Share the most refreshingly unique book you've ever read.

Post Reply New Topic

....So far, at least, if you read much.

I virtually don't read, period. But if anyone needs a real good kick-in-the-butt from the monotony of normal fiction I recommend Office Girl by Joe Meno. I won't list the characters, even though that looks crazy to do that but you'll get the idea anyway:

The main character is a really opinionated and quirky rebel going from job to job and relationship to relationship, discovering where she belongs in the world of creativity until she meets a guy who is just about as strange as she is, if not more. This guy constantly records noises and other happenings, voices, whatever he can capture on his tape recorder everywhere he goes. When the two begin to know and relate to each other's similar sense of discovery in life they decide to get out and and form an "art movement," capitalized simply by going everywhere and doing crazy stuff, even if it's not the most atrocious stuff in the book of "performed" abstract art one could imagine. As the book moves on, the girl eventually gets out of the doldrums of her old living situation and everything comes to a closure that changes the lives of both leading character.

Enough said, just pick a copy up at the library and skim through it if you didn't catch my plot wording very well. Hope this thread picks up with some more good reading material.

this is non-fiction, but ground-breaking: guns, germs, and steel by jarod diamond.

Villette by Charlotte Bronte. Way ahead of its time. Totally changed the way I saw things.

I second "guns, germs and steel"!

Also, "the thirteen and a half lives of captain blue bear", "cloud atlas", anything from Amelie Nothombe, anything from Terry Pratchett, anything from Roald Dahl, "the hitchhiker's" series...
There are so many really.

Third, although I like Diamond's Collapse better (Collapse is the companion/follow-up book to Guns Germs and Steel; it deals with the factors that lead to the downfall of societies, rather than the ascension).

Along those lines (sort of), if there are other anthropology geeks out there, Jeremy Narby's "The Cosmic Serpent" may very well be my favorite book of all time.


Fiction-wise, the best and strangest thing I've read lately is "The Postmortal" by Drew Magary. The basic idea is it's a near-future sci-fi world where an "antidote" for aging/death is developed (but people are still fully capable of dying by unnatural means), and how society reacts and evolves/devolves as a result. It's I guess a black comedy and an outlandish social commentary, and it's one of the funniest books I've ever read.

I really liked Frank Turek and Norman Geisler's I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. Its a tough read if you're not into long-winded explanations, but both authors make some excellent points about the old and tired "religion vs. science" crap. I'd recommend it to any true seeker, but those just looking for a fight would do best to avoid it.

Another I really enjoyed reading was Michael Jackson Conspiracy, by Aphrodite Jones. She goes through all the evidence from the 2003 trial, often lifting quotes directly from the court transcripts. I'm still unsure what to believe about the 1993 case, but this book proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Tom Sneddon, the Arvizios, and the mass media all set MJ up, big-time.

The Meme Machine written by Susan Blackmore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meme_Machine

meme is a term coined by Richard Dawkins in his fabulous The Selfish Gene.

a close runner up for those with an interest in human development through the childhood years is The Nurture Assumption written by Judith Rich Harris.

i do read much and mostly non fiction. the three books mentioned above is my top three and its hard to select a 'winner'

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami
Actually most of his work is brilliant

or anything by Tom Robbins, Milan Kundera or Hermann Hesse

How do you know that this book is unique if you don't read much?

If On a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. there's really nothing quite like it.

also, Tree of Codes by JS Foer, although it's more of an artsy experiment than a book.