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the Complete Review

The Most Unusual Books
at the complete review


     The complete review does not review books indiscriminately, but we are always willing to consider the unusual, the bizarre, and the new.
     Books that are out of the ordinary have their own special appeal. Here is our selection of the most unusual books currently under review, ranked in some order of peculiarity, in the categories:

The Most Unusual Fiction under Review:

  1. Arno Schmidt's supranovel The School for Atheists -- fanciful and yet amazingly grounded literary experimentation
  2. Matthew McIntosh's theMystery.doc -- massive, and unusual in its presentation
  3. Maurice Roche's Compact -- unusual presentation, and a wild story
  4. A Cinematographic Tale by Jules Romains, Donogoo-Tonka -- a not-quite-screenplay novel from the silent era
  5. Alejandro Zambra's Multiple Choice -- fiction in the form of a multiple choice test
  6. Romain Gary's Hocus Bogus -- writing as Émile Ajar, and deconstructing himself
  7. Volter Kilpi's Gulliver's Voyage to Phantomimia -- A transcreation by Douglas Robinson
  8. Ed Wood's Killer in Drag and its sequel Death of a Transvestite -- as far-fetched as fiction gets
  9. Roberto Bolaño imagines Nazi Literature in the Americas
  10. Edouard Levé's Works -- 533 works conceived of but (largely) not realized by its author
  11. Matías Celedón's The Subsidiary -- a novel-in-(office-)stamps
  12. Tanaka Yasuo's Somehow, Crystal -- the short novel with 442 footnotes
  13. Jean-Jacques Schuhl's Dusty Pink -- a composite take on its times
  14. Julio Cortázar's Fantomas versus the Multinational Vampires -- metafictional mix of comic book story and Russell Tribunal
  15. Padgett Powell's The Interrogative Mood -- entirely in the form of questions
  16. William H. Gass' Willie Masters' Lonesome Wife -- a typographically creative tale
  17. Gerhard Roth's the autobiography of albert einstein -- not an autobiography of Albert Einstein
  18. Jeff Noon's Cobralingus -- ten sampled examples from the Cobralingus Engine
  19. Harry Mathews' Selected Declarations of Dependence -- proverbial insanity
  20. Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves -- an elaborate mockumentary novel
  21. The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases -- medical guide
  22. Gellu Naum's My Tired Father and Zenobia -- Romanian surreality
  23. Steve Beard's Digital Leatherette -- ambient cypherpunk fiction
  24. Irmtraud Morgner's The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice as Chronicled by her Minstrel Laura -- a modern East German classic, a montage novel of stunning breadth and depth
  25. Georges Perec's Three -- easy pieces, a variety of OULIPO approaches
  26. Daniel Evan Weiss' Honk if you love Aphrodite -- an unlikely modern epic
  27. Harry Mathews' Singular Pleasures -- one-handed exercises
  28. Antonio Vignali's La cazzaria: The Book of the Prick -- A cocky 16th century dialogue
  29. Marty Asher's The Boomer -- a wispy and almost wordless novel of a generation
  30. All of Steve Aylett's works -- wild, varied fictions

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The Most Unusual Non-Fiction under Review:

  1. Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy -- the ultimate Übertext
  2. Ben Schott's Schott's Original Miscellany and Schott's Food & Drink Miscellany -- gathering "the flotsam and jetsam of the conversational tide"
  3. Chris Brook and Gimpo's K Foundation burn a Million Quid -- a fascinating documentary of a peculiar deed
  4. Heimrad Bäcker's entirely documentary but pared-down transcript
  5. Oyekan Owomoyela's collection of Yoruba Proverbs -- comprehensive and overwhelming
  6. Spacebloom -- A Field Guide to Cosmic Xflora
  7. Sophie Calle tries to reconstruct a life from The Address Book
  8. Francis Ponge's strange little look at Soap
  9. Life Turns Man Up and Down -- a collection African market literature, edited by Kurt Thometz
  10. Judge Richard Posner offers A Guide to America's Sex Laws -- more than you ever wanted to know
  11. Jack Green's Fire the Bastards ! -- ranting against the book reviewers
  12. Zilahy Péter's The Last Window-Giraffe -- A Picture Dictionary for the Over Fives
  13. Andrei Codrescu offers The Posthuman Dada Guide -- tzara and lenin play chess
  14. Ilya Zbarsky's story of Lenin's Embalmers -- formaldehyde and history
  15. Ed Wood's Hollywood Rat Race -- an unlikely (and less than helpful) guide
  16. Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond's The Manual -- the guide to making it to number one on the pop charts
  17. Steve Jones' Almost Like a Whale (US title: Darwin's Ghost) -- an update of Darwin
  18. Julian Cope's The Modern Antiquarian -- a monumental megalithic guidebook

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