adidasss...you must read 'The Wasp Factory' in one go if possible.
The Diceman - Luke Rheinhart.
not my words (but very apt)...
And now this... thing, probably one of the more whacked-out books I've had the pleasure of tearing through in recent years. It's the most philosophical novel I've seen since A Clockwork Orange.
Like many other books I enjoy, The Dice Man works by taking one simple, incredibly basic concept and inflating it to the size of the world (or until it explodes and creates a horrid mess). The book is allegedly the first-person confession of a New York psychaitrist, who one day wakes up with his wife and children and realizes he's bored to death -- bored of Zen, bored of fashionable chitchat, bored of intellectualizing everything.
The good doctor stumbles across a way out of his psychic box. By entrusting all his actions to a set of dice, he can liberate himself from the need to actually have to be anyone or anything at a given time. Roll a single die:
1. Read the paper.
2. Go outside and engage someone on the street in conversation.
3. Drink all the vodka in the house.
4. See a movie that has been recommended by only one critic.
5. Sleep.
6. Rape the woman living downstairs.
Compulsive reading...