20 Delightfully Quirky Novels to Remind Us How Strange the World is ...

1. 'Geek Love' by Katherine Dunn

This is not a book about nerds in love. The title of Katherine Dunn's 1989 novel refers to Al and Lil Binewski, ringmaster and geek — read: oral chicken decapitator extraordinaire — of a circus called Binewski's Fabulon, which is kept afloat by sideshow acts performed by their — ahem — strategically bred children.

Click Here To Buy

2. 'the Insides' by Jeremy P. Bushnell

Ollie Krueger is a punk magician-turned-butcher who dreams of returning home to the husband and son she lost. Maja is a psychic mercenary hired to track down a very special knife that happens to be in the possession of Ollie's rival and co-worker. As the intrigue ramps up, it becomes clear that the story's minor players are willing to put any number of lives at risk for one magical artifact.

Click Here To Buy

3. 'the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams

Ordinary Englishman Arthur Dent becomes one of the last Earthlings alive when his secretly alien friend, Ford Prefect, rescues him from Earth's demolition just in the nick of time. Aboard the Heart of Gold, a ship driven by an Infinite Improbability Drive, Arthur spends his time bouncing around the Universe in search of the perfect cuppa.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy contains the first five books of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy.

Click Here To Buy

4. 'the Heart Goes Last' by Margaret Atwood

When economic and environmental catastrophes devastate the world as we know it, a social experiment arises to provide for those willing to abide by its strange rules: couples must spend every other month in prison, and never, ever meet the alternates who live in their homes while they are away.

Click Here To Buy

5. 'Agony' by Mark Beyer

Amy and Jordan are just trying to improve their lives, but with all the ghosts, sharks, and bears roaming about, what are a couple of Gen-Xers supposed to do?

Click Here To Buy

6. 'Midnight Robber' by Nalo Hopkinson

When Tan=Tan's father commits a heinous crime, he absconds with his daughter to New Half-Way Tree: an underground reality where only criminals and outcasts dwell.

Click Here To Buy

7. 'the Color of Magic' by Terry Pratchett

After a naïve tourist named Twoflower hires a not-very-good wizard named Rincewind to be his guide, the two men hop from frying pan to fire in this comedic fantasy novel by the late Terry Pratchett.

Click Here To Buy

8. 'the Portable Veblen' by Elizabeth McKenzie

Facing down a marriage she isn't sure she wants, 30-year-old Veblen takes off on a roadtrip with a squirrel in Elizabeth McKenzie's screwball second novel.

Click Here To Buy

9. 'Lake Wobegon Days' by Garrison Keillor

Based on the author's radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days surveys the history of a fictional Minnesota town and its present day inhabitants.

Click Here To Buy

10. 'Flea Circus' by Mandy Keifetz

After her lover commits suicide, the bereaved Izzy employs a variety of methods for recovering from her grief, including carrying the dead man's cremains around in her vagina.

Click Here To Buy

11. 'Waiting for Godot' by Samuel Beckett

In this classic, absurdist play, friends Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree for a third man, the eponymous Godot, who never shows up.

Click Here To Buy

12. 'the Wallcreeper' by Nell Zink

When Tiffany miscarries after her husband causes a minor auto collision during a birding trip, the newlyweds bring home their rare sighting, the titular wallcreeper, instead of a baby.

Click Here To Buy

13. 'the Family Fang' by Kevin Wilson

The semi-successful adult children of performance artists return home to investigate their parents' disappearance in Kevin Wilson's 2011 bestseller.

Click Here To Buy

14. 'the Strange Library' by Haruki Murakami

This odd, unfoldable novella centers on a young student who, in his pursuit to learn all there is to know about tax collection in the Ottoman Empire, becomes imprisoned by the library staff.

Click Here To Buy

15. 'White is for Witching' by Helen Oyeyemi

Miri Silver's mother is dead, and her father is now in charge of his late wife's ancestral home. But the house has other ideas ...

Click Here To Buy

16. 'Choke' by Chuck Palahniuk

A sex addict fakes choking incidents in restaurants to con do-gooders into "rescuing" him, and uses the monetary contributions they send to fund his unfit mother's nursing-home care.

Click Here To Buy

17. 'a Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories' by Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor's Southern Gothic short stories will show you that the world hasn't gotten that much weirder since they were written in the mid-20th century. For a real treat, check out "Good Country People" and "The Displaced Person."

Click Here To Buy

18. 'Ella Minnow Pea' by Mark Dunn

Set on a fictional island off the South Carolina coast, this epistolary novel follows its eponymous, 18-year-old heroine as she fights back against an off-the-rails council that wants to ban particular letters of the alphabet from communication.

Click Here To Buy

19. 'Bellweather Rhapsody' by Kate Racculia

During a high-school music festival at a Catskills hotel, the wounds of a 15-year-old murder case rip open, and a quirky cast of characters must band together to solve a new mystery.

Click Here To Buy

20. 'the Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories,' Edited by John L. Apostolou and Martin H. Greenberg

In this English language collection of Japanese sci-fi, anything can happen, from the cute to the bizarre. Sakyo Komatsu's "The Savage Mouth" and Shinichi Hoshi's "He-y, Come On Ou-t" are particularly intriguing.

Click Here To Buy