A Little Bit Crazy?

Strange, unusual books to keep you guessing...

Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond (338.4 ALMOND)
Candyfreak is the bittersweet story of how Steve Almond grew up on candy – and how candy has grown up, too. Almond provides a hilarious, sugar-high tour of those old-fashioned candy companies.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Presents Burgess' satire of the present inhumanity of man to man through a futuristic culture where teenagers rule with violence. 

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay  by Michael Chabon
In 1939 New York City, Joe Kavalier, a refugee from Hitler's Prague, joins forces with his Brooklyn-born cousin, Sammy Clay, to create comic-book superheroes inspired by their own fantasies, fears and dreams.

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney (Science Fiction)
A futuristic, postapocalyptic narrative, Delany's circular and heavily allusive fiction surveys the American "autumnal" city of Bellona, where some sort of disaster has taken place, altering not just the social structure but the nature of the space-time continuum.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick (Science Fiction)
Deckard lives in a dying world where animals are a status symbol; you can dial an emotion to fit a mood and the Voigt-Kampff test for telling an android from its human counterpart appears to have become fallible. It's an empathy test...how would you respond to a purse made of homo sapiens baby hide?

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
Recounts what happens when the citizens of an island must rely on all their ingenuity to communicate in an increasingly limited language when the government progressively bans letters from the alphabet.

Ibid: A Novel by Mark Dunn
A comic novel written entirely in footnotes. Ibid is the fictional biography of Jonathan Blashette, a three-legged circus performer and deodorant entrepreneur.

Heroines by Eileen Favorite
Heroines from literature come to life and visit Anne-Marie's bed and breakfast, where she tries not to interfere with their lives in fear it will change the outcome of their novels.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Oskar Schell is not your average nine-year-old. A budding inventor, he spends his time imagining wonderful creations. He also collects random photographs for his scrapbook and sends letters to scientists. When his father dies in the World Trade Center collapse, Oskar shifts his boundless energy to a quest for answers. He finds a key hidden in his father's things that doesn't fit any lock in their New York City apartment.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
In a world where one can literally get lost in literature, Thursday Next, a Special Operative in literary detection, tries to stop the world's Third Most Wanted criminal from kidnapping characters, including Jane Eyre, from works of literature. Try also The Big Over Easy.

Fear and Yoga in New Jersey by Debra Galant
Stressed-out yoga teacher Nina Gettleman-Summer and her family – husband Michael, suspicious other and father, and teenage son Adam – sample a range of spiritual options in a comic search for meaning.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Published in 1932, this novel is a hysterically funny, tongue-in-cheek parody of the heavy handed, gloomy novels of some early 20th-century English writers who had previously been so popular.

The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
Twenty-eight-year-old Willie Upton has just detonated a promising academic career by her scandalous affair with a married professor. Now pregnant, she slinks home to Templeton, N.Y., just as an enormous dead monster is pulled from nearby Lake Glimmerglass. There, Willie's mother, a former hippie, admits she has always lied about Willie's paternity…

Soon I will be Invincible by Austin Grossman
When Doctor Impossible, an evil genius and ambitious wannabe world dominator, launches a new plot to seize control of the world, Fatale, a woman built by the NSA to be the next generation of weaponry, joins a group of misfit superheroes in their quest to destroy Doctor Impossible.

The Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes and The Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes by Cathy Holton
Hell hath no fury, as the saying goes and the wives concoct a deliciously devious scheme to make their husbands pay – big time – for their indiscretions. Irresistibly entertaining, Holton's debut is hilarious, a cunning, rollicking addition to the popular Southern “Steel Magnolias” genre.

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The story begins when a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect. Curiously, his condition does not arouse surprise in his family, who merely despise it as an impending burden.

Final Vinyl Days and Other Stories by Jill McCorkle
A collection of quirky short stories follows the fortunes of a woman who throws funerals for people before they are dead, and a music store employee who cannot accept that vinyl is dead, among others.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Palby Christopher Moore
A humorous, speculative novel fills in the lost years of Jesus' life, told from the perspective of Biff, his childhood best friend. 

Return of the Stardust Cowgirl  by Marsha Moyer
Heartwarming, funny and distinctly Southern, Return of the Stardust Cowgirl explores the joys and sorrows of life in a small town, the complexity of love and the bonds that we share only with family.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Navigating the surreal world in this tale of two troubled souls whose lives are entwined by fate, the relationship between the strange strangers isn't revealed until the end of the novel, whose precarious scenarios include a grisly killing, a rainstorm of leeches and a freezer lined with the severed heads of cats.

Stranger than Fiction: True Stories by Chuck Palahniuk (814PALAH)
Chuck Palahniuk's world has always been, well, different. His first work of nonfiction includes vignettes and essays about the really peculiar lives of submariners; the violent world (and mangled ears) of college wrestlers; and an encounter with Marilyn Manson.

Making Money by Terry Pratchett
Prisoner-turned-postal worker Moist von Lipwig tackles a new assignment in a different branch of the government through which he is directed to oversee the printing of Ankh-Morpork's first paper currency, a job with unexpected challenges.

Every Inch of Her by Peter Sheridan
The sisters at the Good Shepherd Convent in Dublin’s North Wall don’t quite know what to make of their newest refugee. Philo announces herself at their door one Sunday evening with the words, "God pointed me here." A large presence, weighing 240 pounds and bearing tattoos on her arm, Philo smokes, swears and loves to eat.