Literary theme analysis, by a book like {foo}
Books about Surprises
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
by Judi Barrett
A whimsical story of a town where food literally falls from the sky.
A grandfather reads a bedtime story, chronicling the lives of the citizens of an imaginary town called Chewandswallow, which is characterized by food raining from the sky. The sky provided the ... (Wikipedia)
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
by Ransom Riggs
A mysterious island and an old abandoned home, harboring secrets and strange creatures.
Alternate Cover edition for ISBN 9781594744761 A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home ... (Goodreads)
One Salt Sea
by Seanan McGuire
Urban fantasy novel about a faerie princess who must confront her enemies to save her kingdom.
October "Toby" Daye is finally doing all right—and that inevitably means it's time for things to take a turn for the worse. Someone has kidnapped the sons of the Duchess Dianda Lorden, regent of the ... (Goodreads)
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
by Douglas Adams
An eccentric detective's surreal journey through time and space to solve a mysterious case.
Richard MacDuff attends the Coleridge dinner at his old college St Cedd's , where he witnesses his former tutor, Professor Urban "Reg" Chronotis , perform an inexplicable magic trick in which he ... (Wikipedia)
Gil's All Fright Diner
by A. Lee Martinez
A diner in the middle of nowhere, plagued by supernatural creatures and a mysterious cowboy.
In the backwoods southern town of Rockwood, a vampire and a werewolf in a run-down old truck come across Gil's All Night Diner, a 24-hour restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Nearly out of gas, they ... (Wikipedia)
The Far Side Gallery
by Gary Larson
Collection of single-panel cartoons exploring the absurd, surreal and humorous aspects of life.
1984 FarWorks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Far Side and the Larson signature are registered trademarks of FarWorks, Inc. The Far Side Gallery is an anthology of Gary Larson's The Far Side comic ... (Goodreads)
Hollow City
by Ransom Riggs
An orphan and his friends set out on a daring journey to save their world from destruction.
After fleeing in a boat from the hollowgasts, the peculiar children are caught up in a bad storm and need to find land. They land on a beach only to find that the wights are trying to track them ... (Wikipedia)
The Rook
by Daniel O'Malley
A woman wakes up with no memory, but with supernatural powers and a letter from her past self. She must navigate a secret organization to uncover the truth.
The book follows a young woman in her thirties who wakes up in a park surrounded by bodies wearing latex gloves. She's unable to remember anything about herself or how she or the bodies got there, ... (Wikipedia)
Bad Monkey
by Carl Hiaasen
A comedic mystery involving crime, corruption, and a talking dead monkey.
In mid-July, a sportfisherman tourist off the Florida Keys reels in a severed human arm. The Monroe County Sheriff Sonny Summers, who is hyper-sensitive to any publicity threat to the Keys' tourist ... (Wikipedia)
Only Forward
by Michael Marshall Smith
Stark is a private detective in a surreal city where reality is malleable. He must solve a mystery to save himself and the city.
A small boy is left on his own in a flat. The boy answers a knocking on the front door of his high rise flat to find a man with no head standing on the doorstep. The man cannot speak, but the boy ... (Wikipedia)
Carved in Bone
by Jefferson Bass
Forensic anthropologist explores a murder in the Smoky Mountains.
The Body Farm is a patch of ground in Tennessee dedicated to the science of death, where human remains lie exposed to be studied for their secrets. Renowned anthropologist Dr. Bill Brockton has spent ... (Barnes & Noble)
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
by Richard Matheson
A man on a plane sees a gremlin on the wing, but no one believes him. Is he going insane?
While traveling by airplane, Robert Wilson sees a gremlin on the wing. He tries to alert his wife and the flight crew, but every time someone else looks out of the window, the gremlin hides itself ... (Wikipedia)
The Book of Bunny Suicides
by Andy Riley
A collection of darkly comic tales featuring a group of suicidal bunnies.
Rabbits. We'll never quite know why, but sometimes they decide they've just had enough of this world- and that's when they start getting inventive. The Book of Bunny Suicides follows over one hundred ... (Goodreads)
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse
by Robert Rankin
In a world where nursery rhyme characters are real, a detective and his new partner investigate a series of murders involving hollow chocolate bunnies.
Jack is all set to discover the city beyond his small town. He meets a farmer on his way who warns him against going to the city. Jack however turns a deaf ear and continues his journey. The farmer ... (Wikipedia)
Mostly Harmless
by Douglas Adams
A humorous, intergalactic adventure as a hapless protagonist struggles with existential crisis.
Arthur Dent plans to sightsee across the Galaxy with his girlfriend Fenchurch , but she disappears during a hyperspace jump, a result of being from an unstable sector of the Galaxy. Depressed, Arthur ... (Wikipedia)
Night of the Living Dummy
by R.L. Stine
A ventriloquist's dummy comes to life and terrorizes a family.
When twins Lindy and Kris find a ventriloquist's dummy in a Dumpster, Lindy decides to "rescue" it, and she names it Slappy. But Kris is green with envy. It's not fair. Why does Lindy get to have all ... (Goodreads)
Odd Interlude #2
by Dean Koontz
A young woman with extraordinary powers seeks refuge in a small town, but soon finds herself in a battle against a sinister force.
