100 books like House of Leaves

Blimey. Even by PKD’s standards, this is an unconventional read. VALIS is a story which seeps into the author’s real life, or vice versa. It includes autobiographical elements as well as science fiction and philosophy. Its bravery impresses me. This is art written with the utmost passion, honesty and perhaps even desperation, as it details the author’s mental illness and unexplained experiences and tries to make sense of them. And yet it also manages to be great fun. Really. 

Camus’ 1942 classic short novel, The Stranger, focuses on a protagonist who, not unlike other protagonists in this list, has certain emotional limitations.  However, in the character of Meursault, Camus’ main character has a particular desensitization from tragic events in his life, which culminates when he is tried for shooting a man, otherwise referred to in the book as “the Arab”. 

The emotional removal that Meursault exhibits throughout this unusual and engaging character study becomes the ultimate focus of his trial, as others reflect on his emotional disconnection from various aspects of his life, including his own mother’s funeral, to which he had displayed little more than apathy. 

The Stranger is astonishing in its depiction of a traditionally “unlikable” character who nevertheless we follow in the hopes of some sort of catharsis.  

Choices, choices, choices. The Things They Carried chronicles in piecemeal, fictionalized format the journey of an army veteran, from an injured spirit focusing on the shortest space between actions necessary for survival, to the expansive vision of a celebrated author.

For me, a creative making his first, furtive attempts at writing, O'Brien’s book gave me permission to experiment with short stories, and to strive for the truth, no matter the amount of fiction required to communicate a reality.

Marco Polo at the court of Kublai Kahn tells of the fantastical cities that he has seen on his journey. 

Each city, told in a vignette of a page or two, each more amazing than the last is another reflection on the universal city – the way humans come together to build something larger than themselves. And through these views, one comes to see how we construct societies and the bonds that hold us together.

A masterwork of poetry and vision.

It feels presumptuous to even try to describe this novel…I can only say that to me, it is a story about a truth so painful that it can only be viewed indirectly and magically, from all the many vantage points its characters (and ghosts) offer.

A spiraling, heartbreaking explosion of a book, brilliantly structured, beautifully written, with a secret at its center. 

I’m awed by Chinese sci-fi author Liu Cixin’s imaginative daring in depicting barely conceivable challenges to humanity. Cixin takes us from a China making first contact with an alien civilization through an increasingly bewildering series challengings into a barely comprehensible future.

Humanity has faced some nasty surprises of late. Cixin’s series is a breathtakingly imagined depiction of futures in which the real challenges are not those we’ve been expecting and preparing for, but barely imagined ones. One of the themes of my book is that we must make the most of our species’ imaginative resources if we are to cope with the future’s surprises. If humanity follows the path of radical enhancement we’re going to have to prepare for a lot of the crazy weirdness described by Cixin.

Netflix is releasing a series based on the novel. Please let them capture some of the craziness of Cixin’s imagination.

This is the book that got me into Science Fiction in the first place and it remains, perhaps, my favorite novel. The setting is a near-future dystopian society where a subculture of young, roving gangs control the streets through extraordinarily violent antics (ultra-violence). This violent behavior is enhanced by “milk plus,” a drink laced with synthetic drugs available at the Korova Milk Bar, which is where we first encounter our main character, Alex, a 15-year-old gang leader.

When Alex is arrested for murder, he is selected to undergo an experimental therapy (The Ludovico Technique) designed to wean him off violent behavior forever, after which his sentence will be commuted. During these treatments, he is injected with (yet another) drug called Serum 114. This drug induces extreme nausea while he is made to watch horribly violent films. Utterly changed, Alex is released back onto the streets to a world in which… show more.

Another book I've read so many times and never tire of.

The structure is very clever, being told through the means of letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts - something I also like to incorporate in my own Victorian novels. Drawing on previous works that contain vampiric themes, this turns the genre into a rip-roaring sensation. It really is a masterpiece that deserves its success - as eternal as the vampire living across the centuries.

I couldn't resist recommending one of my favorite novels.

The period following the French Revolution has often been described in terms of the birth of the modern nation-state and the globalization of the domination of nature, but Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, despite being a work of fiction, does a better job than many works of history in undermining these myths and portraying popular attitudes toward fairies and magic in the early 19th century.

When many people think of fairies, they imagine Tinker Bell and little winged creatures, but cutesy fairies were a Victorian invention, and Clarke preserves the ambiguities of early fairy lore. Magic, too, was understood by many of its practitioners as a practical craft, similar to how Clarke depicts it.

All that is to say, this novel explores fascinating themes and is also a cracking good read.

They say never judge a book by its cover, but I was drawn by the elk illustrated cover and the blurb. You are taken on a very authentic cultural journey by Jones as he invites the reader into the Native American world and shows how tradition and contemporary life come together. While it is a true literary gem it is also a bona fide horror dripping with non-gratuitous gore and menace as a group of young men are hunted by something otherworldly, haunted by an event from their youth. I was very taken by the Native American spirituality when I became interested in it as a teenager, this book was both frightening and enlightening.