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Margaret Atwood Recommends Some Weird, Twisty Tales
Margaret Atwood has written more than 50 books during her literary career, including the modern classics The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Blind Assassin. And she shows no signs of slowing down.
Just in time for Mother's Day, Atwood is back with the short story My Evil Mother, about a teenager in the 1950s whose single mother may—or may not be—a witch. This new story published on April 1 and is free for Prime members and Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
In honor of this new work, Atwood is recommending some more weird tales for her fans. Check out her picks and be sure to add the books that pique your interest to your Want to Read shelf!
Just in time for Mother's Day, Atwood is back with the short story My Evil Mother, about a teenager in the 1950s whose single mother may—or may not be—a witch. This new story published on April 1 and is free for Prime members and Kindle Unlimited subscribers.
In honor of this new work, Atwood is recommending some more weird tales for her fans. Check out her picks and be sure to add the books that pique your interest to your Want to Read shelf!
Stories of vampires, werewolves, and zombies, shapechangers of all kinds, ghosts and revenants, trolls and “little people,” demonic possession–the roll call is long, and now contains many modern practitioners and an ever-expanding number of variations.
For this list, I’ve put together some classics and some relative newcomers. Enjoy these forays into unreality, in this time in which our so-called reality is getting more bizarre by the minute: a temporary escape from it into never-never land can be appealing.
Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature and Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic
by Alberto Manguel
by Alberto Manguel
These are Manguel’s classic anthologies of fantastic stories, many from writers from beyond the English-speaking world. Many classics, but also a huge number of lesser-known stories from the Uncanny Valley, collected by the widely read and multilingual Manguel. Is there anything in the world of the fantastic that he hasn’t added to his legendary library? Probably not.
Why were the Victorians such prolific ghost-story writers? It was, of course, the age of Spiritualism, but there must be more to it. A reaction to the relentless materialism of the age, M.R. James, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James, Edith Wharton, J. Sheridan LeFanu, and so many more, have left a rich legacy of ghost literature.
Carter’s renovations of traditional fairy tales and terror motifs are told in an ornate prose lush as velvet. Red Riding Hood and the wolf get together under the covers. Who’s a good doggie, then?
This is technically a children’s book, but be careful what sort of child you give it to, or that child will have to be pried out from under the bed. “Button eyes,” I whisper. The initiated will know what I mean.
A collection of smart, deft, and unsettling tales in which our expectations of reality are challenged. Human silkworms? Vampires taking a pledge? Want your head messed with? Step this way.
A Canadian Indigenous riff on the werewolf or loup garou theme. Be careful what comes out of your mouth: it can have consequences. What has happened to the vanished Victor, and who is the Reverend Wolff?
A collection of riotous, intricately woven, off-kilter stories, less starkly terrifying than intelligently wacko. In writing as in life, the violently lurid and the hilarious are separated by a thin line, and it’s a tightrope Link walks with enviable grace.
A forgotten gem resurrected: a creepy, shadowy group is rooting out independent thought and creativity, one artist at a time. Reminiscent of We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1923), and of what is happening in authoritarian and soon-to-be-totalitarian Russia. When the "secret police" are your neighbors....
This disturbing but seductive 1982 novella tells the story of a benumbed, bereft housewife who starts up a relationship with a green-skinned, semi-aquatic, humanoid male who suddenly appears at her door, having escaped from a sadistic research facility. He's asking for asylum. She hides him in the guest room and one thing leads to another. How wonderful it is to be loved again, even if by a frog prince! But is he really there?
Have a delightfully weird book to recommend? Share it with your fellow readers in the comments below!
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Mercedes wrote: "My favorite delightfully weird books are: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Pixel Juice by Jeff Noon
Paraspheres (collected short fiction) edited by Rusty Morrison
Her Body and Other Parties by Car..."
Thank you. :)
I already had some of these on my radar, but found another few goodies thanks to Atwood!____________________
My fave, weird stories/books so far were… (off the top of my head)
Duplik Jonas 7 by Birgit Rabisch
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind
Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
____________________
Mercedes wrote: "My favorite delightfully weird books are:
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer..."
Oooh, that one from VanderMeer, I had forgotten about but now it's on my list here, too. Thank you!
Anything by Cassandra KhawRemote Control by Nnedi Okorafor (the audiobook reader was excellent!)
Can't go wrong with Maurice Broaddus
The Beauty by Aliya Whitely was disturbing AF. I loved it!
Thought of a few more misfits & literary wonders:- Perfume about a man with a nose for the soul
- The Giant’s House about a librarian & a very tall boy
- When You Reach Me about a schoolgirl & a vagabond dad
- Nothing to See Here about twins who spontaneously combust
- Cloud Atlas, at least the bits about the future & the forms love can take
Casyle wrote: "Geek Love"I think this is a terrific book. But I had my book club read it and NO ONE could get through it. Their loss!
Alfred Kubin - The Other SideGustav Meyrink - The Golem
Leo Perutz - Master of the Day of Judgement
Thank you. That's a great list, many I have read, but a few gems to add to the list.
Novels and short stories by Haruki Murakami and Ray Bradbury.
My favorite delightfully weird book is The Professor and the Madman.
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee BenderThe collect short stories of Leonora Carrington, also her novel The Hearing Trumpet.
Lolly Willowes by Silvia Townsend Warner
The Miniature Wife by Manuel Gonzales
Thank for the Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer suggestion. Today, I checked an audio version of this. My recommedations for something delightfully weird are from a local LA poet and author Jim Krusoe: Parsifal and Iceland.
Any list of the ‘delightfully weird’ has to include the Gormenghast trilogy - or anything else by Mervyn Peake.
Geek Love is one of my top weirdest but favorite books ever!
Allie wrote: "Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark" I can't say how much I enjoyed this book.I've heard "a book will find you at the time it's meant to be read.
So true with this book!
At the time I was reading this book, (which fell off my bookshelf while moving the shelf. It was the last book I needed to place in the shelf), I had a persona issue I couldn't get outta my mind.
This book did it!
Everyone into surrealist fiction should check out Datura by Leena Krohn. It's so good and I feel like far too few people know about it!
Maureen wrote: "Casyle wrote: "Geek Love"I think this is a terrific book. But I had my book club read it and NO ONE could get through it. Their loss!"GEEK LOVE is a fantastically weird book.
Mercedes wrote: "My favorite delightfully weird books are: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Pixel Juice by Jeff Noon
Paraspheres (collected short fiction) edited by Rusty Morrison
Her Body and Other Parties by Car..."
this is a great list! i enjoyed many of them.
I just bought my evil mother.. cant wait to read it
Weird, surrealism - check out Last Days of New Paris by China Mieville. Love it!
Uncategorizable, but mind-bending and giving a new perspective, Mary Doria Russell's Children of God.
Maria wrote: "My favorite delightfully weird book is The Professor and the Madman."Wow, first time I see this book mentioned anywhere these days. I loved it and it has defined the ultimate historical non fiction for me ever since.
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. Thanks for VanDerMeer tip.
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Pixel Juice by Jeff Noon
Paraspheres (collected short fiction) edited by Rusty Morrison
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Trees by Warren Ellis
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata