Results: Who Knew A Book Of Lists Could Be So Riveting?
Published on 01/30/2020
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1.
Every so often, a novel comes along that breaks all the rules of fiction — and works. "Twenty-One Truths About Love" by Matthew Dicks is one of those books. While a list might seem like a simple way to write a narrative story, Dicks's new novel is far from simple. It tells the moving story of a man who tries to keep his wife from finding out his business is struggling, and whose train of thought can move seamlessly from savings accounts to Cosmo to Jurassic Park. It's an understatement to say this book is original. A book comprised entirely of lists feels so human, and that's exactly what this story is: honest, vulnerable, hilarious, and profoundly human. Have you read this book, or do you want to read it?
I have read it
4%
92 votes
I want to read it
11%
249 votes
First time I have ever heard of it, but I am interested
33%
763 votes
Not interested
53%
1241 votes
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Sometimes the medium, while not exactly the message, can make a book more interesting by the way it is written. Which of these books written in an unconventional way, have you read?
"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky -- presents the protagonist Charlie's story through the letters he writes.
6%
150 votes
"All of This Is True" by Lygia Day Peñaflor --story is told in a series of radio interviews, published diary pages, and excerpts from the book-within-a-book.
5%
108 votes
"The Memory Book" by Lara Avery -- the main character writes notes to her future self in the form of journal entries
5%
125 votes
"Illuminae" by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff -- story is told through hacked documents, emails, military and medical files, interviews… the list goes on
3%
69 votes
"TTYL" by Lauren Myracle -- the story unfolds through instant messages
2%
36 votes
None of them
85%
1990 votes
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Then there's the novels that have strayed so far from convention, it stand alone. This is a list of some of the most unique novels ever written. Have you read any on this list?
"If on a Winter's Night a Traveler" by Italo Calvino -- This novel is about you reading this novel. And, generally, failing, because you keep getting interrupted by other novels. It may be confusing but it's also an adventure, of stumbling onto new stories. After an introduction addressing you directly, the actual novel begins, but owing to a printer's error you only get the first signature, at which point you return to the bookstore, meet a woman, and select another book to read, only to have that one interrupted as well.
6%
131 votes
"Hopscotch" by Julio Cortazar -- This book is divided into 155 chapters, and Cortazar includes in the beginning a complex set of instructions detailing two approaches to reading the novel. The first is to read chapters 1–56 straight through, and then ignore the final 99 chapters as "expendable." The second is to "hopscotch" through the book by jumping from chapter to chapter in what might seem random ways. Even more confusingly, the 99 "expendable" chapters are not expendable at all, but fill in crucial gaps in the timeline and details.
5%
115 votes
"Finnegan's Wake" by James Joyce -- This novel's first sentence is "riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs." And that may be the most easily understood sentence in the book. Ostensibly in English, it may be the most difficult novel ever written (shown in photo is a page from the novel run through "Spellcheck")
6%
138 votes
"Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age" by Hrabal Bohumil -- A story about an old man who approaches some women on a beach and begins telling them stories from his life, it is unique for one singular achievement: the entire novel is rendered as a single sentence.
2%
44 votes
"Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter -- This book isn't a novel. It also isn't many other things. It's possibly the most unique book ever written, a book about thinking, about how thought is possible and how thought works, as well as a book about how systems can be constructed from elements that have no intrinsic meaning and yet the systems themselves have meaning. And all of this is conveyed through a series of absorbing, enjoyable stories, thought experiments, puzzles, and other examples of pure creativity that will leave you riveted even if you you're never 100% certain you're following along.
2%
57 votes
"The Mezzanine" by Nicholson Baker-- In visual mediums we have the slo-mo, a way of isolating a moment in time and exploring it. In fiction, we have this book, the entirety of which takes place in the mind of an office worker as he returns from his lunch break and rides an escalator up one floor. One floor. The book is made up of his thoughts as he reflects back over his lunch—what he ate, the chores he accomplished, the book he was reading—and follows those thoughts backward and forward through the use of footnotes drilling down into the roots of his memories and the implications of his epiphanies.
2%
44 votes
"S." by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst -- This book is more like two books. It comes as a print copy of a novel, Ship of Theseus, by V.M. Straka, apparently borrowed from a library and never returned. In the margins of that book are notes written by Eric and Jen, two students seeking to solve the mystery of Straka's identity and disappearance. Including other materials such as postcards and maps, this is a truly unique reading experience that tells two side-by-sides stories, at the very least.
2%
46 votes
"The Familiar" by Mark Z. Danielewski --This novel, from an unconventional author, is unique in so many ways, however, it may shape up to be the most singular story ever written. The novel incorporates different fonts for each character's point of view, and a plethora of layout and typesetting tricks that often reflect the action—or some other, less obvious aspect of the story. Nothing like it has ever been published before.
2%
46 votes
None of them
84%
1962 votes
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These novels take an approach to the written language, that is definitely unique, although that may be more interesting than the actual story. Which of these have you read?
"Alphabetical Africa" by Walter Abish -- the first chapter is written only with words that start with "A", the second with words that start with "A" and "B", the next chapter adds words that start with "C", and on and on...until "Z". That's when each chapter begins to take out words in reverse order: the twenty-seventh chapter removes "Z" words, the twenty-eighth chapter removes "Y" words, etc, until only "A" words are remain once more.
5%
114 votes
"Codex Seraphinianus" by Luigi Serfini -- an encyclopedia for an imaginary world, written in a made up language, and no one has been able to decipher the writing.
5%
119 votes
"Gadsby" by Ernest Vincent Wright -- an entire book written without using the letter "E". More odd of course, is the the cover (shown above) which is basically just a ton of "E" letters
6%
140 votes
None of them
86%
2017 votes
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