Weird Books for Weird People | 10 Peculiar Reads

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]It's weird not to be weird. Weird is a side effect of awesome.

[00:00:07]I'm seducing the world with my weirdness.

[00:00:12]Ciao. Hola. Oi. Hi. We're about to talk weird books. Have you ever picked up a book and thought, "What the hell am I reading?" Well, get ready because you're about to explore books that defy logic, reason, and pretty much everything you expect from a story. But before we get into my list of weird books, let's talk about what can make a read feel weird.

[00:00:40]By the way, this pile of books, it's just the intro, not the list proper. So again, what is it that makes a book weird? It can be many aspects. things like a nonlinear structure, use of weapons. Perfect example of that. Fragmented narration.

[00:00:59]I'm currently reading Cloud Atlas. So good. So well written, too.

[00:01:03]Unconventional format. Letters, for example, visual elements. God knows what else is in this book. House of Leaves.

[00:01:11]Repetitive or circular structure. This is how you lose a t. This is how you lose a reader. I didn't like this.

[00:01:18]Unreliable narrator. Bias. confused, mentally unstable narrator, leading readers to question what's real. Book of the new sun. Is there a better example than this? Metapiction. A book that is self-aware.

[00:01:32]Nest of worlds. Marik Huber. Book within a book. Fantastic. Of course, the story itself could be weird with strange surreal elements, dreamlike sequences blurring the genres, and here Dark Tower. What a perfect example.

[00:01:48]Is it a horror? Is it fantasy? Is it sci-fi? Maybe a western? What the hell is it? I don't know. I love it.

[00:01:55]Unconventional characters, absurd humor, experimental language, obscure symbolism, so much more. So, let's now get into the books that I've read and for one reason or another find to be extremely weird. And before we talk about those books, I will mention the reason for this video. And it's the last book I read. Inversions by Ian M for magical Ian M. Banks. What a great book. So this is I believe book seven in the culture series. Culture an extremely advanced society post scarcity utopian society living throughout the galaxy spreading their way of life. What is weird about this book is that while in my opinion and opinions differ, there was a heated debate on Sam's channel. I'll link the video down below if you want to hear more about this book. I mean, science fiction is supposed to at its heart, like the purest form of science fiction merges two things, fiction with some sort of science that we do not possess yet, right?

[00:03:03]>> Not necessarily. There's soft science fiction like psychology, sociology, biology. Some people don't even consider biocience.

[00:03:12]>> Anyway, the heated debate was whether this is really science fiction. Because if you pick this book up and read it, and if you did not know this is science fiction, if you didn't read any of the other books in the culture series, you probably would not realize that you're reading science fiction. But if you read this book the right way, the way Yen and Banks envisioned as book seven in a series of books about exploration of galaxy politics, about the ethics of intervention, very interesting. Then you realize that this >> and then you realize that this story is every bit as much a science fiction tale as any other book in the culture series.

[00:03:58]It's just that it's hidden. In fact, the narrator of the book, a person living on the planet, has less information about what's actually happening than we do, but we as readers have this meta element where we actually know more than the narrator. This doesn't happen often. I thought this was amazing. So, we know what's happening. We know about the larger galactic context to this story. And I thought this was incredible, amazing, but weird the way it's written. It's weird. Uh it doesn't feel like a science fiction book, except it's more of a science fiction book than so many others. So anyway, this is book one. Let's get on and talk about some of the other amazing weird books. I needed to sit down for this one. The next author is synonymous with weird fiction. His last name is a word, a term in itself, Kafka-esque. So, of course, I'm talking about France Kafka. And I could have used really any one of his books just about, but I chose The Trial. The trial by France Kafka.

[00:05:12]Metamorphosis is probably his weirdest outright book. Greor wakes up one day and is a roach. Doesn't get much weirder than that. But I think I think this is the ultimate. This is a bit more subtle.

