I will admit I was a little bored by his demolition car story, and the testicle festival wasn't my cup of tea, but the rest of the (chapters? essays?) I was in love, and as a whole I can definitely say I loved the book. I recommend this to anyone who likes good writing and smart writing and funny writing and isn't a sensitive reader topic/description wise.

Chuck Palahniuk is a genius. He is funny, cohesive, and writes very well: eliminating cloggy words but not going overboard (you know- when you can tell the aim is artistic fluency, but it really sounds like a stage actor cheesily overacting an already overdramatic scene, like "the wind--it hurts. The pain! My love. Oh life!") and picking out the good parts of a story. I love his voice. I love that he made me laugh out loud. Several times. I loved how real his "portraits" of others felt. He talks to you like a normal person, not super loaded and elegant syntax-wise or with diction that's just there to prove you know every four-syllable word in the dictionary. He is just...awesome.

4.8!

*Official rating is 3.5, but always round up!

Collections of short works are tricky things to review. I say this almost every bloody time I review one. The reason being that each story or article or piece is inevitably pitted against one another in terms of likeability, and by a law of averages certain ones swim while other sink. A talent-fueled tale, followed by an even better one, tends to devalue the first.

This is often the case with Palahniuk's 'Stranger Than Fiction'.

This book was on my radar for years. Someone bought it for me last Christmas and I finally got around to diving in. I dig Chucky P quite a bit, enough to cite him as a writing influence of mine. Generally, there is a mixed response to his books and subject matter, but I've always admired his minimalist style and the way he strolls through territory where other writers fear to tread. However, his shock and awe tactics can get a bit transparent at times. Like a lot of his works, 'Stranger Than Fiction' is no different in this department.

For example, the first story you encounter is called 'Testy Festy'. It's about the Red Creek Lodge Testicle Festival, and an all-out in-your-face collage of blowjobs, handjobs, and crude lewd public sex acts in a nudist campground setting. It's signature Palahniuk, acting as a gatekeeper of a story that will make a number of readers put the book down before they've gotten through the first few pages.

If you can get past that one, you'll be fine.

The rest of this collection of non-fiction shorts offers some incredible insight to Palahniuk's considerably different, sometimes slightly demented, world. The book is divided into three sections: People Together, Portraits, and Personal. There is so much variety to take in, but it does have its problems. And those problems will often boil down to what you personally find interesting or engaging.

I loved reading about the author's life in 'Personal', his trials and tribulations, successes and failures. Mostly, it's his own eclectic experiences with family, friends, loss, steroids, shitty day-jobs, sickness, and writing that I found most fulfilling. A lot of the 'People Together' stuff was pretty great too; a combine harvester demolition derby, a collection of American DIY castle builders, the wrecked world or amateur wrestling, uncomfortable life aboard a US nuclear submarine. These stories couldn't be more different from one another. The spectrum covered is as wide as it is odd and interesting.

But the 'Portraits' section was often a let down for me. I can't fault Palahniuk too much for this, as most of them were gleaned from interviews with famous folk, and an article can only be as good as its subject. Let's just say I didn't really care about Juliette Lewis before I read Chuck's article about her, and I certainly couldn't give a shit about her afterward. Ditto for Marylin Manson and a couple others. There were other slight annoyances, like the mentioning of "Brad Pitt" a little too often throughout the book or Palahniuk occasionally passing judgement on people or topics that felt a bit unfair, particularly in the face of evidence that suggested his conclusions were wrong or weak.

I think the people who will mine the most profit out of 'Stranger Than Fiction' are writers themselves. There is a lot we writers can relate to in this book, and it's always a treat to be invited inside a successful author's head to be granted insight alongside memories recovered/analyzed. If you're at all a fan of Chuck Palahniuk, 'Stranger Than Fiction' makes a great companion to whatever collection of his books you already possess.

Kurgudan da Garip kitabında Palahniuk'un kitaplarının nasıl yazdığını ve bazı bölümlerini nerelerden ilham aldığını okuyabiliyorsunuz.
Kimi zaman hikayenin kendisine gelmesindense ona gitmesini anlatırken, kimi zamanda yalnızca garip olan çevresinden dolayı bu hikayelerin ortaya çıktığını görüyoruz. Tabi bu olayların zekice bir kurgu içinde kitabın bölümlerine dönüştürmesi onun ne denli iyi bir yazar olduğunun kanıtı niteliğinde.
Bu kitabı okumadan önce kafanızdaki dahi Palahniuk tanımı biraz daha zeki ve çevresini çok iyi gözlemleyen bir Palahniuk tanımına doğru kayıyor. Ki bu şekliyle yazar gözümde daha bir itibar kazanmakta.
Aslında ilk şu kitabı daha sonra diğerini okumak gibi bir sıralama yapılamaz fakat bu kitap kesinlikle en sonda okunması gerekir.

Alot of fun little true story's. Some of the inspiration for fight club and anecdotes. He's the kind of creator that loves the craft and doesn't care what others think. Stay weird buddy.

I have often said there is no reason to read fiction as life is far stranger and more interesting and it is this premise that leads award winning and best selling author Chuck Palahniuk to write this compilation of real life oddities and bizarre observations.

Organized into journalistic sketches, Palahniuk describes such things as:

out in the open pornography
wheat field combine demolition derbies
the art of American castle building (there is a castle near where I live that hosts a Renaissance festival every year)
fun with anabolic steroids
the secret, hidden sex life of submariners
the politics of solitude
modern philosophy of Marilyn Manson
the applied, visionary genius of Ira Levin and many more.

