Let's discuss unique books. What is the first one that comes to your mind? The uniqueness can be about the book's plot, structure, ideas, themes, topics etc.

For me such a book is Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. It's been a while since I've read it but I remember how mindblowing it was for me. Every time I thought it couldn't surprise me more, it actually did. There's a bit of everything there: peculiar characters, a substance called ice-nine that can freeze water on contact (as humans are around 60% water, it can instantly kill them), a fictional religion called Bokononism based on the idea that human life has no absolute truth or meaning, a tiny island nation with its own bizarre world. All of these come together to show us a satire of the absurdity of humanity.

As for a unique book structure, I have to say it's Cain's Jawbone by Edward Mathers. It's a kind of puzzle book where pages are not in order and you need to arrange them in order to guess whodunnit. I haven't finished this one yet but it's a cool challenge.

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[–] 4 points 3 months ago*

Illuminae. It's an epistolary novel, so it's narrated in the standard sense. They are often told via letters from protaganists to another chatlogs, or other documents. From wikipedia about Illuminae:

The story is told through a series of documents; including classified reports, censored emails, camera transcriptions, and interviews

(I did not quote it in full because I'm trying to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I remember having a lot of fun when I read it without knowing anything, I just picked it up from the library and started reading.)

This book definitely wins for uniqueness of form, although I now understand what type of book it is and how to find more like that. But I've only ever read one book like that.

Although House of Leaves also counts a little bit as epistolary fiction but we've all heard of House of Leaves so that one doesn't count.

Though, 17776 - wikipedia, is even more unique and also epistolary speculative fiction, but that's not a book, but is instead online articles (which means it can include videos!).

You can start reading that one, right now, here: https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football

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