Perhaps you are aware of the fact that there is an oddly popular trivia game floating around that a group of clever (and likely bored) college...
Continue »
"Saints be praised, this is the best book of the new millennium. A veritable tour de force. Pynchon meets Stephen King meets Robert Hughes meets Borges meets Dante. Joycian. Jungian. Mythic. Any clich used by fawning literary critics applies. Yadda Yadda Yadda. Impossible to put down. Impossible to believe it's his first book. I spent several hours trying to figure out if Danielewski was an anagram, which is a fraction of the time I spent deciphering the many anagrams, puzzles, hidden meanings and symbols which make this book so rich. It's an allegory/horror story/love story/philosophical soft porn/psychological thriller. It scared the crap out of me. It made me cry. It filled me with joyous rapture. I stopped eating, sleeping, working, (please ignore that boss) just to finish it. Then I started it again and it's better the second time. Hurrumph. Yammer. Gawk. OK I'm back. It's a book about a guy who finds a manuscript about a film about a family who have moved into a house that is smaller on the outside than it is on the inside. If I told you any more I'd have to kill you (or maybe you'd have to kill me.) I've already said too much." Recommended by John, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth — musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies — the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.
Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.
The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story — of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.
Review:
"An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel...that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted house tale....One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review:
"[A] wonderful first novel....[F]unny, moving, sexy, beautifully told, an elaborate engagement with the shape and meaning of narrative." Robert Kelly, The New York Times Book Review
Review:
"Danielewski's eccentric and sometimes brilliant debut novel is really two novels....One — the horror story — is a tour-de-force....[T]he novel is a surreal palimpsest of terror and erudition, surely destined for cult status." Publishers Weekly
Review:
"This stunning first effort is destined for fast-track cult status....This work is a kaleidoscopically layered and deconstructed H. P. Lovecraft-style horror story. It hums and resonates with wonder, dread, and insight." Eric Robbins, Booklist
Review:
"Danielewski employs avant-garde page layouts that are occasionally a bit too clever but are generally highly effective....It is simultaneously a highly literary work and an absolute hoot....[P]owerful and extremely original..." Library Journal
Review:
"This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore, put down, or persuasively conclude reading. In fact, when you purchase your copy you may reach a certain page and find me there, reduced in size like Vincent Price in The Fly, still trapped in the web of its malicious, beautiful pages."
Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn
Review:
"House of Leaves actually gave me nightmares: I had to stop reading it before bedtime. I'm sure klaxons will be set blaring around it and klieg lights will be trained on it, and so they should. Its secrets are rich and obscure. Danielewski's textured novel is about apprehensions, in all senses of the word: to anticipate with dread, to seize, to understand. If you can imagine that Peter Pan's enemy is not Captain Hook but Neverland itself, or that the whale that swallows Jonah is Moby-Dick, you'll begin to appreciate what this book is about. Anticipate it with dread, seize, and understand. A riveting reading experience." Gregory Maguire, author of Lost and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Review:
"A great novel. A phenomenal debut. Thrillingly alive, sublimely creepy, distressingly scary, breathtakingly intelligent — it renders most other fiction meaningless. One can imagine Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, Stephen King, and David Foster Wallace bowing at Danielewski's feet, choking with astonishment, surprise, laughter, awe." Bret Easton Ellis
Synopsis:
A family relocates to a small house on Ash Tree Lane and discovers that the inside of their new home seems to be without boundaries.
W S Krauss, October 10, 2011 (view all comments by W S Krauss)
A book within a book about a film about a house. The house, by the way, is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. The book was found by a guy named Johnny Truant, who found the notes for the book within the book, and who wrote the footnotes for the book within the book. These footnotes take up roughly half of the book, and his story is of equal importance to the story of the family who lived in the house. The man who wrote the notes for the book within the book, Zampano, is also an important figure. The house is an important character in the lives of all- the family who lived in the house and the man (Navidson) in the family who made the film, the man Zampano who wrote the notes for the book within the book and Johnny, who found the notes and arranged them into a book and wrote the footnotes for the book within a book. It sounds complicated, but it all makes sinister and dizzying sense. House of Leaves is a "novel" novel, a wonderfully complex, form-bending, experimental book within a book about a film about a house. With footnotes, appendices, photo collages and an index. Read this book and you'll be hooked.
