MobileRead February 09 book nominations

[pilotbob]

I'll nominate Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.

Abstract from Doctorow's web site:
Little Brother is my first young adult novel, a story about hacker kids in San Francisco who use technology to reclaim democracy from the Department of Homeland Security after a terrorist attack and the concomitant crackdown. It was published by Tor Books on April 29, 2008.

Even though I have already read it... I am sure the discussion thread will be interesting considering the topic of the book being personal freedoms in the modern age of "The War on Terror".

BOb

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

So we should be good with them, at least.

That at a minimum will give us more to play with. And of course, we can nominate more if we find them. But this at least gives us something to start with.

I'm fine with it. I have changed the opening message.

BOb

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I'll nominate Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.

Abstract from Doctorow's web site:
Little Brother is my first young adult novel, a story about hacker kids in San Francisco who use technology to reclaim democracy from the Department of Homeland Security after a terrorist attack and the concomitant crackdown. It was published by Tor Books on April 29, 2008.

Even though I have already read it... I am sure the discussion thread will be interesting considering the topic of the book being personal freedoms in the modern age of "The War on Terror".

BOb

Is it available on MR? If so, how? Doctorow is still alive, right?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

Is it available on MR? If so, how? Doctorow is still alive, right?

Yes I think it is available here. If not it is available on Feedbooks and Doctorow's site. Doctorow has released ebook versions of most if not all of his books under the Creative Commons license which allows them to be shared for free.

BOb

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Yes I think it is available here. If not it is available on Feedbooks and Doctorow's site. Doctorow has released ebook versions of most if not all of his books under the Creative Commons license which allows them to be shared for free.

BOb

Oh cool

Well I'm nominating Prague by Arthur Phillips and The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst, both part of the free Random House promo.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

Oh cool

Well I'm nominating Prague by Arthur Phillips and The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst, both part of the free Random House promo.

Sounds good. Can you please add abstracts to your nomination post to help people get an idea of what the book is about.

BOb

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Sounds good. Can you please add abstracts to your nomination post to help people get an idea of what the book is about.

BOb

Oops, yes:

Foreign Correspondent, from the ebookstore:

From Alan Furst, whom The New York Times calls "America's preeminent spy novelist," comes an epic story of romantic love, love of country, and love of freedom-the story of a secret war fought in elegant hotel bars and first-class railway cars, in the mountains of Spain and the backstreets of Berlin. It is an inspiring, thrilling saga of everyday people forced by their hearts' passion to fight in the war against tyranny. By 1938, hundreds of Italian intellectuals, lawyers and journalists, university professors and scientists had escaped Mussolini's fascist government and taken refuge in Paris. There, amid the struggles of emigre life, they founded an Italian resistance, with an underground press that smuggled news and encouragement back to Italy. Fighting fascism with typewriters, they produced 512 clandestine newspapers. The Foreign Correspondent is their story. Paris, a winter night in 1938: a murder/suicide at a discreet lovers' hotel. But this is no romantic traged-it is the work of the OVRA, Mussolini's fascist secret police, and is meant to eliminate the editor of Liberazione, a clandestine emigre newspaper.

Prague, from the ebookstore:

A first novel of startling scope and ambition, Prague depicts an intentionally lost Lost Generation as it follows five American expats who come to Budapest in the early 1990s to seek their fortune-financial, romantic, and spiritual-in an exotic city newly opened to the West. They harbor the vague suspicion that their counterparts in Prague, where the atmospheric decay of post-Cold War Europe is even more cinematically perfect, have it better. Still, they hope to find adventure, inspiration, a gold rush, or history in the making. What they actually find is a deceptively beautiful place that they often fail to understand.

[JSWolf]

But according to what was decided originally, the February book must be in the MR library. So that leaves out the Random House freebies.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I'll nominate Little Brother by Cory Doctorow.

Abstract from Doctorow's web site:
Little Brother is my first young adult novel, a story about hacker kids in San Francisco who use technology to reclaim democracy from the Department of Homeland Security after a terrorist attack and the concomitant crackdown. It was published by Tor Books on April 29, 2008.

Even though I have already read it... I am sure the discussion thread will be interesting considering the topic of the book being personal freedoms in the modern age of "The War on Terror".

BOb

Sounds interesting, I'll second that.

[JSWolf]

I'll give a third to Little Brother.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But according to what was decided originally, the February book must be in the MR library. So that leaves out the Random House freebies.

If you read this thread you will see I decided to change that to "freely available". The rules weren't set in stone... they were just guidelines and can adjust to the situation as needed.

BOb

[JSWolf]

Though I do like the idea of the book being available on MR. It means that someone's conversion will get read. That will make someone feel good knowing his/her upload is something others do want to read.

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Though I do like the idea of the book being available on MR. It means that someone's conversion will get read. That will make someone feel good knowing his/her upload is something others do want to read.

I agree, but there aren't a lot of contemporaries available (and I don't think we should tap out MR authors, because there is a future month just for that). If we can find more contempory books that have been uploaded or can be, I encourage everyone to vote for those. I'm just concerned it'll be tough.

[HarryT]

I would have thought, personally, that "contemporary fiction" was fiction both written and set in today's world. I don't think that SF fits, by that definition.

If SF does fit the definition, then presumably anything in Baen's "free library" is "up for grabs"?

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I would have thought, personally, that "contemporary fiction" was fiction both written and set in today's world. I don't think that SF fits, by that definition.

If SF does fit the definition, then presumably anything in Baen's "free library" is "up for grabs"?

I think if it's based around this time, we should go for it. Anything more though and this'll become another SciFi month. What does everyone else think?

Let's keep the nominations coming people