“The Book of the New Sun” by Gene Wolfe.

Its a cold open without exposition into an unknown world. Is it fantasy? Is it sci-fi? There’s possible hints of both. The protagonist is the narrator and the character tells the story. Since the character already knows this world, he doesn’t both explaining what is happening very often. The style of speech the character uses including the vocabulary isn’t quite common. The storytelling is unforgiving because the protagonist has no frame of reference from our world to explain. There’s even more to the difficulty in following the story than this, but some of that speaks to the plot points, so I won’t explain further.

If you want a hard, but eventually rewarding read, go into it cold without reading any synopsis or reviews.

Here’s the opening paragraph from the first page:

“It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future. The locked and rusted gate that stood before us, with wisps of river fog threading its spikes like the mountain paths, remains in my mind now as the symbol of my exile. That is why I have begun this account of it with the aftermath of our swim, in which I, the torturer’s apprentice Severian, had so nearly drowned.”

Beyond Good and Evil

I just picked up the book “Vanished” written by Anna Hays and Illustrated by Mary Kate McDevitt. It’s a historical non-fiction that explores the life and lost legacies of seven different female magicians during the Golden Age of Magic.

I’m not very deep into the book yet but thus far it has been a super fun read, and the beautiful illustration just add to the uniqueness of it for me!

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. Set in a post apocalyptic England where all of society has broken down, even language. Stick with it, your brain will adjust and you won’t notice after the first chapter or so.

Krabat by Ottfried Preußler. It had quite the dark undertone. A constant present real threat and dagger hovering over every character. This dark tone is present from page 1 to the end. As a teen it quite formed me retrospectively. Worth a read for teens but also older. I do not want to spoiler anything. But im saying that murder, willful starvation and death are ever present topics even in lighter moments of the book.

The Kanguru book Series. Sooo much fun reading! The third book was not mine very much. Still want to read the new 5th book. Lots of satire and hilariouse. Read it on the train and i had to hold back laughter so often!

Then The Capital. I was suprised how scientificly analytical it is writen and worded. Planing to read my copy of The Critiques of Kant, lots of Leibnitz (but he wrote mostly in french so i have to learn french first), Hume, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Hegel, Lock, Hutcheson and Berkeley

But also some stuff about architecture like De Architecttura and Palladios Quattro Libri Dell’ Architectura

I’ll throw Locked Tomb Trilogy.

It’s a good mystery series that’s well paced (for me) in that I had my moments of realisation only about a chapter before each reveal most of the time.

One of the books is written in second person, and it’s about an unreliable narrator, so that’s… fun? I spent a lot of my time, when not reading the book, wondering who the ‘I’ was to narrative’s ‘you’, then not being able to answer how the ‘I’ knew the things the ‘I’ knew, so ‘I’ couldn’t be the ‘I’ I think ‘I’ am. But no-one else makes sense, and the second guessing continues.

Also, doesn’t do mystery through vague language much, which I dislike most of the time. The viewpoint characters are doing their best, you know what they know, it’s just they don’t know enough yet. You never really zoom out into an omnipotent narrator, to then not describe what’s happening beyond vibes.

All the characters are unlikable though, the universe is unlikeable, it does unlikeable things to everyone, so their unlikability is undertandable at least. But, if you can’t get past a purposefully unlikeable cast, that might be a barrier. I don’t want to meet any of them (the ones I would be most willing to meet, I’m sure I just don’t know well enough), but I’m content reading about their exploits, or rather how they’re exploited.

Just finished reading Playground by Richard Powers. Apart from the continuation errors and semi-incomprehensible structure where half the time you don’t know which character or time you’re in, I’m starting to wonder if the whole book wasn’t a commentary on AI hallucinations.

Flowers for Algernon

I like “life at reset” series. Basically guy is playing mmo and on top of leader boards. He gets betrayed by his “friend” ends up as a goblin and can’t log out. Through the books explores concepts like rights of a true Ai, dealing with emotions of betrayal, advancements in technology, sacrifice for family, purpose of your life and more. It’s 6 books so not a quick read but interesting and thought provoking.

It was unique and different, and a nightmare to read: Dhalgren

Library at Mount Char is bonkers. I loved it. It made me realize I like stories that dare to go big.

City of Glass by Paul Auster is one of my favorites. A novelist gets a phone call from someone who misdialed them, trying to reach a private detective. The novelist decides to wing it and pretends to be the detective, getting hired to tail someone the client suspects will attempt murder.

I don’t want to spoil too much, but it gets very weird and metatextual. It’s a very surprising and sorrowful mystery novel.

And if comics are more your taste, Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli did a very good adaptation of the novel back in 1994. Looks like it’s been out of print for a while, but if you can find it, the ways Mazzuchelli renders the story are absolute magic.

Aware by Anthony De Mello stands out as a book that’s not quite written like a book.

China Mieville’s The City and the City would be my pick. I started with him on Kraken, and while I might prefer that book it’s essentially his version of “Kitchen Sink” Urban Fantasy, where the moment you understand it’s supposed to take place in a version of London where everyday magic is hiding in plain sight the rest of the book is easy enough to wrap your head around

Not as much with “The City,” basically it takes place in a pair of micro-states that overlap each other and it’s a murder mystery where the victim was a graduate student who was on the verge of uncovering the truth about the secret history of the double city. I went into it thinking that I understood how the world worked and soon realized that the whole point is it’s not supposed to make sense

Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko. Really weird, abstract and interesting. Anyone labeling it as Dark Academia or a magic school book is both completely correct and dead wrong at the same time.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar both have very interesting concepts and great executions.

When it comes to interesting concepts in fantasy/sci-fi, Adrian Tchaikovsky has some bangers. Elder Race, Children of Time, or Alien Clay are some random example recs.

China Mieville’s New Crobuzon trilogy is really out there too. 2nd book is the best and can be read independently but does spoil some things from the first.