# Books of an unusual nature **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [August 4, 2026, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141 "2026-08-04T13:54:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/21 "2026-08-04T22:03:04Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Not the content, but the book itself. > > (large snip) > > Just post about one book, no lists. I could be mildly violating both of these, but I’m not sure. These two books are ergodic works (i.e., similar to the OP, many orders of reading are available, though certainly not AS many) 🙂 [S.](https://www.amazon.com/Ship-Theseus-J-Abrams/dp/0316201642), written by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst, is a book about a book - The Ship of Theseus - that has an epistolary dialogue scribbled in the margins, a code wheel, and lots of physical artifacts (postcards, receipts, etc.). I think that would fully satisfy the OP. I was halfway through when I got distracted and stopped, but I should go back to it. [House of Leaves](https://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Mark-Z-Danielewski/dp/0375703764/ref=sr_1_1?crid=93ZPMYSFAIBC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PV49J-0oj3rlbXxrqSnZIXBrsk2A061HfYnxfEbDCXSpn2IP9flmMc592PfZDKD-GGDsaQoxsaxqaZjFdaRL9iw_CbhPfMuOaVCvkuMlGuMyuO7hC_4hsKCwK9byyPF1vgiYT-46UjDMWZemRD2W8wspKnpINTKCm-aTAmSDV_ygDFATPRCy95135cepHjPtU-_tJULAIMtiEUHhb8MNxHmX8Pr2sGycoR56nxtwECA.A0H3E4ILbw3IuTYIzlhKtUeynIzeTemPVGDzMqN2_cY&dib_tag=se&keywords=house+of+leaves&qid=1785880709&s=books&sprefix=house+of+leave%2Cstripbooks%2C124&sr=1-1), by Mark Z. Danielewsi, the original version of which has a cover .25 inches shorter than the book (this is meaningful), and which has color coding, reversed text insets, and other strange things. Also, more footnotes than David Foster Wallace (and to a significant extent making fun of that). I quite enjoyed this one, and will reread it soon; it has its own subreddit of investigations into its nooks and crannies. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/22 "2026-08-04T22:04:11Z")
_Griffin and Sabine_ was something of a hit in the '90s. It’s a novel made of the correspondence between a British man and a woman in the south Pacific. When they exchange postcards, you see the face of the postcard on one page and the back of it with their missive written on it on the other side of the page. When they write letters, there’s an envelope stuck to the page with a physical document inside that you can take out and unfold to read. It gets kinda weird toward the end. > **[Griffin and Sabine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin_and_Sabine)** > > Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence is an epistolary novel by Nick Bantock, published in 1991 by Chronicle Books in the United States and Raincoast Books in Canada. It is the first novel in The Griffin and Sabine Trilogy. The story is told through a series of removable letters and postcards between the two main characters and is intended for an adult audience, as some sources describe the artwork as disturbing. Griffin Moss is an artist living in London who makes postcards for a ... ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/23 "2026-08-04T22:04:45Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > It gets kinda weird toward the end. Indeed it does. I thought about G&S while reading S.. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/24 "2026-08-04T23:38:27Z")
[The Ultimate Alphabet Book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Alphabet) has 26 paintings. each full of items that begin with the same letter, over 7700 in all. Brian May has several books of stereoscopic images that come with his custom made “Owl” viewer, including [A Village Lost And Found](https://www.londonstereo.com/book.html) and [Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell (Brian’s video overview)](https://youtu.be/5uwdGQAjSmM?si=ibq6nIiCKaBk4V9n) ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/25 "2026-08-04T23:43:16Z")
> [@f.coli](#): > > There is a book titled _Gadsby,_ by Ernest Vincent Wright. The letter e, the most common letter in the English language, does not appear in a single word. Beat me to it. Supposedly two books have been written as complete palindromes: - Satire: Veritas by David Stephens (1980, 58,795 letters) - Dr Awkward & Olson in Oslo by Lawrence Levine (1986, 31,954 words) I say “supposedly,” because I believe both are now considered lost. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/26 "2026-08-04T23:49:49Z")
