Books

Annihilation along with the other books in the Southern Reach series certainly qualify as surreal and weird.

I'd say for me magical realism has been 2025's "Genre of the year" so I have a few recommendations.

If you like Murakami you might like Sayaka Murata - I particularly liked Earthlings, it's a bit less magical realism but definitely quirky and surreal.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt was another book that stood out to me this year. It's an emotional story with a young man and an older woman which uses a very smart octopus as the main character and anchor for the story (even though I wouldn't consider the story is about the octopus).

Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown is firmly magical realism, and also quite good.

Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson is about a young woman who gets roped into babysitting two kids that spontaneously combust from time to time. It's lighthearted but emotional, and I was laughing out loud about once every 5 pages. I had a blast with this one.

I would also class Jandy Nelson's books as magical realism so I would say you might enjoy that too.

Then there's This Is How You Lose The Time War, which I didn't like at all, but has many good reviews so I won't discredit it. It's... Space fantasy? There's no "science" in the fiction, but it has time travel, and weirdness galore.

This is my list of books I've read in 2025, in case you find anything inspiring:

And my storygraph profile in case you want to take a look (or not, I won't be able to know!).

Thanks for this thread! It's a little less absurd but my immediate thought was The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. Phenomenal read.

It's probably a bet more comedic than the authors you listed, but Douglas Adams is quite absurd, surreal and incredibly funny. Particularly the "trilogy in five parts"; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Everything Thomas Pynchon!!!

The Dart by Alice Oswald is mindblowing.

László Krasznahorkai.

Lydia Davis

Experimental Fiction by Thalia Fields

Ducks, Newburyport

You might give the scp wiki a go, not a book, but a collective fiction about a agency that keeps things 'normal', along with the stuff it contains. At least one of the of the authors there, qntm, has parlayed it into a few books.

If you're not already familiar with Christopher Moore, I really liked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_the_Sequined_Love_Nun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb:_The_Gospel_According_to_Biff,_Christ%27s_Childhood_Pal

• Kazuo Ishiguro - The Unconsoled

I've read most of his books, but this was the most magical for me. Knowing nothing about it was important, and it gave me a feeling of unease almost from the beginning.

• Thomas Pynchon - Mason & Dixon

Someone else mentioned Pynchon, and I absolutely loved this book. It's huge and absurdly ambitious and I learned a lot about astronomy, but it's also an all-time great bromance and there's a talking dog.

Pynchon. Surreal, paranoid, extremely zany and hazy. Start with Inherent Vice or Lot 49.

This is very much not my genre so I’m not sure my suggestion is valid; maybe others can chime in if I’m way off base. But this year I read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and it felt pretty surreal to me.

Christopher Moore

A Game In Yellow by Hailey Piper

You can read the blurbs, or just go in with no preconceptions. I suggest the later

A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck.

It’s short, it’s brilliantly weird, and I’ve never felt so viscerally forced to stare eternity in the face.

Death and the Penguin by Andrej Kurkov

Those are not contemporary (they all died) but as far as witty/funny/weird is concerned I think they they deserve their place:

• I've not read him in 30 years or so but have sweet memories of Tom Sharpe's witty and delightfully dry and absurd sense of humor (he probably would be frowned upon nowadays by a few people, but who cares?). I imagine his most well known work is the 'Wilt' books. Heck, just thinking of a certain ostrich race I want to re-read the book.
• J.K. Toole 'A Confederacy of Dunces'. But this one is much thicker, and not just in size.
• P. G. Wodehouse. His Jeeves stories, and also his not Jeeves stories.

In French, focusing more on the ‘witty’ side of your quest, my first pick would be Frédéric Dard, I've only read him in French but I think there are a few English translations of his amazing blend of crime/satirical/cynical/witty novels. Think of him as some kind of Chandler on steroids as far as pilling up on (not always) funny jokes is concerned. The dude mastered the French language like few but instead of writing grammar treatises and academical work, he decided he would have fun with it ;)

Is there a reason you’re looking for contemporary writers? I mean, there are a lot of older works that are ranking quite high in the weird/surreal/witty.

Any suggestions would depend what you already like and are used to read… I mean, you mentioned Dick, laybe try one by the Polish writer Stanislas Lem? He is a lot less funny, he is very different and can be a lot drier too, but not less weird and stimulating.

As far as weird is concerned, what are you looking for? Horror/frightening type of stories? Then I would suggest Shirley Jackson maybe not for her limited and dry sense of humor, but her ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ is considered a classic of haunted house stories for excellent reasons: it’s real weird. Or Lizza Tuttle (I would say she is amazing, if you ask me).

If you're looking for more 'disturbing' than just weird, there are a handful of writers that are worth reading too. I mean, not just real weirdos but amazing writers too. But those I won't publicly list online, not in our so very obsessed with cancelling/censoring whatever one doesn't agree with.

China Miéville in general, suggest start with "Perdido Street Station"

https://tinyurl.com/go-1984

Just finished John Scalzi's The Moon Hits Your Eye, and quite liked it.

Others I've loved include:

Air by Geoff Ryman

The Seep by Chana Porter

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejide

Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton

I was just talking to a friend about Bunny by Mona Awad because it has a sequel We Love You, Bunny that was recently released.

authors like Palahniuk, Ryu and Haruki Murakami, Vonnegut, P. K. Dick, and Thompson. I'm looking for more

I would try fanfiction websites for authors of similar talent