[00:05:28]This is a bit more poignant. I think deeper perhaps as well more telling about a certain type of bureaucratic society. Scary and also this was the first the first Kafka that I read.

[00:05:43]Others of course followed Castle America, but this one never left me. It operates on this nightmarish dream logic where the protagonist Joseph K is arrested by a bizarre kind of this labyrinthine, I don't know if I'm saying that right, bureaucracy for a crime that's unknown. He never knows why he's arrested. Nothing is revealed and there's this absurdity, surrealism, this claustrophobic also feeling to this story, this atmosphere.

[00:06:19]It's kind of quintessential Kafka-esque experience. Let me know if you've read Kafka. Let me know if you agree. This list is going to have science fiction books, but also other genres. I'm going to try to mix them if possible. Kafka, amazing. The next book I want to talk about is a real challenge. It blurs the lines between science fiction, horror, and psychological hallucination.

[00:06:49]Features an unnamed, definitely unreliable narrator chasing a woman, a beautiful glass-like woman through this frozen apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic world. It's a torture of a book. It's a weird, uncomfortable read. It's a difficult book to to know what's going on because the author is able to smoothly go from a story that you feel you understand what's going on into a place where you have no clue how you ended up there. So I'm talking about Ana Cavan's Ice. A very short book, but a book that lingers, a book that stays with you. It operates on this surreal again dreamlike logic.

[00:07:40]Anything goes in this weird story.

[00:07:43]Definitely an unconventional narrative structure as well. This book is the type of book that I knew is going to remain in my mind for a long time after I finished it. Even if I didn't love the reading experience, even if I didn't understand what is going on, I was satisfied, elated to be reading it. Very interesting story, very interesting author also. Ana Cavan is someone who struggled with drug abuse. Yeah, let me know. Leave a comment. Have you read eyes? Did you find it challenging as I did, but ultimately rewarding? I'd love to hear from you. Okay, the next book is weird in a completely different way than Anakavan's eyes. This book is philosophical, lucid at the same time, written in a mostly straightforward manner, but powerful. I'm talking about The Stranger by Albert Camu. And the reason this book is weird has to do with the protagonist.

[00:08:51]Mertt I think is the name. He operates with a chilling detached personality, detached apathy, rejecting all societal conventions.

[00:09:05]Doesn't display any emotions.

[00:09:08]um just the beginning of this book. Just listen to listen to the first sentence.

[00:09:14]My mom died today or yesterday maybe. I don't know.

[00:09:22]He's not sure if his mother died today or if it was yesterday. That's how it starts. That's weird.

[00:09:29]this indifference to his mother's death and indifference to what happens to a stranger he meets at the beach later on.

[00:09:37]Fantastic. It's absurdest. It kind of exposes the absurd nature of of humanity and of course human being of being a human I think is the proper way of saying this.

[00:09:50]And of course Kamu is such a great author he has coined many interesting phrases.

[00:09:58]What is it about imagining Seisphus being happy? That's the famous one I think. Leave a comment down below. Let me know about that. Uh and if you've read Kamu, Stranger is the only one that I've read. The myth of Cisphus is the one I want to read. Um but uh yeah I found this to be so strange but also so interesting so important and yeah just a fascinating again short read are short are weird books more likely to be short that's something that I haven't thought about thinking about this video it just it's occurring to me right now that maybe that is the case. All right, back to proper science fiction and back to an author who again is synonymous with being strange, with being weird himself.

[00:10:49]Incred towards the end of his life, crazy things have happened to him. But his books, his books ooze stranges. I'm talking of course about Philip K. Dick.

[00:11:00]There's so many books I could choose from.

[00:11:03]Most of the ones I've read have weird aspects to them.

[00:11:08]Even Dendrid's dream of electric sheep, but certainly maze of death. Certainly three stigmat of Palmer Aldrid.

[00:11:15]Certainly, let's just say it. UIC my favorite Philip Kedick story. I think incredible, strange, weird.

