Best Cult Novels and Stores Ever

[BAYLOR]

Which are your choices and why ?

 

[hitmouse]

Wallmart

 

[Karapace]

Steve Aylett's Bigot Hall. The only book to nearly get me thrown off a train for laughing.

 

[Danny McG]

Wallmart

Daft minds think alike, I was gonna suggest Woolworths

 

[Harpo]

Daft minds think alike, I was gonna suggest Woolworths

What’s daft about Woolworths?

 

[BAYLOR]

A Clock Orange by Anthony Burgess

 

[hitmouse]

What’s daft about Woolworths?

Nothing. It is terribly serious, especially the Pick ‘n Mix.

 

[JunkMonkey]

oh gods! not another thread about sweetie nostalgia....

 

[Extollager]

A Clock Orange by Anthony Burgess

Shrinkflation.

 

[Extollager]

Around 1980, when I lived in Ashland, Oregon, there was an occult bookstore downtown called The Golden Mean. A Christian bookstore opened across the street and the folks named it Bread of Life after considering The Golden Nice.

Kidding about cult stores aside, the best example of a true cult author likely to interest some people here could be Phyllis Paul. Except for Twice Lost (happily, possibly her best, and at present back in print), her books are generally hard to get hold of and hardly anyone has heard of her, and of those who have, many, presumably, have not been able to read her books. I have two of her books as books (Lancer paperbacks aimed at the Gothic market); the other nine are photocopied (by me) from the US Library of Congress, the National Library of New Zealand, etc. Getting these books to copy took me and an interlibrary loan librarian some months. Chrons has two threads about Phyllis Paul, for those interested.

 

[Danny McG]

I am nominating The texts of Festival by the late Mick Farren
I first heard this getting muttered about in the mid 1970s, by two guys who were imbibing strongly of a controlled substance.
One was outlining some of the plot to his mate and he suddenly got a
"yeah, yeah! I've heard of it, supposed to be way cool, I'm gonna get it to read one day"
My thoughts at the time were it sounds weird but I'll find myself a copy. I did and it was an experience.

About ten years later I witnessed a very similar situation, some guy with a spliff was telling a few of his pals about this book.
So it seems to be cult in certain circles

The Texts of Festival by Mick Farren
.

 

[BAYLOR]

Shrinkflation.

A Clockwork Orange .

 

[BAYLOR]

The Third Policeman by Flann OBrien It over such timeless themes and enteral damnation, bicycle repair and why the earth is in fact sausage shaped . And, then there is the mystery of who is in fact the Third policeman.

 

[Dave]

That'll be Harrods and a Watch Tangerine for me then!