Weird Books Part 1
Happy Thanksgiving!
I have a pie to bake and then I will be spending Thanksgiving with family and family friends in Malibu. This year, I am grateful for so many things, including this bookish community and weird books.
I love weird books. I love being surprised by what I’m reading. I love not being able to figure out where a story is going and then feeling breathless when things take an unexpected turn. I know this is not everyone’s jam. Lucky for me there are so many wonderfully weird books to choose from!
Want even more weird books? Go back in time to 2019 and listen to episode #3 of Books Are My People where I talk weird books with my father, Ron Clark. Fun fact: He is a writer as well - TV and movies. Comedies. (apologies for the poor sound quality - it was only my third episode ever.)
Here are some weird books to add to your list! (scroll all the way down for a weird-book surprise):
Tell The Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams
This book examines the concept of happiness in a workplace novel involving a mother and son. The weirdness comes in the form of “happiness machines” that spits out personal recommendations tailored to each individual that ensure their happiness. But does it work?
After finding a set of infant toes, a couple plants them in their garden and an enormous baby grows, because of course that’s what happens when you plant random baby toes.
Pretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin
Did you love Beagin’s novel Big Swiss as much as I did? Pretend I’m Dead is Beagin backlist. Mona--almost twenty-four, emotionally adrift is cleaning houses to get by. She falls for a man she calls Mr. Disgusting, who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways. This book is weird, funny and heartbreaking.
Sleeping Together by Kitty Cook
Vanessa Brown is trying to convince herself that she wants to have a baby with her husband. She works for a pharmaceutical company and when she catches her coworker stealing sleeping medication, she decides to give it a whirl. Should she enjoy sleep this much? If you liked the movie Being John Malcavich, I think you will appreciate all of the deliciousness in this book.
Listen to my interview with Kitty Cook!
Parakeet by Marie-Helene Bertino
Perhaps you’ve read her delightful novel, 2 A.M. at the Cat’s Pajamas. Parakeet has a very different tone, but I loved it. The week of her wedding, The Bride is visited by a bird she recognizes as her dead grandmother because of the cornflower blue line beneath her eyes, her dubious expression, and the way she asks: What is the Internet?Yes, her grandmother is a parakeet who has come with demands. She tells The Bride not to get married. She tells her to go and find your brother.
How can you not want to read this?
We are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Nope. I’m not telling you what this one is about. And quite frankly, the back of the book gives too much away, much to my chagrin. Much to the author’s chagrin. Don’t read about it. Just read it if you want a beautiful and touching reading experience.
Miss Iceland by Audur Ava Olafsdottir
1960’s Iceland. Hekla always knew she wanted to be a writer, there is only one problem: she is a woman. After packing her few belongings, including James Joyces's Ulysess and a Remington typewriter, Hekla heads for Reykjavik with a manuscript buried in her bags. Hekla's opportunities are equally limited: marriage and babies, or her job as a waitress, in which harassment from customers is part of the daily grind.
As the world changes around her, so do her opportunities. An unexpected, quiet and strange novel. I liked this one so much I’ve been hunting down her backlist ever since.
Sometimes my book matchmaking skills go horribly wrong. This was the case with this book when I gifted it to a close friend and guaranteed she would love it. She did not, but I did! This is a laugh out loud novel about Rachel, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. Her therapist encourages her to take a ninety-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting. Rachel soon meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is intent upon feeding her. Laugh out loud funny and thoughtful. In my humble opinion.
Bonus Weird Book
Unruly Creatures by Jennifer Caloyeras (yes, that’s me!!!!)
In 2017 I published a collection of weird short fiction titled, Unruly Creatures. Five of the stories were previously published in various literary magazines. (We can talk lit mags another time if that interests you.) I had so much fun unleashing my inner weirdness: a woman falls in love with a gorilla, a son has to dress in costume to receive his father’s affection, a young adult going through puberty experiences an unexpected complication and more….
I’m not great at self-promotion, but I’m giving it a try. :)
What are you grateful for this year?
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