Like most people, I read lots of different kinds of books, but I am often drawn to novels with unusual themes, structure, or all those things. As a comedy writer, I have always loved surreal writing ā the Goon Shows on the radio, or the plays of NF Simpson ā and this applies to my taste in literature as well. The unreal, the slightly detuned, anything that suggests this world is not entirely what it seems, or if it is what it seems, then it is an idiot.
A comic novel from 1940, ostensibly a reworking of Romeo and Juliet set in the 19th century. Donāt Mister Disraeli is in fact a wild rampage through Victorian fiction and history. The only book I know of thatās influenced by both the Marx Brothers and JW Dunneās An Experiment In Time, this is Alice In Wonderland as a history lesson and itās brilliant.
I love Iain Banksā work and this book seems to encapsulate the best of his early work: epic sci-fi, mental breakdown, and fantastic comedy. Switching between three storylines, one of which contains the best imagery in all SF and fantasy, Walking On Glass mixes reality with insanity and imagination with the every day to superb effect.
Her eyes were black, wide as though with some sustained surprise, the skin from their outer corners to her small ears taut. Her lips were pale, and nearly too full for her small mouth, like something bled but bruised. He had never seen anyone or anything quite so beautiful in his life.'
Graham Park is in love. But Sara Fitch is an enigma to him, a creature of almost perverse mystery. Steven Grout is paranoid - and with justice. He knows that They are out to get him. They are. Quiss, insecure in his fabulous if ramshackle castle, is forcedā¦
This book is a spy novel with a satirical edge which will take you on a heart-pumping journey through the streets, mountains, jungles, and beaches of Colombia. Our Man in Havana meets A Clear and Present Danger.
Probably my favourite book, this is BS Johnsonās most fun novel. Itās about a man who decides the world is in debt to him, and sets out to redress the balance, often murderously. Johnson doesnāt so much break the fourth wall as grind it up for pudding. Christie Malryās Own Double-Entry is very dark, very funny, and a small masterpiece.
Christie Malry is a simple person. Born into a family without money, he realised early along in the game that the best way to come by money was to place himself next to it. So he took a job as a very junior bank clerk in a very stuffy bank. It was at the bank that Christie discovered the principles of double-entry book keeping, from which he evolved his Great Idea. For every offence Christy henceforth received at the hands of a society with which he was clearly out of step, a debit must be noted; after which, society wouldā¦
Best known as a surrealist painter, Carrington is one of my favourite artists for her strange, half-dreamy figures and other-worldly paintings. Her written work is similarly disturbing: animals that tear their own faces off, monsters, and the dead populate these short but memorable stories. Surrealism can often be wearing in print, but Carrington is a writer who balances the bizarre with the unsettling perfectly.
āComplete Stories, a collection of Carringtonās published and unpublished short storiesāmany newly translated from their original French and Spanishāis a terrific introduction to her bizarre, dreamlike worlds.ā āCarmen Maria Machado, NPR
Surrealist writer and painter Leonora Carrington (1917ā2011) was a master of the macabre, of gorgeous tableaus, biting satire, roguish comedy, and brilliant, effortless flights of the imagination. Nowhere are these qualities more ingeniously brought together than in the works of short fiction she wrote throughout her life.
Published to coincide with the centennial of her birth, The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington collects for the first time all ofā¦
Two years ago, devastated by the sudden death of his older brother, Hank Atwater went on a drinking rampage that ended in his being arrested. Since then, he has been working to rebuild his reputation in his hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, with little luck. But everything changes after aā¦
An incredible book, disturbing, harsh, and ā of course ā really, really funny, The Third Policeman is the great dark surreal novel. A simple story of a man who visits a police station, it soon roots itself in a Tristram Shandy-esque mire of absurdity and confusion with its own sense of seeping dread. All Flann OāBrien is superb, but this is the fiercest of all pancakes.
The Third Policeman is Flann O'Brien's brilliantly dark comic novel about the nature of time, death, and existence. Told by a narrator who has committed a botched robbery and brutal murder, the novel follows him and his adventures in a two-dimensional police station where, through the theories of the scientist/philosopher de Selby, he is introduced to "Atomic Theory" and its relation to bicycles, the existence of eternity (which turns out to be just down the road), and de Selby's view that the earth is not round but "sausage-shaped." With the help of his newly found soul named "Joe, " heā¦
This is the novel of mine which is the nearest to surreal. Itās about a man who remembers a book that nobody else has heard of and, when he finds heās desperate for money, writes the book from memory, with horrific consequences. I love books about books, and this was a great deal of fun to write, with everything from Stephen King to Jim Steinman thrown in.
The Blue Prussian is a spellbinding story told by Blake OāBrien, a beautiful, young executive with a globetrotting career. Blake returns to her native Manhattan from San Francisco after escapingāor so she thinksāher marriage to a dashing man who turned out to be a prince of darkness. She had beenā¦
Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a nightā¦