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.

  • akilou@sh.itjust.works
    9·
    14 days ago

    Opened this thread to submit House of Leaves.

    It’s not just the footnotes though. As the characters walk down an increasingly small hallway, the words on the page start lower and lower on the page like you’re hunching down with the characters. And when they sprint, there are fewer and fewer words on each page until you’re flipping as fast as they’re running.

    Oh, and the plot is about a house bigger on the inside than the outside and the cover of the book is like a quarter inch shorter than the pages in it.

    So many examples like this