r/houseofleaves

I know nothing can equate to the high I got reading HoL, but what are other books that leave you with a similar eerie feeling (like the story might leave the pages)? Thank you for help!

Just about to go in for my second read after listening to some theories but im wanting to get the best experience for my second read does anyone have any recomendations?

Many posts on this sub are ridiculous, unnecessary and above all redundant...please for the love of God peruse past content for your question or queries. It's been asked and answered in the past. Happy reading!

I had almost given up hope of finding a copy in a store. Saw this and had to buy it immediately lol. This will be my second read-through, my first was a two-colour hardcover edition from my school library.

I first read House of Leaves when my wife and I lived in our apartment. I discovered it through a video detailing an elaborate mod for the game Doom, in which the player explored increasingly complex and absurd levels of a house. I was fascinated by the concept and immediately taken by the book.

I still have only read it the one time, with attempts to dive back into it proving daunting as I struggle to let go of the thought of all of the detail slipping by me with each page. The second dive has only gotten as far as the early stages of the Navidson Records, stumbling upon the enrapturing allure of the concept of echoes and how they're presented in literature and the hallway itself. Yet, even as I falter, at the same spot as my first reading, it sits on my shelf as a reminder of all of the information waiting to be discovered.

I knew that buying a home would force me to face the anxiety and obsessions within me which have propelled me forward for so long. It is a huge investment, with a risk that a slight defect at the time of purchase could spiral into a multi-tens of thousands of dollars issue without us finding out until it's too late. Even with the awareness that I would face a beast I had never faced before in my life, a level of responsibility I would surely falter with, I could not stop it. I've spent many nights watching the sump pump turn on, waiting half an hour or more for it to fill back up and turn on again, all from the fear of what might happen if this time it failed, this time the backup didn't turn on (for whatever reason), and the ensuing flood would ruin the water heater, washer and dryer, and all of the cherished items we have stored in our basement.

One night, as I looked down the pit, watching as the water rose and with it the creeping fear that this time it would happen, I realized that there was no end condition to this game. There would never be a point or criteria which would satisfy me to say that I don't need to watch anymore. If I went upstairs, the thought of the water rising with me followed me with each step. Looking into that pit, I felt like I was locked in my own labyrinth, an endless maze with nothing but the menace of a foreboding corner ahead of me. All I could do as I approached this corner (the moment when the sump kicked on), was imagine what would happen when I turned it. The catastrophe flooded my reality before it ever came to be. And when the sump turned on, I rounded the corner, there was no relief. There was just another corner ahead, and the cycle repeated once again.

I could continue but I digress.

I sympathize with Navidson's obsession with the minute details of his home. I hope to gain a better understanding of his relation to the extra dimensions he's discovered for his house, and for the utter horror he uncovered as he learned about a new unmapped section of his home.