All the sketches are good and frequently Palahniuk hits a chord and becomes very good.

En este libro Chuck Palahniuk hace una recopilación de historias; el autor se aleja de la novela y hace un trabajo más periodístico. Un puñado de anécdotas del mundo real y el trabajo de Chuck Palahniuk.

En estás anécdotas se resalta la humanidad y lo simple que hay detrás de una tradición, trabajo o vida. Yo destaco las historias que hablan sobre el autor la profundidad que hay detrás de ser escritor y su vida personal ( sobretodo la muerte de su padre) además de la combinación de ambigüedades. El libro se divide en tres partes; el de gente que son historias contadas por la voz de varias personas involucradas en un mismo evento, destaco la historia de los luchadores grecorromanos que están en proceso de una clasificatoria, en esta historia se cuenta en diferentes perspectivas ( jóvenes y veteranos) lo que es la lucha para ellos, curiosidades que se comparten entre los luchadores y la vida personal de ellos. También la historia de las batallas de cosechadoras cuenta la preparación de la máquinas y la narración de las batallas. Estás últimas tienen un bonito tinte como documental. Y también la historia de Chuck Palahniuk sobre una salida de amigos que tiene y que se convirtió en revivir los recuerdos de el con su padre; en la sección de personas las historias se basan en un personaje mediático la anécdota va hacia los anhelos, vida y quiénes son como persona, aquí resaltó la vida de una estrella de rock que detrás del ser vistoso y bizarro, es alguien común y corriente buscando una vida tranquila con problemas comunes. También está la historia de una actriz que nos habla de su trayectoria, de como se ha sentido y cuál es el proceso de varias películas importantes que ha protagonizado. Y sobre una escritora que parece ser la admiración de Chuck Palahniuk está historia es contada en tercera persona y se profundiza sobre sus obras para dar argumentos por qué de acuerdo el autor está autora es de las mejores; por último la sección de personal está dedicada al autor son varias anécdotas que giran sobre su vida de escritor y el éxito del club de la pelea, pero sobretodo se profundiza más sobre la relación que tiene con su padre y los detalles de su muerte. Cómo se ve esto último es muy importante en este libro, si bien se ha dicho que NaNa fue el libro que escribió después de la muerte de este, el presente libro realmente marca el desahogo y exorcismo de como se siente.

El libro a pesar de que se sale de la novela, Palahniuk trata de conservar lo esencial de su estilo en este, con aspectos insólitos, monólogos de datos interesantes , el ir de algo ambiguo a una lección de vida y la humanización en cada historia. Sin embargo, las. Historias que se cuentan son parte de la cultura estadounidense como si fuera para un público especializado. Entonces si no está bajo este contexto las historias pueden ser algo obsoletas para el lector en cuanto lo que significa para el. Se rescata que es interesante y que si eres fan de este autor pues la parte personal de el te puede ser muy significativa.

Chuck Palahniuk (”Writer of the book “Fight Club”) “Stranger Than Fiction”. The book is true stories of strange people but if you stick around long enough he starts tossing in bits and pieces of his own life and it gets dark and scary!

This might be a bit of a cheat but I'm going to consider this one done and finished even though I didn't read the entire book. The problem was that I lost the book before I could finish it. Actually I know exactly where it was last left: in the pocket of my airline seat on a flight to Washington D.C. I just plain forgot it there. I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've ever done so. Anyway, if I was truly enjoying the book, I would hunt down a new copy or buy the ebook. However, I wasn't really enjoying it. The book is a collection of life experiences from Palahniuk; each chapter is a different experience. For example, in one chapter he describes what occurs at the Rock Creek Lodge Testicle Festival while in another chapter he portrays unpublished authors and the steps they take for fame. In these experiences, he illustrates people's lives and their pretty crazy actions. Some of the experiences are simply crazy experiences to be taken as indicative of people's lives; others experiences are infused with insights that provide depth and pathos to those lives. An analysis that makes you analyze your own life and hopefully, at least to me, want to live a more fuller life. So why then, if I was gaining some insight into my life, would I not want to continue? Because it was not the fun, entertaining type of book that I normally want to read. I think that I can count the number of self-help books that I read on one hand; something that I'm sure an ex or two would really prefer I had read more. Self-help books just aren't my usual cup-of-tea. Before I lost this book, I already knew that it was going to be some time before I finished the book. Time enough to start and finish several other books between chapters. Now I can move on and get back to Adam Cesare or Stephen King or start that Brian James Freeman book.

This is the book that demanded I take this man seriously. A collection of short essays shows the commitment he has to the craft of writing. Some are hilarious, some are touching. All are entertaining.

This is the 14th book I’ve read by Palahniuk and what it has done is cemented him as my all time favorite author. The way this man views people is something truly unique, and this book has given me a different way of viewing stories. On the note of stories WTF so much of the crazy shit in Palahniuk’s books is true! The title truly does this book justice! Honestly I would kill just to be able to sit in a room and listen to this man tell stories all day. Overall Palahniuk’s writing is strangely fascinating and somewhat like a drug need less to say I’m addicted.

I'm a huge fan of Palahniuk, but I guess now I ought to specify and say I'm a huge fan of Palahniuk's fiction work. His nonfiction was ok, some interesting things, but nothing with a wow factor like his other books. The autobiographical material was the most interesting one, but as a whole it just didn't interest me that much. Just an ok read.

this book was definitely interesting