Hi,
I’m looking to get into reading but find myself often finding it hard to finish or keep up reading quite long books, I also find myself gravitating to more non fiction is they are easier to digest but I’d like to read more fiction.
As far as the weird part, maybe weird is a reductive term but generally speaking I like entertainment that’s a bit more rough around the edges or often deals with sensitive subjects. I like noise rock music and body horror cinema and such. I love thriller films too!
Also the only book I’ve really read and enjoyed is American Psycho when I was in school. (Although some of that is quite a drag too lol) do with that what you will.
by manupsitdown
37 Comments
love is a dog from hell, metaphorphosis by kafka
How about short stories? Since you like horror, I would suggest Stephen King.
Professor Dowell’s Head by Alexander Belyaev, a classic Russian horror novella about an insane surgeon and his grotesque experiments on captive psychiatric patients.
nothing to see here by kevin wilson
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Tender is the Flesh
Elena Knows
I, Who Have Never Known Men
Membranes
Comfort Me With Apples
For the most part it’s best not to know too much about these books before starting, just jump in and begin reading. The more you know, the less impactful and weird they will be.
Fantasy recommendations if you’re up for them –
This Is How You Lose The Time War is short and definitely weird. I found it easy by just letting it flow over me, but some people find it harder.
T Kingfisher writes a fair few horror fantasy novellas (among some full length novels, usually with less intense horror elements). The Seventh Bride, Thornhedge, and What Moves The Dead are examples. What Moves The Dead is particularly strong on fungus-based body horror.
Chuck Tingle is most famous for erotica but also writes some horror short stories and some full length novels. I’ve read Camp Damascus, which is YA with insect-based body horror. Easy full length book.
Alice Isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink has, uhh, decomposition-based horror? Not sure how to describe it but there are gruesome creatures. Full length adult book with quite easy prose.
Hausfrau for a contemporary “weird” book
We Have Always Lived in the Castle for a classic “weird” book
The Seep by Chana Porter
Finna by Nino Cipri
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
Loving Day by Mat Johnson
Made for Love by Alissa Nutting
Try Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen. Semi-satirical crime fiction in which a rich old lady is snatched by a Burmese python at a gala in Florida. Hijinks ensue.
{{A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck}} can be read in a single sitting. Not super weird, more existential horror.
{{The Hike by Drew Magary}} is definitely surreal.
{{I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison}}. I prefer Short Stay in Hell to this but this is a very short story and very weird. He has other short stories, just as weird. Hit or miss though.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
This is How You Lose the Time War
Short, super weird, super interesting
{{Open Throat by Henry Hoke}}
Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. Surreal and unexpectedly funny.
{{Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield}}
{{Mrs Caliban by Rachel Ingalls}}
{{The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks}}. Definitely weird!
I recommend Cursed Bunny and Her Body & Other Parties for some weird horror short stories.
Paradise Rot and The Employees are good and weird and short.
Some translated novellas I like:
Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval,
The Employees by Olga Ravn,
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Let’s Go Let’s Go Let’s Go
Gateways to Abomination by Matthew M Bartlett
China Miéville – Three Moments of an Explosion
A varied, constantly excellent collection of dark SF, horror, thrillers. Some are very short ‘outlines’, others are pretty much novella length. Miéville really is one of the best.
219 pages, hysterically funny nonfiction history book/audiobook is this; “Out There The Batshit Antics of the World’s Great Explorers,” by Peter Rowe it’s nonfiction, tells the origin stories of the world’s explorers who were indeed batshit prior to sailing away for lands unknown. The few who were seemingly of sound mind prior to venturing out to lands already populated by Indigenous peoples would, more often than not, be set upon by them tortured, boiled alive (really) their stories were learned by later explorers via oral history of the tribesmen and women who observed these actions first hand, were infected by bugs, bitten by animals etc. the book is hysterically funny and 100% true!
Susanna Clarke: Piranesi
the dangers of smoking in bed – Marina Enriquez
SO WEIRD, collection of short stories, fiction.
Not for people that are sensitive/squeamish
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. About a family of circus freaks who intentionally breed their own exhibit of human oddities.
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Quite short, very weird, and both classics!
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw would fit that bill nicely
If you’re interested in short stories, you could try David Sedaris’ books.
Short, easy enough, funny, a bit weird, autobiographical (-ish).
I’ve read “Naked” multiple times and it is still one of my favourite books!
Tender is the Flesh. A dystopian story about farming humans for meat
Tender is the Flesh & 1984
One of my favourite short stories, Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville
Piranesi… hands down. No question.
Earthlings is both short and weird. Don’t get fooled by the cute cover though
Louis Sachar’s books.
I know he’s a children’s author, but his books fit what you’ve described really well. They’re funny, they’re short(ish) and easy reads, and they have a heavy level of darkness in them that is just barely hidden on every paragraph.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, for instance, has Wonka saying constantly that all is well because “they always come out on the wash” and as an adult, I just have to pause every time and wonder how many people he’s put through what sort of troubles.
They are, of course, also charming with loads of imagination.
Or you can try Lovecraft. Horror short story writer who could be fairly described as weird.
Check out “Based on a True Story A Memoir” by Norm Macdonald. Funny and weird and sort of non-fiction but mostly fiction (maybe?) but it’s hard to tell how much!
The Employees by Olga Ravn might fit the bill.