The Strange. The Bizarre. The Ugly.
Explore a curated list of the strangest, most bizarre, and downright ugly books ever written. Dive into weird tales, oddities, and shocking reads that defy the ordinary.
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The Blind Owl
by Ṣādiq Hidāyat
"A haunting tale of loss and spiritual degradation. Replete with potent symbolism and terrifying surrealistic imagery, Sadegh Hedayat's masterpiece details a young man's despair after losing a mysterious lover ... [as he] gradually drifts into frenzy and madness."--Back cover
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Maldoror & the Complete Works of the Comte de Lautreamont
by comte de Lautréamont
Andre Breton wrote that MALDOROR is the expression of a revelation so complete it seems to exceed human potential.' First published in 1869, MALDOROR is the work of a mysterious genius about whom little is known aside from his birth in Uruguay, 1846, and his early death in Paris, 1870. His writings, published under the pseudonym Comte de Lautreamont, bewildered his contemporaries but have since taken their place alongside other French classics of transgression such as Sade, Baudelaire, Rimbaud. A unique translation.'
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The Street of Crocodiles
by Bruno Schulz
The Street of Crocodiles in the Polish city of Drogobych is a street of memories and dreams where recollections of Bruno Schulz's uncommon boyhood and of the eerie side of his merchant family's life are evoked in a startling blend of the real and the fantastic. Most memorable - and most chilling - is the portrait of the author's father, a maddened shopkeeper who imports rare birds' eggs to hatch in his attic, who believes tailors' dummies should be treated like people, and whose obsessive fear of cockroaches causes him to resemble one. Bruno Schulz, a Polish Jew killed by the Nazis in 1942, is considered by many to have been the leading Polish writer between the two world wars.
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Crash
by J. G. Ballard
In this hallucinatory novel, an automobile provides the hellish tableau in which Vaughan, a "TV scientist" turned "nightmare angel of the highways," experiments with erotic atrocities among auto crash victims, each more sinister than the last. James Ballard, his friend and fellow obsessive, tells the story of this twisted visionary as he careens rapidly toward his own demise in an internationally orchestrated car crash with Elizabeth Taylor. A classic work of cutting-edge fiction, Crash explores both the disturbing implications and horrific possibilities of contemporary society's increasing dependence on technology as intermediary in human relations.
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The Illuminatus! Trilogy
by Robert Shea
Filled with sex and violence--in and out of time and space--the three books of The Illuminatus are only partly works of the imagination. They tackle all the coverups of our time--from who really shot the Kennedys to why there's a pyramid on a one-dollar bill.
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Une saison en enfer & Le bateau ivre
by Arthur Rimbaud
The classic influential poems by Rimbaud, in a bilingual en face edition featuring acclaimed translations by Louise Varése.
