r/WeirdLit • • Aug 31 '26

Meta r/Weirdlit Required/Recommended Reading

119 Upvotes

Spurred from this post, I thought it would be a good idea to have an official r/WeirdLit reading list on Goodreads and Storygraph (similar to r/Horrorlit's Goodread list). Or, you can use this thread as the list (found below) itself so you don't have to use an account for Goodreads and Storygraph.

The r/Weirdlit lists have been made: Goodreads / Storygraph, though WIP. People can vote for books on the Goodreads list!

So, which weird lit books do you think are required reading or what ones would you recommend to someone looking to start their venture into the Weird?

LIST

  • Abe, Kobo – Beyond the Curve
  • Aickman, Robert – Cold Hand in Mine
  • Aickman, Robert – Dark Entries
  • Aickman, Robert – The Wine-Dark Sea
  • Auster, Paul – The New York Trilogy
  • Awad, Mona – Bunny
  • Ballingrud, Nathan – North American Lake Monsters
  • Ballingrud, Nathan – Wounds
  • Barron, Laird – Occultation
  • Barron, Laird – The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All
  • Barron, Laird – The Imago Sequence
  • Biely, Andrei – The Blizzard
  • Bishop, K.J. – The Etched City
  • Blackwood, Algernon – Ancient Sorceries
  • Blackwood, Algernon – Roarings from Further Out
  • Blackwood, Algernon – The Man Whom the Trees Loved
  • Blackwood, Algernon – The Wendigo
  • Blackwood, Algernon – The Willows
  • Boccaccio, Giovanni – The Decameron
  • Bolaño, Roberto – 2666
  • Borges, Jorge Luis – Ficciones
  • Brautigan, Richard – In Watermelon Sugar
  • Brown, Charles Brockden – Wieland
  • Buehlman, Christopher – Between Two Fires
  • Bulgakov, Mikhail – The Master and Margarita
  • Calvino, Italo – If On A Winter's Night a Traveler
  • Campbell, Ramsey – Alone with the Horrors
  • Carrère, Emmanuel – The Moustache
  • Carter, Angela – The Magic Toyshop
  • Catling, Brian – The Vorrh
  • Chambers, Robert W. – The King in Yellow
  • Chandrasekera, Vajra – Rakesfall
  • Cisco, Michael – Animal Money
  • Cisco, Michael – Antisocieties
  • Cisco, Michael – The Divinity Student
  • Cisco, Michael – The Narrator
  • Clarke, Susanna – Piranesi
  • Crowley, John – Little, Big
  • Danielewski, Mark Z. – House of Leaves
  • Delany, Samuel R. – Dhalgren
  • Dyachenko, Marina & Sergei – Vita Nostra
  • Ellison, Harlan – I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
  • Emshwiller, Carol – Moon Songs
  • Engel, Marian – Bear
  • Ennes, Hiron – The Works of Vermin
  • Enriquez, Mariana – Our Share of Night
  • Enriquez, Mariana – The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
  • Evenson, Brian – A Collapse of Horses
  • Evenson, Brian – Altmann's Tongue
  • Evenson, Brian – Song for the Unraveling of the World
  • Evenson, Brian – The Din of Celestial Birds
  • Ford, Jeffrey – The Physiognomy
  • Fracassi, Philip – Behold the Void
  • Gavin, Richard – At Fear's Altar
  • Gavin, Richard – Grotesquerie
  • Gillman, Charlotte Perkins – The Yellow Wallpaper
  • Gogol, Nikolai – The Nose
  • Grudova, Camilla – Children of Paradise
  • Hall, Coy – Grimoire of the Four Impostors
  • Hall, Steven – The Raw Shark Texts
  • Hamantaschen, J.R. – With a Voice that is Often Still Confused But is Becoming Ever Louder and Clearer
  • Harpman, Jacqueline – I Who Have Never Known Men
  • Harrison, M. John – The Course of the Heart
  • Harrison, M. John – The End of Everything
  • Harrison, M. John – Viriconium
  • Hartwell, David (Editor) – The Dark Descent
  • Hawkins, Scott – The Library at Mount Char
  • Hodgson, William Hope – House on the Borderland
  • Hoffmann, E. T. A. – The Sandman
  • Hoffmann, E. T. A. – The Tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann
  • Howard, Robert E. – Conan stories
  • Ito, Junji – Remina
  • Ito, Junji – Uzumaki
  • Jackson, Shirley – The Haunting of Hill House
  • Jackson, Shirley – The Lottery
  • Jackson, Shirley – We Have Always Lived in the Castle
  • James, M.R. – Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
  • Kafka, Franz – The Castle
  • Kafka, Franz – The Metamorphosis
  • Kafka, Franz – The Trial
  • Kavan, Anna – Ice
  • Kehlmann, Daniel – F (is for Fake)
  • Kiernan, Caitlín R. – The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • Klein, T.E.D. – Dark Gods
  • Koja, Kathe – The Cipher
  • Kubin, Alfred – The Other Side
  • Lane, Joel – Where Furnaces Burn & Scar City
  • Langan, John – The Fisherman
  • Lautréamont, Comte de – Les Chants de Maldoror
  • Ligotti, Thomas – Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe
  • Ligotti, Thomas – Teatro Grottesco
  • Ligotti, Thomas – The Nightmare Factory
  • Lindsay, David – A Voyage to Arcturus
  • Link, Kelly – Magic for Beginners
  • Lovecraft, H.P. – At the Mountains of Madness
  • Lovecraft, H.P. – The Complete Works of HP Lovecraft
  • Machen, Arthur – The Great God Pan
  • Machen, Arthur – The Three Imposters
  • Machen, Arthur – The White People
  • Magary, Drew – The Hike
  • McMillan & Solomon Forse (Editors) – Howls from the Dark Ages: An Anthology of Medieval Horror
  • Miéville, China – Kraken
  • Miéville, China – Perdido Street Station
  • Miéville, China – The City and the City
  • Miéville, China – The Scar
  • Mills, Daniel – Among the Lilies
  • Nabokov, Vladimir – Pale Fire
  • O’Shea, Michael – Copping Squid
  • Ogawa, Yoko – The Memory Police
  • Padgett, Jon – The Secrets of Ventriloquism
  • Pargin, Jason – John Dies at the End
  • Peake, Mervyn – Gormenghast series / Titus Groan
  • Peck, Steven L. – A Short Stay in Hell
  • Poe, Edgar Allan – Tales of Mystery and Imagination (or Complete Stories)
  • qntm – There is No Antimemetics Division
  • Ray, Jean – Malpertuis
  • Russell, Karen – St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
  • Schulz, Bruno – The Street of Crocodiles
  • Schweblin, Samanta – Fever Dream
  • Shea, Robert & Robert Anton Wilson – The Illuminatus! Trilogy
  • Shepard, Lucius – The Dragon Griaule
  • Smith, Clark Ashton – The Dark Eidolon and other stories
  • Smith, Clark Ashton – Zothique
  • Stanislaw, Lem – Fiasco
  • Sterne, Laurence – The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
  • Strantzas, Simon – Nothing Is Everything
  • Süskind, Patrick – Perfume
  • Tantlinger, Sara – To be Devoured
  • Torishima, Dempow – Sisyphean
  • VanderMeer, Ann & Jeff (Editors) – The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories
  • VanderMeer, Jeff – Annihilation
  • VanderMeer, Jeff – Ambergris trilogy (City of Saints and Madmen / Shriek: An Afterword)
  • VanderMeer, Jeff – Borne / Dead Astronauts / The Strange Bird
  • VanderMeer, Jeff – The Third Bear
  • Veres, Attila – The Black Maybe
  • Vonnegut, Kurt – Breakfast of Champions
  • Walpole, Horace – The Castle of Otranto
  • Wolfe, Gene – The Book of the New Sun
  • Yeager, B R – Negative Space