Jeffrey Hunt, January 4, 2011 (view all comments by Jeffrey Hunt)
this book does what any great piece of artwork is supposed to do, it evokes an emotion and does it well. I had trouble sleeping some nights and my dreams were a series of hallways growing progressively more sinister. In my waking hours I began to perceive things differently... this book will change the way everything feels if you allow yourself to get sucked in.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (1 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)
2010_best, January 2, 2011 (view all comments by 2010_best)
Absolutely fantastic surrealistic fiction. Stick with it to the end and you will be richly rewarded with an unforgettable read.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (1 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)
"Saints be praised, this is the best book of the new millennium. A veritable tour de force. Pynchon meets Stephen King meets Robert Hughes meets Borges meets Dante. Joycian. Jungian. Mythic. Any clich used by fawning literary critics applies. Yadda Yadda Yadda. Impossible to put down. Impossible to believe it's his first book. I spent several hours trying to figure out if Danielewski was an anagram, which is a fraction of the time I spent deciphering the many anagrams, puzzles, hidden meanings and symbols which make this book so rich. It's an allegory/horror story/love story/philosophical soft porn/psychological thriller. It scared the crap out of me. It made me cry. It filled me with joyous rapture. I stopped eating, sleeping, working, (please ignore that boss) just to finish it. Then I started it again and it's better the second time. Hurrumph. Yammer. Gawk. OK I'm back. It's a book about a guy who finds a manuscript about a film about a family who have moved into a house that is smaller on the outside than it is on the inside. If I told you any more I'd have to kill you (or maybe you'd have to kill me.) I've already said too much."
by John
"Review"
by Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review),
"An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel...that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted house tale....One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year."
"Review"
by Robert Kelly, The New York Times Book Review,
"[A] wonderful first novel....[F]unny, moving, sexy, beautifully told, an elaborate engagement with the shape and meaning of narrative."
"Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Danielewski's eccentric and sometimes brilliant debut novel is really two novels....One — the horror story — is a tour-de-force....[T]he novel is a surreal palimpsest of terror and erudition, surely destined for cult status."
"Review"
by Eric Robbins, Booklist,
"This stunning first effort is destined for fast-track cult status....This work is a kaleidoscopically layered and deconstructed H. P. Lovecraft-style horror story. It hums and resonates with wonder, dread, and insight."
"Review"
by Library Journal,
"Danielewski employs avant-garde page layouts that are occasionally a bit too clever but are generally highly effective....It is simultaneously a highly literary work and an absolute hoot....[P]owerful and extremely original..."
"Review"
by Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn,
"This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore, put down, or persuasively conclude reading. In fact, when you purchase your copy you may reach a certain page and find me there, reduced in size like Vincent Price in The Fly, still trapped in the web of its malicious, beautiful pages."
"Review"
by Gregory Maguire, author of Lost and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,
"House of Leaves actually gave me nightmares: I had to stop reading it before bedtime. I'm sure klaxons will be set blaring around it and klieg lights will be trained on it, and so they should. Its secrets are rich and obscure. Danielewski's textured novel is about apprehensions, in all senses of the word: to anticipate with dread, to seize, to understand. If you can imagine that Peter Pan's enemy is not Captain Hook but Neverland itself, or that the whale that swallows Jonah is Moby-Dick, you'll begin to appreciate what this book is about. Anticipate it with dread, seize, and understand. A riveting reading experience."
"Review"
by Bret Easton Ellis,
"A great novel. A phenomenal debut. Thrillingly alive, sublimely creepy, distressingly scary, breathtakingly intelligent — it renders most other fiction meaningless. One can imagine Thomas Pynchon, J. G. Ballard, Stephen King, and David Foster Wallace bowing at Danielewski's feet, choking with astonishment, surprise, laughter, awe."
"Synopsis"
by chrisb@powells.com,
A family relocates to a small house on Ash Tree Lane and discovers that the inside of their new home seems to be without boundaries.
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
Don't Miss
