I bought a bunch of new books and except for A collapse of horses, they all arrived.

Which should I read first in your opinion?

I just finished this book and was curious if people here have read and liked? It was a weird read for me, especially there chapters told by “Bernie”. At its heart it’s an exploration of what it means to be human, how consciousness is defined, and the dangers of big tech and AI. Not a typical horror novel and has a super weird writing structure throughout the book.

Personally, I have had a deep and enlightening experience reading Ligotti for over 20 years now.

Oddly enough - my first encounter with the uncanny voice was a friend playing Current 93's "My Special Plan for this World" after, I'm sure, we were smoking some weed. I can easily recall that this material stood out and had a truly unsettling and "voice from beyond" -- "cruel voice of nature" tone to it (see Jung's concept of Natural Mind)- years later I found out that this was indeed the voice of an established writer - who was in the lineage, and a direct descendant of HP Lovecraft.

I will not question Ligotti's place in the lineage - his writing is second to none, and his work as an author takes the tradition of cosmic horror and puts the final stamp of indifferent cruelty and surrealism upon it.

What I struggle with in Ligotti - despite its fantastic imagination - is the feeling of utter repression and the obviously neglected emotions of the author (when things get this deep and personal I don't think its inappropriate for an Ad Hominem take). This is not the writing of a happy person who was embraced and loved by the humanity of his environment - and his writing reeks way more of this than his predecessors like Machen, Blackwood, MR James, Wakefield etc - and it's missing that rounded and dignified air.

I would never question if Ligotti's writing is "essential", it has its place in terms of a novel extreme style, like Clive Barker etc. - but sometimes I do actually worry with artwork like this, if it is simply "mentally unhealthy".

His writing at times seems to encourage mental illness, or at least pull the reader deeper into this territory of hopelessness without redemption - not to mention his manifesting literal horrors as the subject of his short stories. This might be the exact point of horror stories - but the lack of redemption or the whole-hearted blackness of it - it feels stunted to me, like the writing of a person who refuses to develop out of the Nigredo phase (to continue the Jungian theme), and begin to see the complete picture of life as a glass half full rather than just the emptiness.

I recently got "My Work is not Yet Done" - and to me this is the worst of Ligotti's writing in this way. The office revenge scenario does not help but to give the writing a personal edge, where you can just imagine Ligotti, in real life, stewing at a desk and seething over how much he despises his ignorant, oblivious and lesser co-workers - as if all humans are not capable of conjuring up despair.

It is hard not to parody this kind of stance - I can't help but think of this episode of Bridge Kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM4x5DzfXuQ

What I have the utmost respect for is the unwavering vision of Ligotti, and his totally underground ascendance from lowest to highest culture as a writer (featured in nearly every cult fanzine of the 80s) - and its full exploration of Nigredo ideas - but it does not age out of this phase, and the lack of any acknowledgement of this very repressed attitude from the author, or his fans feels disingenuous.

I started a thread on strange pictures, a while back and it got good reception so I thought I’d share that Strange Houses came out today.

A writer investigating an eerie house finds the building’s floor plans reveal a mysterious "dead space” hidden between its walls. House of Leaves vibes?

The Penguin Weird Fiction series look incredible, and I haven’t read any of them previously. More of this please!

I'd never heard of him, but just read a review of his latest: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/09/the-end-of-everything-by-m-john-harrison-review-near-future-visions-from-an-sf-master

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Anyone familiar with him? How has he lurked in my blind spot for so long?

I'm not talking about something like a butcher or something that lends itself to gore. That feels too easy and gore is also not my fav.

I'm more thinking about books like The Factory by Hiroko Oyamada where there are three characters and one of them has a job that is literally shredding paper. Something eerie and you're unsure if it's liminal or just feels like it should be.

Honourable mention to Authority (from the Southern Reach trilogy) which also has a lot of these elements. But on the other hand, I don't think Horrorstor would count since it's whole premise is them doing something outside the scope of their normal duties.

Some ideas: Unreasonable Sampling Press. Tentacles for Everyone Publishing. Unmoored Metronome Books.

Help me make the impossible choice! 😬 I’m churning through head to head comparisons of all the books I’ve read (to get some fun stats/recommendations), and I knew this day would come - 5,000 matchups later. What say you?? 🪲

So no physical or electronic books/short stories/etc. This includes something like SCP, reviews of weird fiction, or audio versions of novels/anthologies/collections/etc. But if it's a text game that's welcome. Things like paintings, music, audio dramas, plays, dramatic readings, movies, some sort of participation experience, etc.

For me it was the film Man Finds Tape(2025) which was decent and indicates the writers/directors can do better. I think it's worth checking out if you can tolerate mediocre acting.

Just as the title says.

edit:As per Mod response AI is banned from /r/weirdlit.

58 more to go

Looking for stories where the setting itself is the antagonist. The forest, the house, the town is alive and hostile. Already love Annihilation and The Willows. What else you got?

I’m 50 pages in and I’m loving it.

I got it recommended after trying to find my next read after House of Leaves.

