Bizarre Book Club 10: Surrealist Games, Gross Sex and Fried Furries

Today’s book picture is brought to you by my book The Filing Cabinet of Doom (I’m so sorry, I couldn’t help it. They made me).

That’s right…look into my eyes

1. The Book of Surrealist Games by Various. These activities thought up by the surrealist artists and writers of the 20th century were surprisingly fun. There’s quite a few to choose from and some of them were a bit complicated for our tiny, moss covered brains. One we did settle on had me checking the internet for the meaning of ‘verbs, nouns, adjectives’ etc, sorry English teacher. I shall return my GCSE. However much joy was had and we plan on spending another evening playing again soon.

2. Strange Sex by Various. This is honestly one of the grossest books I’ve ever read, except perhaps the Marquis De Sade or The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty (which I haven’t read, it just sounds gross).

There seemed to me three levels of grim: gross grossness (definitely not my cup of tea), imaginative grossness (sometimes my cup of tea) and less gross more weird (definitely my cup of tea, especially one involving a furries, erm, party). However this is obviously the desired effect and if this appeals to you, by all means purchase it and be prepared!

One of the funnier outcomes of the surrealist games

3. How to Eat Fried Furries by Nicole Cushing. I liked this joyously silly and occasionally wrong ‘Flying Circus,’ which apparently is a “loosely connected series of bizarro skits.” It’s a collection of short stories all linking together in the vein of Monty Python, perhaps if they were allowed to go as dark as they really wanted to. How can you not love that?

If the idea of Holiday icons as Mafia Dons, pseudo Amish or deformed super ferrets tickles your chin, put your face in her pages.

That’s it! No really, I have to go make tea now and do some real work. Bye!

Maddie’s bizarre book club 2, plus porn stars reading aloud

Haunted Air by Ossian Brown

Merry Spring! Tis the time for daffodils, blue skies and wildly raging hormones. But wait, get that poor nude fellow down from the Wicker Man, you can burn him later. First on the agenda is a new pile of extremely odd books.

1. The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington. One of the surrealist crowd and lover of Max Ernst, Leonora’s life seems as bizarre as any of her work. The book itself is intriguing and oddly refreshing – the main characters are all women in their 90s, an age group usually included in fiction to generate sympathy or to hilariously utter a swear word at the wrong moment. However these are real characters featured among the increasingly bizarre carryings on.

Haunted Air by Ossian Brown

2. People With Holes by Heather Fowler.  The nominal first story in this collection made my brain crackle, which is my way of saying I found the thoughts it induced exciting. I will say there were perhaps one too many ‘people turning into animal’ stories but that’s my own opinion obviously, and there are plenty of other varieties of story. For any fans of magic realism or anything a bit different this is for you, and the way she writes pulled me right in.

3. A Million Versions of Right by Matthew Revert. Definitely an odd’un, this is also very funny. If your mind can take the battering from this surreal short story collection (one character’s job is to insult walls) I promise you chuckles a plenty.

That nice actress lady Stoya

4. Haunted Air: ‘A Collection of Anonymous Hallowe’en Photographs America c. 1875 – 1955‘ by Ossian Brown. Haunting, weird, fascinating and a little disturbing, this is literally a bunch of photos from various sources on Halloween, and yet it’s much more than that. Who are they? What did they do just seconds afterwards? With photos reminiscent of Diane Arbus, needless to say the foreword is by David Lynch.

Well, there we are! A few books to be going on with until next time. In the meantime here is a post about some lovely pornographic actresses, including that nice Stoya Doll, reading poetry and prose aloud. NSFW, kind of.

McGonagall, ‘worst poet ever’

Poor McGonagall. You have to admire his spirit, continuing in the face of all those who laughed at him. Or do you? Read his collection online and decide.