Novels told in an interesting way

[petronella23]

Can't quite think how to phrase what I mean, but has anyone got any recommendations for books told in an interesting way/that push the format outside the standard way?

I'm thinking for example of The Appeal by Janice Hallet which is a sort of solve-along murder mystery told by setting out all the documents in the case.

So I'm thinking epistolary novels or books that only use dialogue....things like that.

Interested to read something really clever that really works, and doesn't just feel like a gimmick!

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

I was going to say the twyford code & life after life too.
the ink black heart if you like reading a lot of chat room extracts!

Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor, interspersed with news items and historical artefacts. It’s brilliant.

@thistimelastweek I was going to say The Milkman. Amazing book. I loved it too.

My favourite book! I revisit often. And, God in Ruins because it is a mind-blowing companion piece. I daren't say more for spoilers.

Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders. It is so unusual in its structure, multiple POVs and subject matter. Moving and playful.

And Anna Burns Milkman. Although, if unfamiliar with the Northern Irish cadence. I recommend the audio book.

Sarah Waters’ the Night Watch - told in four sections which go back in time progressively. Being SW she’s also impeccably captured the historical details and there’s a strong LGBT element.

You’ve got lots of suggestions already but I haven’t seen Where d’you go Bernadette or Daddy long Legs recommended yet - both epistolary novels that I’ve enjoyed.

Also, A S Byatt’s Possession is unusually told - dual narrative in two time periods, stories within stories, Victorian love letters, poetry, and a literary love story mystery to solve alongside the protagonists. One of my favourite books.

The House of Leaves
World War Z

October list by Jeffrey deaver

Each chapter starts before the last chapter to tell the story sort of in reverse time.

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski.

Look at reviews as it is hard to know where to start explaining it. (over)Ambitious end of Millennium, in terms of thinking, and use of technology.

His sister Anne Danielewski (AKA 'Poe') released a music album at the same time and the two works intertwine to an extent.

Justine by Lawrence Durrell.

While House of leaves is of the Millennium, this is of the mid-20th Century. The first of the Alexandria Quartet, with the subject being a married Jewish woman in an Alexandria, as loved and lost by an school-teacher writer who is un-named in this first book. It's atmospheric, probably requires the reader to impose a structure and treats women in ways that leave an after-distaste.

Both left me thinking 'well that was something, but I'm not too sure what'.

And I see that while I was composing, House of Leaves got a mention by @MangoAF

Synchronised.

Yes but your comment was much more informative and interesting!

I found Cloud Atlas a bit of a slog, won’t say any more because I don’t want to add spoilers.

Salmon Fishing in The Yemen is told in a mix of letters, emails, reports etc (and the book is 100 times better than the movie).

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters has two narrators and is cleverly written.

The Griffin and Sabine series by Nick Bantock are wonderful but very difficult to find in the UK now, i think. You read their postcards and physically get letters out of envelopes to read them. More a visual experience than a literary one.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I read this decades ago, and I couldnt remember the title or the author.

Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister about a mother trying to prevent a murder her son has committed. As the story unfolds she wakes up each morning to inexplicably find herself further and further back in the past. By following the tale backwards, the reader gradually gets to piece together why the events took place. Your perspective and sympathies keeps shifting the more you learn. Twisty and satisfying.

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

I loved this. Linked short stories.

I'm always gobsmacked by Mark Lawrence's novels. He creates slightly skewed worlds and tells their stories almost entirely through the characters. Considering the lead characters are usually young women / teenage girls, this is really quite something.

He has some free samples if you want to check him out.

What Maisie Knew is great.

The Appeal - written through a series of emails and communications
Daisy and The Six

The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. Narrated by a fig tree which was brought over from Cyprus to London.

I haven’t read it myself but have heard House of Leaves is a great book for challenging the traditional format if you’re looking for something very different.

Anything by Ishiguro really. All of his narrators are unreliable for different, often heartbreaking, reasons.

The Collector Collector by Tibor Fischer which is narrated by a vase.

Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran For is narrated by an intermediate speaker of English as a second language.

The French writer Georges Perec famously wrote an entire novel without a single letter ‘e’ in it, La Disparition. As that title doesn’t work in
English (‘The Disappearance’) it was translated by Gilbert Adair as ‘A Void’. Fantastically clever and tricksy from both of them.

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman

It's stream of consciousness but in modern USA. Takes some effort but well worth it. I think about it often and loved it.