Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is the strangest novel I've read in years, which is something I mean as a high compliment. The premise is a man who lives in a House of endless halls and statues and tidal corridors, and who keeps a meticulous journal of what he observes. He doesn't know why he's there. He barely knows who he is. The mystery assembles slowly.

What Clarke does that most mystery writers don't is make the protagonist's innocence sympathetic rather than frustrating. You understand why Piranesi sees the House as beautiful rather than threatening, and you share his perspective long past the point where you suspect the perspective is incomplete. When the full picture arrives, it recontextualizes everything that came before without invalidating it.

The novel is also formally unusual: told entirely through journal entries, in a voice that is precise, curious, and occasionally heartbreaking. It is 272 pages and it needs all 272 pages.