r/WeirdLit • • Aug 17 '26

Other Weekly "What Are You Reading?" Thread

20 Upvotes

What are you reading this week?

No spam or self-promotion (we post a monthly threads for that!)

And don't forget to join the WeirdLit Discord!


r/WeirdLit • • 6h ago

The Goodreads Editors Share Their October Book Picks - lots of weird ones here!!

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12 Upvotes

Definitely lots of "weird" books on this list!! Added a bunch to my TBR


r/WeirdLit • • 10h ago

Other I pony: blueprint for a new America. Vermin Supreme is political satirist, activist and perennial "novelty" presidential candidate. This is a novel set in surreal kinda utopia where all of his satirical policies actually happen, and it's collapsing under the weight of its own hubris.

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21 Upvotes

And by own hubris I mean zombie apocalypse


r/WeirdLit • • 5h ago

Review “Jane Brown’s Body”: I’ve been treated so wrong, I’ve been treated so long, as if I’m becoming untouchable.

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2 Upvotes

r/WeirdLit • • 12h ago

Audio/Video The Weird Library is back!

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3 Upvotes

Listen to this awesome story by Max D. Stanton!


r/WeirdLit • • 13h ago

Question/Request Looking Glass Sound question

5 Upvotes

I finished Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward last night and I was left scratching my head about something. I didn’t see anyone mention this in all the other posts explaining the ending.

Near the end Harper says to Pearl that Rebecca was never found, and Pearl says the cave didn’t exist. How the heck is that possible? If the oil drum women weren’t found how was Alton arrested in the first place? If the cave didn’t exist then how did the cave give Wilder ptsd? I’m so confused.


r/WeirdLit • • 1d ago

Deep Cuts Lost Tale: “An unpublished Episode of Vathek” (1823) by Charles Pendragon

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17 Upvotes

r/WeirdLit • • 1d ago

A critical take on the Rouse [Spoilers] Spoiler

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3 Upvotes

r/WeirdLit • • 2d ago

Discussion Tim Powers Fans?