[00:11:27]This is a fantastic funny also easy weird read. You may be confused at times. Our protagonists are confused. At times they're not even sure if they're alive or dead or maybe in techno limbo called half-life in this book. This is again a hallucinatory nightmare. Interesting thing is how this book kind of crumbles on its own reality. Philip Kedick fabulous writing here. Fantastic story. Definitely in my opinion the type of weird I like. If this was ranked by weirdness, this one would be pretty high on the list of my books. If you haven't read Yubi, what are you waiting for? Do it. Do it now.

[00:12:18]The next book I'm going to talk about is a fairly famous one. It won the Booker.

[00:12:24]Its author just recently won the Nobel Prize for literature.

[00:12:29]So, good credentials to the book and to the author. It's a story of a woman who one day decides, you know what? I'm done eating meat. I'm going to be a vegetarian. What could be weird about that? My wife is a vegetarian.

[00:12:46]She's not that weird. Little little weird, but not because of the vegetarian. Of course, my wife doesn't start to turn into a a tree.

[00:12:57]The protagonist of Han Kong's the vegetarian is doing just that. This is a strange book, a weird book. It's a book I read years ago, maybe like four or five, whenever it came out, maybe five years ago.

[00:13:14]Translated book, of course. I remember how weird it was.

[00:13:21]The family stuff that happens here made me very uncomfortable.

[00:13:26]this extreme kind of quiet rebellion that our protagonist goes through by refusing to eat meat. Her family like tries to feed her, force feed her. Weird stuff happens. There's violence, psychological breakdown. I don't remember everything about this book for sure. I'd like to reread it. think there is this coldness in this book, this this surreal quality to an otherwise what seems on its surface, especially in the beginning, they're just a literary everyday novel that disintegrates.

[00:14:02]I thought it was fascinating and I couldn't I couldn't forget about it. So, um, The Vegetarian is a I think I think an excellent addition to this list, but let me know if you think otherwise.

[00:14:17]What's up? I'm ready to fight. Comment section. Let's go. Okay, and we're back.

[00:14:22]Now that you're done fighting with me in the comment section about the vegetarian, I think you'll agree if you've read it that my next choice definitely qualifies to be on this list.

[00:14:33]Let's not waste time. Jeff Vandermir.

[00:14:36]Hello.

[00:14:38]The master of atmosphere, weird atmosphere with annihilation. Book one in a series. It was a trilogy.

[00:14:50]Decided to ruin that. Who needs a trilogy when you can write book four.

[00:14:54]Anyway, I read the trilogy. I have not read book four. I loved book one. Book two and three little bit of a step down for me. Bit tedious at times.

[00:15:04]Repetitive. Kind of more of the same.

[00:15:07]Not breaking any new ground, but annalation.

[00:15:14]So good. This presents kind of a horrorfilled again dream like this word I'm repeating often landscape. This area X the shimmer that kind of defies scientific understanding, logic, bending, refracting, mutating, biology, psychology. a lot of horror to this book for sure. Things happen that are horrific both on the surface and also and also be below the surface.

[00:15:46]Unsettling for sure. They're mutated creatures. Psychological paranoia.

[00:15:54]It's just unsettling. There's this slow seems like a slow destruction of the characters personalities almost or a transformation.

[00:16:04]fantastic science fiction story. There's a movie also. Let me know if you've watched it. I didn't love it. I thought it was okay. I didn't love the movie. I really liked book one. Leave a comment.

[00:16:16]Let me know what you thought about anal I can't say the word annalation. All right. The next novel I'm going to talk about, the only fantasy I think this is fantasy on this list is a story told through the eyes of a naive childlike protagonist who explores this infinite vast flooding halls filled with statues, treating dead skeletons as friends, and lacking memory of how the protagonist Kather or of anything from the beginning of his life. So, a very interesting setup to a very strange but beautiful story. The kind of story that I think I can recommend to most readers. Not all the books on this weird list will work for everyone.