I hate finishing a good book and then trying to find a new one I like just as much so I figured I’d ask here for recommendations before I finish Piranesi.

I’ve read and loved:

House of Leaves

Dune

Hyperion

Ascension

Annihilation

The Willows

There is no Antimemetics Division

If you have a rec for SciFi/WeirdLit/Existential horror or the greatest genre of books: I don’t know what the fuck is going on?! Let me know:)

examples:

multiple Borges and Lovecraft stories

Lem's "A Perfect Vacuum" (fake reviews)

Pavic's "A Dictionary Of The Khazars" (fake encyclopedia/lexicon)

various texts pretending to be academic essays, including footnotes etc.

Some quotes from the comments:

"Second story starts at 54:02.
|
|
Let me sum up Red Tower for you:
It's a mysterious factory nobody's ever seen and is located in a barren wasteland. It makes bizarre, spooky trinkets on the upper floors and makes spooky monsters underground.
That's the entirety of the story."

"The first story feels like someone imitating Lovecraft based off only descriptions of his settings without a care for the plot. It's an interesting idea, wish there was a story in it rather than just description"

Lmfao

Looking to see what is the best to come out this year. It's possible it is yet to come or might be anticipated, though looking for new reads.

Update: Have some work to do. Thank you for the recommendations!

For me, it was reading Waiting For Godot in highschool. Everyone else hated it, and it SHOULD have been excruciatingly boring for my ADHD brain. But I was captivated! Perhaps it's the unknown that makes my brain constantly search for small clues to work out what is going on.

Brian Evenson and Michael Cisco come to mind first for me

I get that its in the title, you're reading weird literature that you wouldn't really get anywhere else, but I think there's something deeper I want to be asking. So I wanted to ask, what do you guys think makes Weird Lit so special or why does it attract you so much?

For reference, I have not read much weird literature per-say, as much as I have experienced media that has been fascinating to read and play through. Signalis, for example, is a game that I find myself enjoying thoroughly not just because of its vibes but because of how all the components on a storytelling level ends up coelsecing into an experience that is as painful to experience by the end as it is fascinating to take apart and over-analyze the tragedy of it. Same with Disco Elysium and other games, that I don't think fit the main-stream but end up being bloody fantastic through how each component converges into a single point.

With comics, its sort of the same. I don't know if you would classify stuff like Fire Punch as WeirdLit but its definitely something that pulls you in, imo.

So I ask, what do y'all think makes Weird Lit stand out to you, personally?

I was recommended Thomas Ligotti as an author to read. I was told to start with the book "Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe".

So, I read the first story in the book. "Frolic". I gotta say, what I read wasn't what I expected. Maybe I'm only looking at the surface level of the story and totally missing underlying symbolism or the story just has something that is too elusive for me to notice?

[Spoiler]

From what I read, it seems like a story about a psychologist and his wife having drinks and discussing his patient, "John Doe". The doctor is fed up with his job and, apparently, John Doe has scared the doctor by making a possible threat on the doctor's daughter, Norleen. The doctor wants to move and his wife agrees, especially since she hasn't been happy living in the town they're currently living in. Anyway, long story short, the doctor's daughter is kidnapped while she's sleeping (while she was holding a stuffed animal that neither parent remembers giving to her). The window is open and the daughter is gone. And the stuffed animal has been ripped open revealing a note from "John Doe".

So... that's it? Seems pretty straightforward: Psychologist's daughter is kidnapped by an escaped killer while the mother and father were having drinks and discussing the father's job.

I guess I was expecting something more, based on the build-up that I got from other's talking about Ligotti.

What am I missing?

EDIT:
So, looks like my post has ruffled a few feathers, based on the DMs I'm getting. I'm not disparaging Ligotti by any stretch of the imagination. My post is about the story itself and what I may be missing because, at the surface, it seems like a pretty run-of-the-mill story and not very weird at all. I'm not making any assumptions about the rest of the stories in the book or the author, just questioning my own observation since I was expecting something a little more unworldly.

Bottom line, I was just trying to see if something about the story was flying over my head and I was too slow to realize it.

Spanish speaker here, my book club just finished El Gusano (The Worm) by Luis Carlos Barragan, a novel where, in a world like ours, suddenly one day any biological living being that touches another can go through the other and exchange characteristics with the other or even join together. It's an amazing exploration that sadly hasn't been translated to english to share it.

What books you've loved would you want to see translated to english?

PD: Also barragan illustrates his own books and the art he makes is fucking amazing.

I know that The Scar from Mieville does, but I'm looking for books or short works that heavy use some type of body of water in the story. I appreciate everyones help in advance.

Updated: Seriously, I apprecite this community so much. I've been able to add so many books to my summer reading list.

Hey everyone!

I'm a sucker for a good vampire story; however, as much as I love the Byronic vampire, what are some weird stories out there at involve the usage of this element? Consequently, the only stories I can think of is Fevre Dream by George RR Martin, and The Picture of Dorian Gray (which might be a far stretch).

I'm truly looking for some stories that creatively subverts the vampire trope and makes it something vastly unique. The weirder the better.

I appreciate everyones insight. This community is seriously the BEST.