.
Lubar, David. Hidden Talents.
*Lynch, Chris. Freewill.
mother believes he knows who is
responsible for the rash of teen suicides occuring in his town.
*Maguire, Gregory. Confessions of an
Ugly Stepsister.
Retells the story of Cinderella from her
stepsister's point of view.
*Maguire, Gregory. Lost.
*Maguire, Gregory.
Wicked.
Elphaba, born with emerald green skin,
comes of age in the land of Oz, rooming with debutante Glinda at the university,
and following a path in life that earns her the label of Wicked.
Palahniuk, Chuck.
Fight Club.
Palahniuk, Chuck.
Survivor.
Pinkwater, Daniel.
Pratchett, Terry. Small Gods.
*Pullman, Philip.
I Was a Rat!
A little boy turns life in London upside
down when he appears at the house of a lonely old couple and insists he was a
rat.
*Selby, Hubert. Requiem for a Dream.
Sara Goldfarb, a widow driven by an
obsession to lose weight and appear on a television game show, and her son
Harry, a junkie, both see drugs as the means to achieve their dreams, not
realizing they are creating a nightmare.
*Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat’s Cradle.
In the year 2000, a young man discovers
ice-nine, which can set off a chain reaction more deadly than a nuclear bomb,
and discovers a new prophet whose teachings sweep the world.
*Vonnegut, Kurt.
Galapagos.
The author takes you back one million
years--to A.D. 1986 and the beginning of the human race with the descendants of
a small group of survivors of an illfated cruise ship to the Galapagos
Archipelago. The narrator is the
ghost of a Vietnam veteran.
*Vonnegut, Kurt. God Bless You, Dr.
Kevorkian.
In this fictional adventure, Vonnegut
poses as a reporter for public radio and slips back and forth between the living
world and the Afterlife, interviewing various well known dead people, including
Sir Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare, Clarence Darrow, James Earl Ray, Eugene
Debs, John Brown, Adolf Hitler, Mary Shelley, Kilgore Trout, and numerous
others.
*Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five.
Weiss, Peter. Marat Sade.
*Willis, Connie. To Say Nothing of the
Dog.
Time-travel researcher Ned Henry
shuttles back and forth between the 21st century and the 1940s in order to
correct an incongruity brought forward from the past.