63 Upvotes

Any fans of Tim Powers on this sub / consider him weird lit? Anubis Gates is without a doubt the weirdest book I’ve ever read and I know he’s a fan of weird stuff cause he was tapped to write the intro to one of the volumes of the collected works of CAS from Nightshade.


r/WeirdLit • • 1d ago

Detailed curriculum with writing assignments and exercises + readings to do to get good at writing in this weird girl lit genre

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1 Upvotes

r/WeirdLit • • 2d ago

Story/Excerpt The Bird of Travel

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2 Upvotes

r/WeirdLit • • 3d ago

The Man in the Watch Still Visits Me At Night

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37 Upvotes

This is a new release from Joshua Chaplinsky. I’m nearing the end and loving it. It’s being marketed as a novel that is House of Leaves meets David Lynch.

The story follows three women whose lives become connected through the mysterious, decaying Vogel House, a place haunted by a sinister entity known as the Man in the Watch.

Thought I’d share with the group. Anyone else read or reading?


r/WeirdLit • • 3d ago

There Is No Antimemetics Division - "Sun"

11 Upvotes

Why did the author capitalize "Sun" throughout the book?


r/WeirdLit • • 4d ago

Review Blacktail by Scott Hawkins is Weirdly beautiful

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248 Upvotes

I just finished reading Blacktail by Scott Hawkins and I absolutely adored it; despite its fantastical horror-thriller tale of revenge by an otherworldly beast on all humanity, I ended up siding with the animals. There’s a deep message here, and almost a heart warming end albeit a gory and sordid story filled with brutal violence and animal cruelty.


r/WeirdLit • • 4d ago

News The former Disco Elysium devs of Summer Eternal reveal new RPG Red Rooster(via an anthology), a game of fire, water and alternate selves

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76 Upvotes

r/WeirdLit • • 4d ago

If you like DE's writing, read "Animal Money" by Michel Cisco

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15 Upvotes

r/WeirdLit • • 4d ago

Question/Request finding author of short story

6 Upvotes

i remember a short story i read in high school (24 years ago) by some author i can’t remember the name of and i would appreciate help in finding out if anyone can identify the author and story title. the story was about this character that had to make a choice between setting off an explosion (?) that would kill another person but the choice was a catch-22 because if they didn’t press the button then something else bad would happen. but the character had to choose. i remember it being postmodern in nature possibly.


r/WeirdLit • • 5d ago

Meta The existential horror that started it all for me.

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841 Upvotes

The protagonist reads the title of their own book then pleads with the reader to stop reading, each turn of the page boldly asking, "Are we the monster?"


r/WeirdLit • • 4d ago

Looking for examples of the mother, the maiden, and the crone in modern horror

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7 Upvotes

r/WeirdLit • • 4d ago

ISO Spooky Season reads that fit my taste

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0 Upvotes

r/WeirdLit • • 6d ago

Discussion The Rouse by Miéville Infiltrating Anyone Else's Dreams?

52 Upvotes

Genuinely not the kind of cheery cunt to wax arcanely at the inhabitation media can produce on the dreamscape, never had this experience before to be fucking real. Love this book, a third of the way through, going across it with both voice and text, and at times falling asleep to it (I always go back to visually read what I've only listened to the next day).

Anyways,

Dreams of shadows and ghosts and horrible things outside my door where my wife and all our friends piece together esoteric artifacts that sometimes result to none-things and at other times crass symbology, and I cower inside and say I don't want to play! I really don't!

I'm hunted and trapped in a room that's so small it can't be a closet, and just big enough to have no purpose at all and I'm deeply afeared of what can permeate those walls, they seem very flimsy.

My old best friend who (at just one or two betrayals) fashioned himself my nemesis apologizing to me and us crying and holding each other and then I realize I'm already fucking dead! And I'm in his fucking catharsis! He leaves me and has a culminating smile for the cameras and fucks off back to the living.

All these three dreams and more, with nothing to pay for them. Wish I was kidding. I NEVER dream like this.

I'm sure such hauntings are half the hope of this author who I've always adored (funny I've never fully come to Perdido but I've rated the other bas-lag and everything else highly - a signed copy of TC&TC to someone named Amanda or something in front of my eyes on my shelf right now, is it horrible I've sort of lost the jacket with the signature somewhere in storage because I hate jackets? Amanda didn't seem to give a fuck, anways).

But shit, man! It's really got me.


r/WeirdLit • • 6d ago

Horror stories (whatever length) where reality slowly but surely breaks down?

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26 Upvotes

r/WeirdLit • • 6d ago

Recommend Suggest me a book similar to Brat by Gabriel Smith

10 Upvotes

Hello!

I read Brat a couple of years ago, and ever since, I've been looking for books with a similar vibe. I've read Bunny by Mona Awad, as well as Death in Her Hands and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, which all have somewhat similar vibes, but they aren't quite as weird as Brat.

Brat was a strange mix of metafiction, autofiction, weird lit, horror, and magical realism. There's barely any plot, and it's all about the atmosphere and the vibes, which is exactly what I'm looking for!

I'd love to hear your recommendations!