What are the top book recommendations for 'grotesque and dark'?

Frank Cotton's insatiable appetite for the dark pleasures of pain led him to the puzzle of Lemarchand's box, and from there, to a death only a sick-minded soul could invent. But his brother's love-crazed wife, Julia, has discovered a way to bring Fra... Read more about The Hellbound Heart

So intent was Frank upon solving the puzzle of Lemarchand's box that he didn't hear the great bell begin to ring. The device had been constructed by a master craftsman, and the riddle was this-that th...

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National Book Award finalist

Here is the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch have bred their own exhibit of human oddities (with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes). Their offsprin... Read more about Geek Love

“When your mama was the geek, my dreamlets,” Papa would say, “she made the nipping off of noggins such a crystal mystery that the hens themselves yearned toward her, waltzing around her, hypnotized wi...

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The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade relates the story of four wealthy men who enslave 24 mostly teenaged victims and sexually torture them while listening to stories told by old prostitutes. The book was written while Sade was imprisoned in the ... Read more about The 120 Days of Sodom

The company rose the 1st of November at ten o'clock in the morning, as was specified in the statutes which Messieurs had mutually sworn faithfully to observe in every particular. The four fuckers who ...

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Life at the prestigious Q High School for Girls in Tokyo exists on a precise social axis: a world of insiders and outsiders, of haves and have-nots. Beautiful Yuriko and her unpopular, unnamed sister exist in different spheres; the hopelessly awkward... Read more about Grotesque

In Japan the school year begins in April and ends in March of the following year. It consists of three terms, separated by short vacations in the spring and winter, as well as a monthlong summer break...

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An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion-his sense of smell-leads to murder.

In the slums of eighteenth-c... Read more about Perfume

In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. His story will be told here. Hi...

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She's a catwalk model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden motor 'accident' leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful centre of attention to being an invisible monste... Read more about Invisible Monsters

Where you're supposed to be is some big West Hills wedding reception in a big manor house with flower arrangements and stuffed mushrooms all over the house. This is called scene setting: where everybo...

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INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

In this modern classic, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other.

Patrick Bateman moves among the young ... Read more about American Psycho

ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat o...

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An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west."

Based on historical events that took place on the ... Read more about Blood Meridian

See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged linen shirt. He stokes the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of snow and darker woods beyond that harbor yet a few ...

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*Don't miss WRITTEN IN BLOOD, the next instalment in the compulsive Robert Hunter series from Sunday Times number one bestselling author of HUNTING EVIL - available to pre-order now!*

When the body of a young woman is discovered in a derelict cottag... Read more about The Crucifix Killer

‘As I’ve said, it’s a surprise, Robert,’ the metallic voice said laughing. ‘But I’ll give you another chance to make a difference. Maybe this time you’ll put more effort into it. Be at the laundry roo...

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'The condemned man looked so doggishly submissive, it really seemed as if one might allow him to roam the slopes freely, and only needed to whistle when it was time for the execution, and he would come.'

Kafka transformed the possibilities of the sho... Read more about In the Penal Colony

This translation, which has been prepared by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC, Canada, is in the public domain and may be used by anyone, in whole or in part, without permissi...

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