LibGuides: Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists: Weird and Wonderful

Weird and Wonderful

Fiction
Nonfiction

American Housewife: Stories by Helen Ellis
Call Number: Fic Ellis, Helen
Meet the women of American Housewife. They wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it&#x;s cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies from the oven. Taking us from a haunted pre-war Manhattan apartment building to the unique initiation ritual of a book club, these twelve delightfully demented stories are a refreshing and wicked answer to the question: What do housewives do all day? (Description from catalog)
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Call Number: Fic Kang, Han
Deciding to go vegetarian in the wake of violent thoughts, Yeong-hye, a woman from an Asian culture of strict societal mores, is denounced as a subversive as she spirals into extreme rebelliousness that causes her to splinter from her true nature and risk her life. (Description from NoveList)
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Call Number: Fic Moreno-Garcia, Silvia
A dark fairy tale inspired by folklore is set against the Jazz age in Mexico's underworld, where a young dreamer is sent by the Mayan God of Death on a life-changing journey. (Description from NoveList.)
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Call Number: Fic Semple, Maria
When her notorious, hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled and agoraphobic mother goes missing, teenage Bee begins a trip that takes her to the ends of the earth to find her. (Description from NoveList)
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Call Number: Fic VanderMeer, Jeff
Area X has claimed the lives of members of eleven expeditions. The twelfth expedition consisting of four women hopes to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
(Description from catalog)
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
Call Number: Fic Yoder, Rachel
An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to be a stay-at-home mom, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she discovers a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. In the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms. As the mother's symptoms intensify, and her temptation to give in to her new dog impulses peak, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret.
(Description from Amazon)

Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson
Call Number: 070.92 Law
In Furiously Happy, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best. (Description from catalog)
Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell
Call Number: 355.0092 Vow
On August 16, 1824, an elderly French gentlemen sailed into New York Harbor and giddy Americans were there to welcome him. Or, rather, to welcome him back. It had been 30 years since the Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette had last set foot in the United States, and he was so beloved that 80,000 people showed up to cheer for him.
(Description from catalog)
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
Call Number: 363.75 Dou
Describes death customs and rituals from around the world, exploring how they compare to the impersonal American system and how mourners respond best when they participate in caring for the deceased.
(Description from catalog)
18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics by Bruce Goldfarb
Call Number: 363.2509 Gol
The story of a woman who overcame the limitations and expectations imposed by her social status and pushed forward an entirely new branch of science that we still use today.
(Description from catalog)
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson
Call Number: 364.1628 Joh
On a cool June evening in 2009, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist grabbed hundreds of bird skins - some collected 150 years earlier - and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds?
(Description from catalog)
The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power by Deirdre Mask
Call Number: 388.1 Mas
An exuberant work of popular history: the story of how streets got their names and houses their numbers, and why something as seemingly mundane as an address can save lives or enforce power. (Description from NoveList.)
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean
Call Number: 546 Kea
The periodic table of the elements is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of passion, adventure, obsession, and betrayal. These tales follow carbon, neon, silicon, gold, and all the elements in the table as they play out their parts in human history. (Description from NoveList)
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach
Call Number: 571.0919 Roa
The author of Stiff and Bonk explores the irresistibly strange universe of space travel and life without gravity. Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human.
(Description from catalog)
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
Call Number: 591.5 Roa
Join "America's funniest science writer" (Peter Carlson, Washington Post) Mary Roach on an irresistible investigation into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet. What's to be done about a jaywalking moose? A grizzly bear caught breakingand entering? A murderous tree? As New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science. (Description from catalog)
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
Call Number: 612 Bry
Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body--how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail.
(Description from catalog)
Because He's Jeff Goldblum: The Movies, Memes, and Meaning of Hollywood's Most Enigmatic Actor by Travis M. Andrews
Call Number: 791.4302 And
A Washington Post pop-culture writer presents an irreverent, deeply researched portrait of the enigmatic Hollywood star that includes coverage of Goldblum's experiences as a remarkable character actor, family man, pianist and style influencer. (Description from catalog)
You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe
Call Number: 973.4109 Coe
A whimsically irreverent portrait of America’s first President includes coverage of Washington’s entitled upbringing by a single mother, his dog “Sweetlips,” his numerous military defeats and the partisan nightmares that spun from his back-stabbing cabinet. (Description from NoveList.)
A Libertarian Walks into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears) by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
Call Number: 974.23 Hon
An investigative journalist, in this story complete with gunplay, adventure and backstabbing politicians, reveals how the tiny town of Grafton, New Hampshire, became a radical experiment in small government, resulting in bear attacks. (Description from NoveList.)
The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel
Call Number: 974.122 Fin
The true story of a man who lived alone in a tent in the Maine woods, never talking to another person and surviving by stealing supplies from nearby cabins for twenty-seven years.
(Description from catalog)