Two items do not make a list

Novels with talking dogs:
Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Both breeeelliant. The Pynchon also has a mechanical duck.

Novels where women have carnal relations with invertebrates:
The Roaches Have No King by Daniel Evan Weiss
Lobster by Guillaume Lecasble
These are both interesting. The cockroach one is a tad more interesting but the lobster one is shorter, which is a bonus.

Detective novels with high philosophical conceits:
The Athenian Murders by Jose Carlos Somoza. Very clever; annoying but genuinely original, which is something at least.
The Critique of Criminal Reason by Michael Gregorio. I leafed through it in the bookshop but then I thought that if I had the time and energy I would read some Kant and then I'd actually know something, so I picked up some chicklit instead.

Novels in which four-foot-high lizards teach us something about being human:
War With the Newts by Karel Capek. Funny and occasionally painful.
Cold Skin by Albert Sanchez Pinol. Freaky.

Novels which although very good are too violently disgusting to reread:
My Idea of Fun by Will Self.
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.
Thankfully I can't remember any details from the Easton Ellis but the Self one I can't forget and it will be to blame for my eventual mental disintegration.

Novels with a hero of unspecified gender (I think they're women):
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson. Funnier than you expect.
The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macauley. Funny and a bit heartbreaking.

Novels narrated by crockery:
The Collector Collector by Tibor Fischer. Truly excellent, with disturbing ideas about earrings.