Books

I think Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski. That and his book Post Office. Just the first things to come to mind, even though I can't remember them and need to read them again.

Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami.

All of his books are a little odd but this one is truly baffling. Compelling story told using beautiful language and I kinda love it but I don’t understand it at all. I spent a few years post-read encouraging others in my circle to read it as well so we could “WTF?!?” at each other about it.

The Red by Tiffany Reisz

A beautiful young artist submits to a rich, sexy, kinky man for a year to save her gallery. Very hot, strange book. Really good though.

Vostok by Steve Alten. After The Loch, which was phenomenal, I went, "Yeah, more of this!"

It was not. It went....really weird.

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. That book is like a teenager wanted to write the most fucked-up short story he could think of and then proceeded to outdo himself 10 times.

John dies at the end by David Wong. It got crazier every time I turned the page.

The first that comes to mind is Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World. The whole book is very surreal. It’s a dark satirical take on American politics. One of the final scenes is a very graphic description of children (if I’m remembering correctly they were like 6-8 years old) using medieval torture techniques on each other. There was one little girl that they pulled by her arms and legs — they kept stretching and unstretching her repeatedly and the description of what was happening to her body (going red, saliva coming out of her mouth, bones cracking) was pretty long. Like the book was weird all the way through, but it went totally left in that scene. I think it’s the only time someone’s asked me what’s wrong with me because of the expression I had on my face while reading.

"Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson and "JPod" by Douglas Coupland in which he parodied his own "Microserfs". And it is brilliant!

The Tommyknockers by Stephen King is a bonkers, drug filled fever dream that SK wrote and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

I cannot recall the title, I don’t think I finished the book but there was a sex scene with a human and a dolphin in it.

House of Leaves. Even the way it's written is crazy. Pages are written in spiral and different things on pages which make you feel off like the person who's perspective it is.

Highly recommended

Bunny by Mona Awad because wtf is going on with that book

For a book a lot of people read, Neuromancer is pretty confounding. In some ways, it doesn't seem so crazy now-a-days, but that's just the curse of prescient and influential works of art!

It's not a book but a story by Harlan Ellison called, "I have no mouth, and I must scream".

I was a pre-teen at the time and it gave my nightmares some new fodder I can tell you. I read it in one of my older brothers' sci fi magazines he subscribed to. I was forbidden to look at or touch them so I had to suffer in silence or be found out as a "dirty little sneak".

Memories.

Candy Man by Vincent King. Straight acid trip

One of the craziest books I ever read was Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon. My memory of it persists to this day, and I read it all the way back when I was in high school. It's about a professional Bolshevik revolutionary named Rubashov, who has dedicated his entire life to the Revolution, including assassinating people he knew whom the Party had designated "enemies of the people." Rubashov now finds himself caught in the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. At first, he is resistant, hoping his lifelong loyalty to the Party will exonerate him. Then, as his interrogation proceeds, he realizes that his doom is a forgone conclusion. He spends the last 100 pages of the book rationalizing to himself why the Party and the Revolution should demand his execution. It's a real mind-twister of a book.

Unexpectedly, A Touch of Jen was super weird. I knew it was about a strange couple collectively obsessed with a woman, but I did not know it would take a hilarious, campy, horrific turn in the last third of the book.

Quantum Psychology - Robert Anton Wilson

Story of the Eye

My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Otessa Mosfeigh

Rant by Palauhnick... It's about a dystopian future with city wide demolition derbys and a serial killer who purposefully got rabies bypass messing with varmints but is somehow immune to the virus but spreads it by kissing others... At least that is what I remember

A lot of good ones in here, but I want to mention Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Lots of weird things happening and an alien world that is just so... alien.

The Unlimited Dream Company by J. G. Ballard is a complete and utter fever dream.

A Confederacy of dunces

“Ready, Okay” by Adam Cadre. I read it in my youth (and several times since) and own a copy but I haven’t ever met or talked to anyone else who has even heard of it, let alone read it.