Odd books

[orpheus]

Pretty much anything by Alain Robbe-Grillet. I'm particularly fond of La Maison de Rendez-Vous, an intrigue thriller set in Hong Kong, centering on the Lady Ava's "Blue Villa" - in which events recur multiple times, from differnet perspectives, and always slightly different. It subversively fractures spatial and temporal descriptions - and what's really disturbing is that try as you might, the pieces of the puzzle simply don't fit perfectly. You can try to trace a timeline and a map for the whole thing - but there will always be inconsistencies. Plus, the book is very sexy.

[orpheus]

Imagination Morte Imaginez by Samuel Beckett. SB's first draft of this novel of ran some 300 pages. He edited and edited - and the finished work is four pages long. It was published as a complete novel, because that's what it is. It really does read as the ultra-concentrated distillation of something that was powerful to begin with.

Even more extraordinary is that he made his own English translation (as Imagination Dead Imagine ) that is every bit as good as the original. (He did this with a lot of his works.)

It's rather hard these days to find a copy of the original printing. But it's easily available in collections (such as The Complete Short Prose of Samuel Beckett - a very worthwhile book.

Full text of the English version here.

[Pappa]

Um... not sure how odd it is, depends on your point of view:

Shamanic Snuffs or Entheogenic Errhines by Jonathan Ott


How about this one too...

Tobacco and Shamanism in South America by Johannes Wilbert

[CookieJon]

A surprisingly good read...

[JimC]

"In watermelon sugar"

Sombrero Fallout was good too.

Remind me of the author's name...

A surprisingly good read...

Well I'll be buggered...

[CookieJon]

"In watermelon sugar"

Sombrero Fallout was good too.

Remind me of the author's name...

Richard Brautigan (I went through a "phase" when I was a lad and read everything of his I could get my hands on. They're all, well...odd!)

[Xamonas Chegwé]

There is only one truly odd book.

[AshtonBlack]

Anything by Robert Rankin.
Odd, but funny.

[JimC]

"In watermelon sugar"

Sombrero Fallout was good too.

Remind me of the author's name...

Richard Brautigan (I went through a "phase" when I was a lad and read everything of his I could get my hands on. They're all, well...odd!)

Thanks, mate, I should have remembered...

Definitely odd, and very much an expression of a time...

[orpheus]

The Book of Sand

[Gawdzilla Sama]

[Reverend Blair]

I just stumbled across a copy of Hunter S. Thompson's "Screwjack" down at the used bookstore. I was there to pick up a copy of Lono, but it had blood or gravy or something all over the pages, so I didn't want it. The girl behind the counter said, "We got this little book of his too." She held up a pristine copy of Screwjack. It's a weird little book...59 pages of Thompson actually writing instead of musing about inventing new ways to avoid writing.

I'm hanging onto this copy. I loaned the last one out to a fellow fan before I realized that all Hunter Thomspon readers are twisted dope fiends incapable of simply reading a book and then returning it. Bastards.

[Bella Fortuna]

I have a copy of that. (not an original!)

[Mr Calavera]

At a book fair I picked up a book called Manners and Rules of Good Society or Solecisms to be Avoided by A Member of the Aristocracy. The edition I found was printed in 1928, but it says it is the 47th edition.

[JimC]

At a book fair I picked up a book called Manners and Rules of Good Society or Solecisms to be Avoided by A Member of the Aristocracy. The edition I found was printed in 1928, but it says it is the 47th edition.

I trust you will follow its every instruction, old boy...