Leading up to the highly anticipated arrival of "Odd Apocalypse "this summer, catch up with Odd Thomas in "Odd Interlude, " a special three-part eBook series by #1 bestselling master of suspense Dean ... (Goodreads)
Magic for Beginners
by Kelly Link
A collection of short stories that blend fantasy and reality, exploring the complexities of human relationships and the power of imagination.
The nine stories in Kelly Link's second collection are the spitting image of those in her acclaimed debut, Stranger Things Happen : effervescent blends of quirky humor and pathos that transform stock ... (Goodreads)
Be Still My Vampire Heart
by Kerrelyn Sparks
A vampire discovers true love in the modern world, navigating a dangerous and forbidden romance.
One look at her was enough to stop his heart... If it was still beating. Angus MacKay has been undead for almost five hundred years, and it's not often something, or someone, surprises him. Until ... (Goodreads)
Bellwether
by Connie Willis
A humorous and light-hearted tale of a scientist's quest to uncover the secrets behind a mysterious phenomenon.
Connie Willis has won more Hugo and Nebula awards than any other science fiction author. Now, with her trademark wit and inventiveness, she explores the intimate relationship between science, pop ... (Goodreads)
The Opal Deception
by Eoin Colfer
Artful master criminal Artemis Fowl must save a passenger spaceship and its passengers from a dangerous criminal.
The book begins with the pixie Opal Koboi faking a coma inside a hospital to avoid incarceration by the Lower Elements Police (LEP) after her failed rebellion and attempt of world domination (which ... (Wikipedia)
Angelmaker
by Nick Harkaway
Joe Spork, a clockmaker, is drawn into a world of espionage and danger when he inherits a mysterious device.
From the acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World, blistering gangster noir meets howling absurdist comedy as the forces of good square off against the forces of evil, and only an unassuming clockwork ... (Goodreads)
The Fourth Bear
by Jasper Fforde
A detective story that blends mystery and fantasy, uncovering a unique conspiracy.
DCI Jack Spratt heads the Berkshire Nursery Crime Division, handling all inquiries involving nursery rhyme characters and other PDRs (persons of dubious reality). After doubts arise concerning his ... (Wikipedia)
The Grim Grotto
by Lemony Snicket
A trio of orphans navigate a treacherous journey to unlock the secrets of an elusive organization.
Klaus examined the tidal charts to estimate the location of the sugar bowl relative to the water cycle . He suspects it to be in the Gorgonian Grotto. An octopus -shaped submarine, captained by Count ... (Wikipedia)
The Antipope
by Robert Rankin
A hilarious and absurd tale of a man who becomes the Antipope and his quest to save the world from the forces of evil.
Jim Pooley and John Omally live in the London borough of Brentford, spending much of their time drinking in the Flying Swan, backing horses, womanising, and being generally feckless. Their problems ... (Wikipedia)
The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare
by Lilian Jackson Braun
A feline detective solves a murder mystery in a small town, with references to Shakespeare's works.
There's something rotten in the small town of Pickax–at least to the sensitive noses of newspaperman Jim Qwilleran and his Siamese cats Koko and Yum Yum. An accident has claimed the life of the local ... (Goodreads)
I Will Surprise My Friend!
by Mo Willems
Elephant and Piggie are best friends, but Elephant wants to surprise Piggie. Will his plan work?
Gerald is careful. Piggie is not. Piggie cannot help smiling. Gerald can. Gerald worries so that Piggie does not have to. Gerald and Piggie are best friends. In I Will Surprise My Friend! , Gerald ... (Goodreads)
Revival, Vol. 1: You're Among Friends
by Tim Seeley
A small town is rocked by a series of supernatural events, leading to a group of friends uncovering a dark secret.
Subtitle to the book is "A rural noir by Tim Seeley + Mike Norton" For one day in rural central Wisconsin, the dead came back to life. Now it's up to Officer Dana Cypress to deal with the media ... (Goodreads)
Bestiario
by Julio Cortázar
Collection of surreal and dreamlike stories that explore the boundaries between reality and fantasy.
In these eight masterpieces there is no room for the smallest sign of stumbling or youthful undertones: they are perfect. These stories that speak about objects and daily happenings, pass over to ... (Goodreads)
The Paper Magician
by Charlie N. Holmberg
A young woman's journey of self-discovery, learning the power of paper magic.
Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an ... (Goodreads)
Wacky Wednesday
by Theo LeSieg
A young boy's wacky day of imaginative adventures, pushing the boundaries of reality.
The main character, a child, wakes up to find a shoe on the wall; then he looks up to find one on the ceiling as well. With each new page the number of "wacky" things grows, as the child goes through ... (Wikipedia)
Mrs Queen Takes the Train
by William Kuhn
Queen Elizabeth II escapes the palace to retrieve a lost item, encountering new friends and rediscovering herself along the way.
An absolute delight of a debut novel by William Kuhn—author of Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books — Mrs Queen Takes the Train wittily imagines the kerfuffle that transpires when a bored Queen ... (Barnes & Noble)
What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything
by Cassandra Clare
A short story about Jace and Clary's search for the perfect gift for Magnus Bane's birthday.
Magnus Bane may or may not be dating Alec Lightwood, but he definitely needs to find him the perfect birthday present. Set in the time between City of Ashes and City of Glass, warlock Magnus Bane is ... (Goodreads)
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