Intriguing stories, brought to you by the slightly warped mind of Chuck Palahniuk

books:


	• Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories Chuck Palahniuk Doubleday, 2004 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 25 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Fascinating

I had never read Palahniuk and "Fight Club" definitely isn't my thing. Yet I was lured by true anecdotes--who can resist a really strange story? This collection introduced me to a an intriguing man and brilliant writer.

The best thing about this collection is that it takes the reader into odd situations and intimate settings that he/she would probably never experience otherwise. Palahniuk takes us with him as he witnesses odd things such as The Rock Creek Lodge Testicle Festival, hangs out with Marilyn Manson, and reveals his "life as a dog." The book also dives into the personal world of Palahniuk--his past, friendships, thought processes, and life before, during, and after the movie "Fight Club." If you enjoyed the movie or any of other Palahniuk's works, "Stranger Than Fiction" is nearly essential to getting to know the man behind it all. He is apparently a curious person with a keen sociological and psychological insight...and he has a distinct sense of humor!

I recommend this book to every writer...actual or aspiring. A running theme in these stories is the practice of writing. How stories come about, take shape, and draw on other stories. It expresses the connection between writing and life, life and fiction, and how these play off eachother. If you write, you will be enthralled by the introduction to the collection alone...and it only gets better from there.

As others have said in their reviews, this collection does contain a few duds. But it's the many fabulous pieces that make your time more than worthwhile. I learned alot of very interesting things and this book contains stories for varied interests. This book made me gasp, smirk, nearly cry, and laugh out loud. The stories stay with you. I am telling everyone about this book: you owe it to yourself to atleast thumb through it.

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Better Than I Expected!

These stories reveal a more personal side of Palahniuk that you may not have even realized was there. They're hopeful, inspirational, and as always, completely outrageous. These are not the typical quasi-horror stories Chuck has written in the past. But they are excellent stories, and I applaud Chuck for trying something new. I think he did an amazing job with it, and if you like Palahniuk at all, I think you will be pleasantly surprised. Along with The Losers' Club (Complete Restored Edition) by Richard Perez, Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories is my favorite Amazon purchase so far this year!

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A medley of stories, some hit the mark better than the rest

When Palahniuk goes on book tours, he often tells a smattering of true-life stories that he heard from his fans, all items that are indeed stranger than fiction. From a man who writes fiction that is often beyond belief, it is interesting to see the true-life tales that pass the Palahniuk strangeness test.

The book starts out with a bang, an opening chapter that provides the reader a voyeuristic field trip into a sex festival. From there, however, Palahniuk doesn't always maintain the momentum. Sometimes it appears as if he's just a bored reporter scribbling down facts, not trying to weave a compelling tale. Several of the stories didn't keep my interest at all, but there is enough good material in here to make the book a worthwhile read.

Palahniuk fans should give it a shot, but don't expect to be blown away.

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Intriguing stories, brought to you by the slightly warped mind of Chuck Palahniuk

This is a collection of non-fictional short stories about average people doing strange things. I can hear you whispering in my ear, "what kind of strange things"? Well, let me tell you that first, you need a breath mint and secondly you spit a little when you whisper. Despite the wet ear and lingering smell of spinach, I'm talking about the kind of odd things that friends tell you about over and over again after a few beers or half a bottle of wine because it is there best and possibly only story worth telling that they have.

These short stories are about modern men who build castles in Oregon and Idaho, stories about drunken rednecks crashing two story wheat threshers into each other in a demolition derby in Lind Washington, stories about public nudity and sex in Bozeman Montana, stories about working in a hospice and being there when people die, stories about shrunken testicles and the pump of steroids, stories about working on an assembly line and trying to be an author, stories that are essentially as American as apple pie but without the sugar and ice cream.

So, if you're interested in a few intriguing stories, brought to you by the slightly warped mind of Chuck Palahniuk author of "Fight Club", take a look at "Stranger Than Fiction".

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Another unique piece of work

Plot: N/A
Writing Excellent
Pace: Fast
It's a bunch of short stories about real people and events in his life. Some are sad, some are funny, and some are bizarre. The best stories are about the author, his family, and his two weight lifting buddies. The slowest and longest are the combine derby and castle building. Cut those two stories out and the book would be even better. It's worth reading if you want a change of pace from your typical fiction. Grab a little non-fiction that won't bore you.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

From the bestselling author of Fight Club and Diary, a collection of essays and journalistic pieces that prove that real life has imagination beaten cold in the strangeness and wonder departments

Chuck Palahniuk?s world has always been, well, different from yours and mine. The pieces that comprise Stranger Than Fiction, his first nonfiction collection, prove just how different, in ways both highly entertaining and deeply unsettling. Encounters with alternative culture heroes Marilyn Manson and Juliette Lewis; the peculiar wages of fame attendant on the big budget film production of the movie Fight Club; life as an assembly-line drive train installer by day, hospice volunteer driver by night; the really peculiar lives of submariners; the really violent world (and mangled ears) of college wrestlers; the underground world of iron-pumping anabolic steroid gobblers; the immensely upsetting circumstances of his father?s murder and the trial of his killer?each essay or vignette offers a unique facet of existence as lived in and/or observed by one of our most flagrantly daring and original literary talents.

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