House of Leaves
by Mark Z. Danielewski · first published 1998
42% recommend53% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Experimental horror novel using typography and layered fictional narrators to make reading part of the experience. Fans find it creepy, claustrophobic, and unlike anything else; suits readers wanting weird fiction.
Common criticism: Some find the typographic tricks gimmicky and tiring to read
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Nothing, in all it's entirety.
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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After reading a string of books that basically did nothing for me, and then reading a book that completely enveloped me and messed with my head (House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski), I've made a a point of giving books about 50-100 pages to grab my attention, and then moving on if I'm not interested. I do seek out books from lists like "100 greatest books…
on “Choose your reading carefully” ↗House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
on “Ask YC: favorite books” ↗…stuff that you couldn't have done in a novel. Or in a movie, for that matter. Mind you, my all-time-favorite novel was published in 2006. And Mark Z Danielewski is still innovating within the form: his House of Leaves is a classic, and it was written just 8 years ago. But those writers are rarer. There's less to be done within the form of pure prose than there was even 40 years ago.
on “Ask YC: Do what you love and the money will follow?” ↗Sure, if it's not a huge digression. Gravity's Rainbow and In Remembrance Of Things Past, which I haven't read yet and are long enough to justify print reading. House of Leaves, a favorite book of mind which has a very unusual typographic layout. A Best of The Onion encyclopedia, for reading when I have to kill a little time. The last book is called Syrup, by Maxx Barry, and…
on “Coders at work is finally available” ↗I'm not OP, but I finished House of Leaves a year back and you definitely want to read the footnotes and everything else that Danielewski (or Zampano, if you like) has put on there. It really is a terrific book.
on “I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore” ↗There are many people these days that use formatting to further their writing, but a particular example that I enjoyed immensely was Danielewski's House of Leaves.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves
on “'The Sound and the Fury' as William Faulkner imagined, in color (2012)” ↗Go read House of Leaves and then see if you still have the same opinion. That is a story that can only be told in the form of a book.
on “What we lose when literary criticism ends” ↗I am also going to call out House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It's a really interesting book that explores a house that is slightly larger on the inside than the outside. It explores a lot of liminal spaces and has a really interesting format…
on “'Backrooms' and the Rise of the Institutional Gothic” ↗…published Finnegans Wake. They said it after every novel Beckett wrote, and they said the short story was dead after Borges became known in America. They said it after Gravity's Rainbow. They said it after House of Leaves, which was published in 2000 and is one of the greatest pieces of literature I've ever had the joy of reading. They say it after every writer, even the lesser ones like Steven King and J. K. Rowling,…
on “Cory Doctorow: On the demise of books, newspapers, music and movies” ↗House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski The Raw Shark Texts - Steven Hall
on “Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.” ↗"House of Leaves" by Mark Z Danielewski and Catch-22 by Josepf Heller
on “Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.” ↗…planetary colonization. Fortunately for the story it turns out to be a planet full of monsters. Baen Free Library. Accelerando, Iron Sunrise, and Singularity Sky by Charles Stross. Singularity stories. House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. Supernatural meta-fiction with half the story in the footnotes. Reminiscent of the movie Donnie Darko. Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. Private eye gets retained by the White…
on “Ask HN: Great books you read in 2009?” ↗House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski has been compared to Pale Fire. I've read House of Leaves, and though it's textbook-sized (about as large as GED), when I got into it I finished it within the week. Definitely find…
on “Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?” ↗…feel, the cover feels a certain way. The last time I remember feeling like there was something special about the book itself -- not the words therein -- was the first printing of Mark Z. Danielewski's "House of Leaves". It was, and maybe still is, unique to my experience with books.
on “Remembering the Magic of Supreme Court Briefs Before Technology Took Over” ↗I tell everyone I meet who is into books to read "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski.
on “Ask HN: What literature do you read?” ↗