The 1969 French novel _La Disparition_ was written without using the letter E. The English translation _A Void_ follows the same constraint, and many other translations have similar ones; the Spanish edition has no A and the Russian has no O. > **[A Void](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void)** > > A Void, translated from the original French La Disparition (lit. 'The Disappearance'), is a 300-page French lipogrammatic novel, put out in 1969 by Georges Perec, written wholly without using the letter e, following Oulipo constraints. A Void's plot follows a group looking for a missing companion, Anton Vowl. It is in part a parody of noir and horror fiction, with many stylistic tricks, gags, plot twists, and a grim conclusion. On many occasions it implicitly talks about its own lipogrammatic li... ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/27 "2026-08-04T23:51:39Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > The 1969 French novel _La Disparition_ was written without using the letter E. See post #14. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/28 "2026-08-05T00:12:18Z")
I remember a fad for at first children’s books and then some for adults with pages separated into, usually, three horizontal pieces on a ring-like binder. Flipping the pieces created drawings or texts that stayed meaningful no matter how different the number of pages flipped over. What I don’t remember is what the genre was called. I found a brand name of flip-and-flop books from Abbeville Press, with an example here. > **[Flip-o-saurus](https://www.abbeville.com/collections/flip-and-flop-books/products/flip-o-saurus)** > > This interactive board book lets you mix up the heads, bodies, and tails of ten real dinosaurs in order to create a thousand different imaginary ones, like the Stegodocus, the Oviplosaurus, or the Diploraptops. Each flap features a fun fact about the... ---
**Author:** ![vbob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vbob/32/4439_2.png) [@vbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vbob)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/29 "2026-08-05T00:42:58Z")
I have a book on electric motor wiring and repair that has two spiral bound spines, so that pages bound on the left can be opened to show a certain type of motor, then other pages bound on the right can be opened to show different ways of wiring it. The last page of heavy board stock is also the rear cover with an index of sorts on the inside, and is the only page bound on both sides. It’s a neat idea, and fun to use, but remarkably hard to shelve properly… ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/30 "2026-08-05T00:55:25Z")
> **[A Humument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Humument)** > > A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel is an altered book by British artist Tom Phillips, published in its first edition in 1970 and completed in 2016. It is a piece of art created over W. H. Mallock's 1892 novel A Human Document whose title results from the partial deletion of the original title: A Human document. Phillips drew, painted, and collaged over the pages, while leaving some of the original text to show through in the form of erasure. Through this process, A Humument is a new story with... > Phillips drew, painted, and [collaged](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collage "Collage") over the pages, while leaving some of the original text to show through in the form of [erasure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasure_(artform) "Erasure (artform)"). Through this process, _A Humument_ is a new story with a new protagonist named Bill Toge, whose name appears only when the word “together” or “altogether” appears in Mallock’s original text. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/31 "2026-08-05T01:11:03Z")
_Naked Came the Stranger_ (1969), by Penelope Ashe. > **[Naked Came the Stranger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Came_the_Stranger)** > > Naked Came the Stranger is a 1969 novel written as a literary hoax poking fun at the American literary culture of its time. Though credited to "Penelope Ashe", it was written by a group of twenty-four journalists led by Newsday columnist Mike McGrady. McGrady's intention was to write a book that was both deliberately terrible and contained a lot of descriptions of sex, to illustrate the point that popular American literary culture had become mindlessly vulgar. The book fulfilled the authors' ex... Basically, a satirical look at the sex genre that was coming into vogue in the late 1960s, by the likes of Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann. “Penelope Ashe” was a pseudonym for 24 authors recruited by a _Newsday_ columnist, and they were instructed to make their contribution as terrible as possible. Although I’ve never read it front-to-back, I’ve read excerpts, and yes, they’re full of sex and they’re pretty terrible. As a satire of the drugstore paperbacks from those days, it works. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/32 "2026-08-05T01:11:51Z")
Did you all catch anything in particular about that plot summary on Wiki? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/33 "2026-08-05T01:13:17Z")
