Books told in interesting ways, 2024 edition!

if it has not yet been mentioned “Monster Love” by Carol Topolski might fit the bill.

None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. Listened on audiobook and it has a mix of podcast footage and interviews with different characters as the story unfolds.

Ragnar Jónasson's Hidden Iceland trilogy. Whilst the books individually don't fit the brief per se, the first in the trilogy is the most recently chronologically. So by the time you read book 3 you know what's happening in the detectives's life before she does.

One Amazon reviewer gave his wife the series in reverse which makes sense but means you'd miss something. It was definitely interesting to read the books in the order the author intended.

My Real Children - Jo Walton

Anyone read The Turnglass by Gareth Rubin? I’m debating (with myself) whether to start that after my current read. I’m intrigued by the format, but not sure if it’s going to make my brain hurt. Might be worth a look OP.

I've been through both this thread and the one from last year (some great recs of books I have read and others to add to my list-thanks both OPs!). However, one book I haven't seen mentioned yet is My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk which is a murder mystery involving miniaturists in 16th century Istanbul with multiple narrators. The first chapter is narrated by the corpse (!) and the other narrators include the murderer, a drawing of a horse, a gold coin, Satan and the colour red.

I'm not sure whether this is the sort of thing you're looking for but I've just read No 23 Burlington Square. A landlady in the 20s has three applicants for a room. You then get three different narratives for what happens depending on which one she decides to rent the room to.

Also The Cassandra Complex. The protagonist realises she can travel back in time, so starts trying to fix mistakes she's made.

Always Coming Home by Ursula le Guin is another interesting one - it's a post apocalyptic novel but written as a kind of anthropological record, including stories, poems, maps etc as well as more linear description.

Langmead has also written another SF novel in blank verse, Calypso, which isn't noir, but I've not read it.

I came on to say House of Leaves, but it's bloody terrifying!

Dark Star by Oliver K Langmead - classic noir cop story but set on a planet with no light & told in blank verse. Really good & immersive

I know it is technically a children's book but it is still enjoyable to read as an adult.

Not recently published but The Neverending Story starts each chapter with letters in alphabetical order. It was written like that originally and the translator kept it up.

Great threads! Apologies if any of these have been mentioned already;

I have just finished "I, Mona Lisa" by Natasha Solomons - a book narrated by the painting. It's fairly conventional structurally, so perhaps not quite what you were describing, but definitely an interesting concept to give a voice to an inanimate object. It is based on the true history of the painting. The concept allows the same individual to observe hundreds of years of history. And the author cleverly allows 'genius' to be able to hear and converse with Mona Lisa - Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo and later Picasso. Very enjoyable and well written.

I also enjoyed "Ancestry" by Simon Mawer, which builds a fictional narrative around his family history research - structurally combining fiction and non-fiction really cleverly.

"The Versions of Us" by Laura Barnett is a kind of One Day/Sliding Doors dual narrative love story, also very good.

"The Last Days of Dogtown" by Anita Diamant, loosely based on the true story of a dwindling village in 19th Century Cape Ann, American east coast, is interesting in that it's sort of written in little vignettes of the experiences/lives of the different characters, which gradually sort of jigsaw-piece together.

That's interesting, I actually thought it was very similar to The Appeal, much more so than the other ones she has written (except for The Christmas Appeal, obviously!)

I loved The Examiner and massively struggled to put it down- hope you do as well, @Bookysh!

Ever since 84 Charing Cross Road I've loved alternatives to straightforward prose. I've bought House of Leaves and am excited to read that.

I was expecting this to be more like The Appeal where the reader was trying to solve a mystery - but it wasn't really .

I think that book His Bloody Project was like this?

hmm or it may be another one of his. Either way I loved both haha

Have also just finished Precipice by Robert Harris, based on the true story of Asquith falling in love with a much younger woman in the lead up to WW1. The book reproduces his actual real life letters as part of the text.

Have read The Examiner and it was very good, very quick read. You will zip through it and I think it would be an excellent book for your recovery period, don't have to concentrate hard.