This week’s Musing Mondays from Should Be Reading asks…
“This week’s musing asks…
What is the weirdest/strangest/craziest book you’ve read?”
Well actually two books come to my mind. The first one is London Lavender by E. V. Lucas. I expected the book to be a short story collection of some sort. But when I started reading it I was considerably taken aback. What was this? Shall I call it slice of life? Or is this another one of Lucas’ essay collections with a touch of fiction? I’m not even sure whether to call this fiction or non-fiction. But even though the book didn’t turn out to be exactly as I thought it would, I loved it! It was weird but very enjoyable.
The other one is The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. The narrative is sprawling, multi-layered and complicated which demanded my undivided attention. I at times struggled with its length but the experience was enjoyable.
A Paperback Life 
I’ve never heard of the books you mention.
I’m pretty sure not many people has ever even heard of E. V. Lucas let alone London Lavender and that’s what makes this rare classic more of a treat for me! 🙂
A Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is definitely a strange, sprawling book. Have you read anything else by Murakami? Norwegian Wood is much shorter and doesn’t have the surreal aspect of his other books, so it’s a little easier to get through. It’s a really beautiful book!
No I haven’t read any of Murakami’s other works. I actually prefer the surreal aspect of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. That’s what made the book interesting for me.
Thanks for recommending Norwegian Woods! 🙂
I wasn’t too much of a fan of Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Too self-inudlgent, in my view.
http://carabosseslibrary.blogspot.com/2012/08/musing-mondays_27.html
I haven’t read any of his other works to judge his merit as a writer but I found The Wind-up Bird Chronicle to be interesting. 🙂
Glad that you still liked both books! They are different though.
http://captivatedbybooks.com/?p=75
Yeah both books are very different from each other. London Lavender is more my style though being a classic and all.
Yes….sprawling, multi-layered and complicated can be very strange. Here’s MY MUSING MONDAYS POST
Oh tell me about it! Thank heavens that it was interesting enough for me to hold on till the very end.
you are lucky. I did not find my weird book at all enjoyable.
Oh too bad! 😦