MobileRead March 2009 book nominations

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by acprinter

"The Private Patient" by P.D. James

This is an Adam Dalgliesh mystery.

Is this Non-Fiction?

BOb

[acprinter]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Is this Non-Fiction?

BOb

No it's fiction, did I miss something somewhere and it should only be non-fiction?

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by acprinter

"The Private Patient" by P.D. James

This is an Adam Dalgliesh mystery.

This month is for nonfiction (Ann Rule does true crime). Some of the posts did not make this clear, but the nominations so far are nonfiction and P.D. James is a fiction writer.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by acprinter

No it's fiction, did I miss something somewhere and it should only be non-fiction?

Yes, the first post, perhaps?

BOb

[acprinter]

Sorry I messed up. In that case how about

"The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman

In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us.

In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; what of our everyday stuff may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe.


________
Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
~ Henry David Thoreau ~

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by acprinter

Sorry I messed up. In that case how about

"The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman

Great. Could you please edit your post and add an abstract for the book.

Thanks,
BOb

[Nickfdr]

I nominate the classic Animal Farm, God's Debris http://nowscape.com/godsdebris.pdf and Great Expectations

I realized these are non-fiction and the proper post is down. Lemme keep this post up here so when we do fiction I can just copy and paste into the post

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Nickfdr

I nominate the classic Animal Farm, God's Debris http://nowscape.com/godsdebris.pdf and Great Expectations

Aren't these all fiction? March 2009 category is NON-fiction!

BOb

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Nickfdr

I nominate the classic Animal Farm, God's Debris http://nowscape.com/godsdebris.pdf and Great Expectations

Animal Farm!!!! Wait. It has to be NON FICTION.

Darn it!

[Nickfdr]

Aww man, non-fiction!!! In that case I'll nominate the United States Constitution , Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche and Hume, David: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Not as good as Animal Farm but intellectually stimulating nonetheless

[Marian0121]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I nominate the following....

The Complete Book of Cheese by Robert Brown


The Highland Fling and How to Teach it by Horatio N. Grant


The Dark Side by Jane Mayer
The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals

I have heard good things about The Dark Side by Jane Mayer. It has been on my to read list.

Marian

[dreams]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester.

From Amazon.com:
Quote:
When the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary put out a call during the late 19th century pleading for "men of letters" to provide help with their mammoth undertaking, hundreds of responses came forth. Some helpers, like Dr. W.C. Minor, provided literally thousands of entries to the editors. But Minor, an American expatriate in England and a Civil War veteran, was actually a certified lunatic who turned in his dictionary entries from the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Simon Winchester has produced a mesmerizing coda to the deeply troubled Minor's life, a life that in one sense began with the senseless murder of an innocent British brewery worker that the deluded Minor believed was an assassin sent by one of his numerous "enemies."
Winchester also paints a rich portrait of the OED's leading light, Professor James Murray, who spent more than 40 years of his life on a project he would not see completed in his lifetime. Winchester traces the origins of the drive to create a "Big Dictionary" down through Murray and far back into the past; the result is a fascinating compact history of the English language (albeit admittedly more interesting to linguistics enthusiasts than historians or true crime buffs). That Murray and Minor, whose lives took such wildly disparate turns yet were united in their fierce love of language, were able to view one another as peers and foster a warm friendship is just one of the delicately turned subplots of this compelling book.

This blurb kind of makes it sound a little boring, but it isn't. I don't do boring

This one! This one!

I started it before I moved and had to return the book to a friend before I finished... I thought this OED back-story was mind-blowing even though I didn't get to finish it.

[Sparrow]

I'd like to nominate Apsley Cherry-Garrard's "The Worst Journey in the World"

"As Apsley Cherry-Garrard states in his introduction to the harrowing story of the Scott expedition to the South Pole, "Polar Exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised." Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World is a gripping account of an expedition gone disastrously wrong. The youngest member of Scott's team, the author was later part of the rescue party that eventually found the frozen bodies of Scott and three men who had accompanied Scott on the final push to the Pole. These deaths would haunt Cherry-Garrard for the rest of his life as he questioned the decisions he had made and the actions he had taken in the days leading up to the Polar Party's demise."

Madam Broshkina for providing the book.

[HarryT]

I would like to nominate "The Complete Works of Plato", from our own MR Library. Plato asked "the questions" that philosophers are still trying to answer 2,500 years later and, moreover, many of his "Dialogs" are extremely witty and fun to read. The introductory essay by Benjamin Jowett that each dialog has only adds to the interest and enjoyment of them.

[JSWolf]

Another eBook I'll nominate is ...

John Adams by David McCullough

In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who thought, wrote, and spoke out for the "Great Cause" come what might; who traveled far and wide in all seasons and often at extreme risk; who rose to become the second President of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was rightly celebrated for his integrity, and regarded by some as "out of his senses"; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the moving love stories in American history.Much about John Adams's life will come as a surprise to many. His rocky relationship with friend and eventual archrival Thomas Jefferson, his courageous voyage on the frigate Boston tin the winter of 1778 and his later trek over the Pyrenees are exploits few would have dared and that few listeners will ever forget.Like his masterful, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman, David McCullough's John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. This is history on a grand scale -- an audiobook about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, It is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.