[00:17:13]This one I think is the one that might work for most. Again, dreamlike landscape, dreamlike structure to this book. Existential misery. A lonely person in a big lonely world. Surreal. It definitely defies conventions. Story with a moral story of an unusual friendship betrayal. I don't know. I thought this was beautiful.

[00:17:42]Susanna Clark, let me know if you agree that Pure was amazing. I think I read this in 2023 and it was in my like top three books of the year. It was really affecting.

[00:17:56]Starts a little slow, but instantly you get the the feel, the atmosphere of this book and it's so unique. It's not the type of fantasy you've read before. So, if you're a fan of fantasy, if you're a fan of slightly weird books that also have big heart, Pure is for you. All right. One of my favorite authors wrote an absurdist, funny, chaotic, hallucinatory for sure story. I'm talking about Stanislim. This is an ugly cover, but within its pages, we have Futurological Congress. It's one of the stories here. It's a novella, I guess.

[00:18:49]Not a long story at all. Maybe 150 pages, I believe, give or take. Maybe less than that. What an amazing, crazy, fantastical story. The story just kind of bounces all over the place, but it's got an amazing reveal. I thought slow realization of it. What is actually happening, and I don't want to spoil it, I think is what makes this book, this read fun, but it's also quite profound.

[00:19:20]It tells a lot about our current society also, even though it was written a long, long time ago. So, it can be read on different levels. It can certainly be taken seriously.

[00:19:32]It can be just a fun fun read in a vein of Philip K Dick. Just kind of what's going to happen next.

[00:19:41]Certainly brainbending drug induced hallucinations with a great protagonist that uh returns in several of Stanislam's books. I'm talking about Ian Chi. uh he's trapped in in this world, this future world. Anyway, I thought Futurological Congress was amazing.

[00:20:03]Let me know if you've read any lamb.

[00:20:05]What's your favorite lamb? I'd love to hear that. Of course, if you've read Congress, leave a comment. Let me know if you've enjoyed it as much as I did.

[00:20:12]And let's move on to the next book. Last but definitely definitely not least is a short story collection with emphasis on one of those short stories. I'm talking about Octavia Ebutler's Bloodchild.

[00:20:29]So here the titular story Bloodchild is the one I'm referring to. It definitely feels like a story that connects the Xenogenesis trilogy. Dawn being book one, the only one I read in the trilogy so far. I loved Dawn. Such a weird, unsettling book in itself. You can definitely definitely pick it up. More unsettling maybe than weird. But in Bloodchild, the story Bloodchild, it centers on a human, a male, who becomes pregnant, impregnated with eggs of an insectlike aliens. very strange world, very strange setup, themes of horror, body autonomy. It's just this intimate, complex codependence, interdependence, whatever the word is that these uh humans and these aliens go through that really makes you uncomfortable. And I found it weird, kind of strange, this gender slavery. But the aliens aren't all bad. There's this coercive partnership that is developed in this story. Just a weird fabulous tale from an author who I really like to read from. Kindred of course uh is probably along with Parable of the Sewer and Dawn. uh those are the books that are talked most often but the short story collection Bloodchild is excellent with the particular emphasis on Bloodchild.

[00:22:04]So that's my list. I think I think that's 10 books if I was to give you a bonus. I don't have the book in front of me but Tender is the Flesh. You may have heard me talk about it is a supremely uncomfortable book. uniquely weird in its own right that I do not recommend uh unless it's something that you want to go through as an experience. Uh it's it's a book that is going to stay with me for a very long time. So I've realized that even though I don't necessarily search out weird stories, I do love them. They come at you from a different angle, from the side, sometimes unexpected, and they're amazing. Anyway, where am I going with this? I don't know. But if you've watched this till the end, I want to thank you. This was a bit of a weird video, I think, for me. I enjoyed thinking about these weird books. If you enjoyed the video, like, hype, subscribe. Most importantly, as always, leave a comment. love to chat in the comments section. And that's it. I'll talk to you next time.