I didn’t clock anything odd about it. Why? Did you? I wish you would say so if that is as such. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/34 "2026-08-05T01:23:09Z")
There are various replica versions of Indiana Jones’ Holy Grail Diary available on line.[This one on Etsy](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1682380536/indiana-jones-grail-diary-he-grail-diary?ls=s&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=indiana+jones+diary&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&pro=1&sts=1&content_source=266fc1e8-3f72-4f20-af1d-b52318c060ef%253ALTfc496bae58def599cd3684895057f5973d0304ed&organic_search_click=1&logging_key=266fc1e8-3f72-4f20-af1d-b52318c060ef%3ALTfc496bae58def599cd3684895057f5973d0304ed) has the most images of the contents. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/35 "2026-08-05T01:37:06Z")
I suppose _Cloud Atlas_ has an unusual enough format to qualify. It’s six short stories set in different time periods with the protagonist of each section being a reincarnation of the same soul, which are nested within each other like a Russian doll. Halfway through the first story, it cuts off literally mid-sentence and the second story starts, and it’s about the person who’s reading the first story. This continues with the second, third, fourth, and fifth stories each cutting off halfway and jumping to the next protagonist in a later time period, starting in the mid-19th century and ending about a hundred years after a slow-motion environmental catastrophe in the 22nd century caused the collapse of civilization, mass death, and the survivors reverting to a primitive state. That story is presented uninterrupted, and is then followed by the second halves of the other five stories in reverse order, so that the novel concludes with the ending of the first story. The movie doesn’t strictly adhere to the nesting format but does jump back and forth between the stories and time periods, and uses an interesting conceit - each of the actors playing one of the six protagonists also plays a supporting role in the other five stories. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/36 "2026-08-05T02:05:57Z")
Doug Nufer’s _Never Again_ is a 163-page novel with no repeated words. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/37 "2026-08-05T03:31:52Z")
There’s also _The Heart of A Humument,_ which is the same strategy but using only the middles of the pages. _Tree of Codes_ cuts out sections of another novel to make a new novel. _Blackouts_ is a cut-up/excerpt/redaction novel. _Nox_ is a box containing a single long folded sheet of paper containing multiple media. _Cain’s Jawbone_ is a mystery that requires the book to be cut up to find the solution. _Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close_ plays a bit with typography and photos, including a sequence that pretty much functions as a flip book. _The True Meaning of Smekday_ includes a cartoon sequence, IIRC. Kathy Acker used cut-ups and plagiarized text. _The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell,_ and _Pale Fire_ all play with textual conventions such as footnotes and endnotes, and the latter has an index that plays word golf. _Hopscotch_ is another book that can be read straight through or jumped around in. _Alphabetical Africa_ subtracts then re-adds letters. Similarly, _Ella Minnow Pea_ plays with pangrams. _Heroin from A to Z_ is presented as short encyclopedia-style entries. _Dictionary Stories_ is similar in some ways. ETA: _The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet_ plays with form/images, and _Sunnybrook: A True Story with Lies_ presents an illustated narrative with marginalia pointing out where the author has fictionalized her autobiography. ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/38 "2026-08-05T04:40:54Z")
Abbie Hoffman’s _Steal This Book._ ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/39 "2026-08-05T04:47:47Z")
If you want unusual I think this counts: - [The largest known prime number: The 52nd Mersenne prime](https://www.amazon.com/dp/6501195543) The whole book is just that one number and it is a big book with small print. No real reason for it. No one will ever read it. But it is cool. 41,024,320 digits…that’s the whole thing. On my bookshelf behind me. Love it. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2026, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141/40 "2026-08-05T04:53:29Z")
I also own an India Paper edition of the Lord of the Rings. The paper is unusually thin so the whole Lord of the Rings, in one volume, is the size of a normal book. - [The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien – 1969 Deluxe India-Paper Edition, First Impression](https://tolkienlibrary.com/tolkien-book-store/clp1212.php) (mine is a second or third printing so not as special as the one linked above but basically the same) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-of-an-unusual-nature/1032141.md?page=3)