Quirky reads

[Louise]

I love weird/original/quirky books, and it would be great to get some recommendations from the rest of you! (as if my tbr pile isn't huge enough...)

So here are a few examples of books in the "genre" I like:
Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain
A Wild Sheep Chase
The Book of Dead Days
Be My Enemy
Little Black Book of Stories

[Ann]

This is tough! But also a great BOTNS eposide starter. Thinking....

[[deleted user]]

Plugging some retreat authors: The Bee-Loud Glade by Steve Himmer, Something Missing by Matthew Dicks and The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French are all fun quirky reads.

[Callie]

A Dirty Job, by Christopher Moore. Very quirky.

[Dan]

Quirk is the name of the game at Atticus Books. In fact, we find it difficult to not use "quirky" to help describe many of our titles.

Here's a short list of 2011 releases that are chock full of quirkiness, one of which is by a BOTNS retreat author:

The Bee-Loud Glade by Steve Himmer

Nazareth, North Dakota by Tommy Zurhellen

The Snow Whale by John Minichillo

The Absent Traveler, a novella and other stories by Randall DeVallance

When I think of the kings of quirk, I often think of books by Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, and John Irving.

[Dan]

I'm currently reading This Book Will Save Your Life by A.M. Homes - and the beginning has grabbed me enough to think that it may make my list of favorite quirky novels.

[Autumn]

Check out Set This House in Order by Matt Ruff. Very quirky, interesting story- and well written to boot. I've never read another book like it.

[Alondra]

I think The Night Circus is quirky in a nice Tim Burton-esque way :D

[Shelly]

Mine would be If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino. It's like a collection of short stories, but isn't.

[Deanna]

The Family Fang is a great quirky read!

[Janet]

Loved these Beat the Reaper and The Spellman Files and just so happens the two authors Josh Bazell and Lisa Lutz appeared together at Poisoned Pen bookstore last night. Their latest offerings are Wild Thing and Trail of the Spellmans...can't wait to read them.

[Linda]

Read when it came out and loved, loved, loved it. Heard more than a year ago that a second book was coming and have been waiting impatiently. I have possession of it now and will be diving in shortly.

[Cat]

Have you read Magic for Beginners? It is one of my all-time favorite short story collections and in my opinion at least, quite unlike anything else I have ever read.

[Louise]

I have it somewhere in my home library Cat :-)

[Cat]

Louise wrote: "I have it somewhere in my home library Cat :-)"

Excellent! It is such an unparalleled collection, capturing everything from humor, heartbreak, the surreal and the bizarre-o.

Small Beer Press (Kelly and Gavin's publishing venture) was mentioned a while back on BOTNS (regarding After the Apocalypse: Stories) and I was elated by proxy. All because I feel SO fondly towards Kelly link, based almost exclusively on the strength of this work alone.

Small Beer also puts out other quirky reads, including "Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet," a zine delivered with chocolate! :)

[Louise]

Hmm I just found this on Amazon looks interesting - although there's no chocolate :-)

[Ann]

Cat wrote: "Louise wrote: "I have it somewhere in my home library Cat :-)"

Excellent! It is such an unparalleled collection, capturing everything from humor, heartbreak, the surreal and the bizarre-o.

Small..."

Cat, if you missed episode #151 (http://booksonthenightstand.com/2011/...) you may want to check it out -- Michael interviewed Kelly and Gavin at their home about Steampunk. They are wonderful (I got to meet them at an event last year) and we're both huge fans of their work, too.

[Cat]

Thanks, Ann-there was indeed much Happy Dancing over here when I first came across that particularly awesome episode.

And now you have just reminded me of another reason to be jealous of you and Michael. :) (As if working with books wasn't enough!)