100 books like Magritte

I am a huge fan of dreampunk books and this book helped create the genre. Reading it took me into a dreamworld that lead into another dreamworld and then yet another.

As with all Philip K. Dick books I was left wondering if I ever did return to the reality I believe I live in. I also found the character of Palmer Eldritch himself to be one of my all-time favorites.

Leaving me equally tickled as it did in awe, Flatland is easily one of my favorite books of all time.

Delving into concepts quite difficult to think about, let alone explain in such a delightful way, it expanded my mind into not only a better understanding of ‘dimensions’ but also the possibility, and even, the probability, that there is much more in existence than our rather limited little human brains can comprehend.

As weird as it is wonderful, I found myself stopping at various points to either laugh or to try to explain to someone else (to their annoyance I’m sure!) the profound details it explained to me. And when it was all over I was left humbled, and pondered what greater beings there may be all around me, that I simply cannot see.

I bought this book from a second hand shop; the book was fire damaged (perhaps as a result of a closed-minded reader spontaneously combusting?). It is a great introduction to anti-establishment, anti-materialist philosophers, thinkers, and whatnot. Gary Lachman writes in an accessible and conversational style and manages to remain questioning and thoughtful. He also used to play bass for Blondie and guitar for Iggy Pop.

From an early age, art seemed magical to me. Through books, paintings, music, etc. I found I could delve beneath the surface of my existence and grow closer to real life. Art can be more than entertainment, more than inspiration, it can be a magical act that can help us all. I know this to be true from my own experience and I write books and make art with this intention. Jodorowsky believes this too and prescribes artistic acts as therapy in a way that is totally audacious, moving, and often hilarious.

This slender, 70-page memoir of a time in which both one woman and the world went mad is a beautifully-rendered portrait of psychosis. Written decades after the episode, Down Below describes the British-Mexican surrealist painter Leonora Carrington’s psychotic break in 1940, the circumstances of which were themselves aptly surreal. As a 19-year-old art student in London, she had fallen in love with the celebrated (and married) artist Max Ernst, and run scandalously away with him to a farmhouse in Provence. After Germany invaded France, the Jewish Ernst was arrested, leaving Carrington so intensely abandoned and shocked by unfolding history that she vomited repeatedly.

She began to unravel as she wandered her way out of France, eventually entering Madrid, which she perceived “as the world’s stomach, and that I had been chosen for the task of restoring this digestive organ to health. I believed that all anguish had accumulated in me… show more.

I feel as though this book isn’t widely known. The plot is quite bizarre and surreal–a man falls in love with a woman who is growing a water lily in her lung.

The novel’s theme of grief stood out to me, and I feel it was perfectly illustrated by Collin’s desperate attempts to keep his wife alive. It is evident that Vian used Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist philosophy as inspiration for this novel.

If you’re looking for a darker, more violent set of short stories, look no further. Another running theme in this collection I loved is the cleverness that goes into the plots, many of which deal with revenge and murder in unique ways. I liked how the things doing the killing were varied and utilized in unexpected styles. Whether that was a truck driver seeking revenge on a gang of bikers or carousel horses coming to life to terrorize teens, or a faun doling out justice to a group of hunters, these stories left me unsettled yet creatively satisfied. 

Promenade is a gift for anyone who, like me, loves books. What I like most is the concept itself: a tribute to books, to what they make us feel. They can be the vehicle of a great journey, a refuge, or the door to a new world. The dreamlike and surreal illustrations are so evocative that they do not need accompanying text. Another concept that seems very interesting to me is that, in addition to presenting the book as a magical object, it also makes it an object of great value: it is a large-format book, with a very careful edition and a print that extols the beautiful illustrations. These are details that I love because they make it a perfect book gift. 

“I’m still not certain you really are a woman?” Whenever Valerie has her period she is transported to a magical if sinister otherworld (yes, this novel was written by a man). A surreal, Freudian, East European coming-of-age fairytale that lies somewhere between Alice In Wonderland and a gothic pastiche. In the 70s it was also adapted into a film that apparently influenced Angela Carter. Not unjustifiably, the teenage experience is portrayed as a disorientating, eroticized nightmare from which Valerie must use all her wiles to escape, fending off vampiric family members after her inheritance and hypocritical authority figures keen to simultaneously sexualize her and burn her as a witch. At least she owns a set of magic earrings. “I’m acting like a sleepwalker. Is it all a dream?”

I loved this collection of short stories primarily for the characters that Kevin Wilson created. The humanity and eclectic traits that he puts into them connected with me on a personal level. It’s almost as if the characters could live in a Wes Anderson film. While the people shine in these stories, the plots still have that inventive odd twist that left me smiling. And the story from which the collection takes its name was a melancholic surreal tale that left me thinking about its layers of meaning long after I finished reading it.