This week Deb asks:
What’s the oddest book you’ve ever read? Did you like it? Hate it? Did it make you think?
One that came to mind as an odd subject is The People’s Act of Love by James Meek. I read this before I’d started this blog and just have a brief note saying that I thought it was ‘strange’. My memory tells me it was chilling, disgusting in parts yet compelling reading in others. Anyway, I finished it, so it can’t have been that bad. There’s an enthusiastic reviewby Irvine Welsh in the Guardian 9 July 2005.
Another one is Lambs of God by Marele Day, one I enjoyed much more than the Meek book. It’s another book I read in my pre-blog days. On the back cover it’s described as
a mesmerising novel with the power of all the best fiction – that of shining an oddly angled and penetrating light on the real world. This is the conflict of the church of the primitive saints and the church of worldliness and simony; the struggle between them is as gripping as a thriller.
I thought it was very strange, about three nuns who, for example have a Haircut Day, once a year, followed by Shearing Day for the sheep they look after. I fancy re-reading it – if only I had time!
Sounds very odd.
http://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2011/10/booking-through-thursday.html
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Margaret – What an intriguing question – the oddest book you’ve ever read…. hmm….Well it certainly seems that you’ve found some good candidates for odd books. I’ll have to think about what the oddest books I’ve ever read are…
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Lambs of God sounds intriguing.
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I really *enjoyed*! The People’s Act of Love. I agree, it was gruesome in bits, but was compelling and caught the Siberian winter marvelously.
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