Let’s discuss unique books. What is the first one that comes to your mind? The uniqueness can be about the book’s plot, structure, ideas, themes, topics etc.
For me such a book is Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. It’s been a while since I’ve read it but I remember how mindblowing it was for me. Every time I thought it couldn’t surprise me more, it actually did. There’s a bit of everything there: peculiar characters, a substance called ice-nine that can freeze water on contact (as humans are around 60% water, it can instantly kill them), a fictional religion called Bokononism based on the idea that human life has no absolute truth or meaning, a tiny island nation with its own bizarre world. All of these come together to show us a satire of the absurdity of humanity.
As for a unique book structure, I have to say it’s Cain’s Jawbone by Edward Mathers. It’s a kind of puzzle book where pages are not in order and you need to arrange them in order to guess whodunnit. I haven’t finished this one yet but it’s a cool challenge.
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This is a really cool book. I don’t think it’s particularly unique in terms of its structure but the concepts it discusses and the parallels it draws across fields are worth thinking about.
Blood Meridian (McCarthy) is the only book I finished, turned to the first page and read again immediately because I didn’t feel like I got it the first time.
Confederacy of Dunces (Toole) has some of the most unique characters I’ve ever read. The story of how it got published and won a Pulitzer is almost as crazy as the plot.
There is no Antimemetics division (qntm) is rather derivative of the “SCP Foundation” weblore, but it drills down so hard on the idea of creatures that consume, steal, or are powered by human memory that the plot will bend your mind and delight your imagination. Best science fiction I read in forever.
+1 for There is no Antimemetics Division, awesome book
Always Coming Home by Ursula K Le Guin. It is a fictional ethnography written from the far future about a culture in the near future after life after some apocalyptic event in the very near future. Maybe 1/6th of it is like a traditional narrative about a girl who grows up stuck between two cultures. Her mother is a member of the Kesh which is the culture the book studies and her father is of a different culture called the Condor. Their cultures are dramatically different. The Kesh are anarchic, egalitarian, matriarchal and peaceful. The Condor are capitalist, patriarchal and war like. The rest of the book goes into detail about the Kesh. It tells some of their legends, fairy tales. It describes their performance art. It describes their creation myth. It talks about their holidays and their relationships.
Le Guin is my favorite author ever. The Dispossessed and the Left Hand of Darkness are such incredible books. Le Guin is a very strong anarchist and she uses this book and many of her other works to criticize capitalism. But none of them do so in a way as unique and artistic as Always Coming Home. It’s moving, it’s touching. It really takes you to another world and culture and helps you to see some of the assumptions you have just because you live in this world. This book is a work of absolute genius. I don’t think any other work of art I’ve ever read has really conveyed something ideological as so personal and moving.
It’s a slow burn and parts of it will baffle and confuse you. But the totality of it is so incredibly unique and artistic that I think it’s worth suffering through the rougher edges.
Great recommendation thank you, will read
I will say, if you’re unfamiliar with Le Guin’s work, I would recommend reading “The Dispossessed” first. It’s written more traditionally and I think it’s a better entry point for a new Le Guin reader. It also has a lot of the same themes as Always Coming Home.
Cool cool, I have read that one and liked it (though I thought the prose was sometimes dry and the plot very on the nose but maybe that’s just me) but its messages were great and super interesting.
Oh great then yeah I think you’ll enjoy Always Coming Home.
Easily house of leaves. I’ve never seen another book play with formatting like that. It has you reading upside down, backwards, all over the place.
“House of Leaves” is also my answer.
Such a weird story in such a good way
House or Leaves for the reasons already mentioned by others.
City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer. It’s not exactly a story but a collection of artifacts: some short stories, poems, comics, an encyclopedia full of footnotes etc. that come together to build a world. Some of it is hard to read but the end result is worth it.
Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin. Again a collection instead of a story. In each chapter a different world is described with its people and culture. And Le Guin is great at building worlds. I found this format very relaxing to read.
Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. I haven’t read all books (there’s too many of them) but if you like satire through fiction you’ll find a lot of it here on a variety of topics.
And I think I’ll stop here before this becomes a huge list.
House of Leaves
That good ergodic epistolary fiction.
Slaughterhouse Five deserves a mention.
So it goes
I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.
Last year I read “The Fifth Season” by NK Jemison. It’s a trilogy, but this is the name if the first book. Very interesting story, very weird and kind of depressing. However, what makes me suggest it here is that it’s written in second person, so it’s like the reader is the main character and the narrator is telling you your own story that you forgot. “You picked up your things and went out the door.” I’ve never read a novel written that way before and it was really cool.
And the best thing is that the ending addresses that quirk.
Honestly think it’s worth putting that in spoiler tags
wtf dude, I just learned about this book. I hope you stub your toe. Shame for spoiling like that.
How is that a spoiler? But fine, i’ll change the comment
Such a good book. Just started book 2 this week. There’s a deep sadness and yearning through it.
Embassytown by China Mieville, absolutely incredible, almost everything about it is unique. He’s become one of my favorite authors and everything I’ve read by him is original in concept. Embassytown takes the cake though. The aliens are so strange, it’s the most alien feeling I’ve ever had. My brain and thinking is still affected by what I read over a year ago.
_Blindsight_by Peter Watts is also great with original concepts and delivery.
The City and the City is very interesting too!
Yeah it’s good for sure. Perdido Street Station is fantastic too. I loved that book and looking forward to the next two in the series.
Reading Kraken rn, it’s pretty good but pacing is kinda slow.
Not a book but a comic. I remember being incredibly down that summer and getting recommended Zot! by Scott McCloud and it up my mood. I think that it’s one of the best comic ever written
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is mindblowingly impressive and cool, and I think well predicts a lot in it current culture and society, including technologically. Best part beyond the story is he’s just one of the most talented writers who ever lived.
Was going to post Infinite Jest as well. It’s amazing how many things he predicted in it just by looking at where society was heading. He also actually attended AA meetings in Boston as part of his research for it.
Another mind blowing part for me, among many, was realizing that you have to read the book several times to catch every little joke, subplot, reference, etc. So it actually mirrors the titular movie in the book, which is so addictive you just watch it over and over.
There’s a great interview DFW did on Book Worm where he says the structure of the book is modeled after a Sierpiński gasket. So for me, it’s all the layers and world building that make it special.
Awesome thank you, didn’t know that and will look for the interview
Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić.
It’s a novel written in the form of three (Christian, Jewish, and Muslim) interwoven but mutually-contradictory encyclopedias, with events and characters spanning over a thousand years of history.
Flowers for Algernon.
This one broke my heart :(
Probably William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. Blake hand painted the illustrations for each copy individually, so each copy is truly unique.
My standard response is still Ridley Walker, though there are many other contenders ;)
