In 2006, a Portuguese television show popular with teen girls depicted characters experience symptoms of a strange life-threatening illness.

FORBES: The Black Friday Experiment: Mind Control and Mass Hysteria Gone Viral

Set in America in the not-too-distant future, the novel braided countless characters and ideas into a deliriously strange and self-consciously literary plot, involving a tennis academy, a recovery facility, a dysfunctional family and a debilitatingly gripping film.

ECONOMIST: The fevered imaginings of a dazzling American writer

The political intrigue of Arkansas fascinated me -- the bizarre characters, the southern folklore, the strange mix of rumor, fact and tabloid fantasy.

CNN: 'Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story'

Her characters are often in transit, stalled in strange places, fugitive: the reason, perhaps, for the title.

ECONOMIST: Shorter fiction

What ensues is a strange blend of manhunt and tone poem, in which even the most brutal characters seem rapt in the face of red earth and endless sky.

NEWYORKER: The Proposition

It conjures up a strange mental image, but perhaps not so odd when you are talking about one of the most colourful characters in English football history.

BBC: CHOOSE A SPORT