Literary Rotating Nominations

[Bookworm_Girl]

That's good news! I look forward to bfisher's nominations.

[Bookpossum]

Yes, that's great! Just to let you all know, I shall be away in New Zealand when the nominations are voted on, so won't be able to participate - sorry bfisher! However, I'll be back home in time to read whatever the rest of you choose.

[sun surfer]

It's time for December's selections. bfisher has messaged me the nominations to post. I'll have the poll up within the day; here is the list:

The Enormous Room
by E.E.Cummings
Cummings served as an ambulance driver during the World War I. In late August 1917 his friend B, was arrested by French security as a result of anti-war sentiments B. had expressed in some letters. When questioned, Cummings stood by his friend and was also arrested.
Cummings thus spent over four months in the prison. He met a number of interesting characters and had many picaresque adventures, which he compiled into The Enormous Room. The book is written as a mix between Cummings' well-known unconventional grammar and diction and the witty voice of a young Harvard-educated intellectual in an absurd situation. The title of the book refers to the large room where Cummings slept beside thirty or so other prisoners. However, it also serves as an allegory for Cummings' mind and his memories of the prison - such that when he describes the many residents of his shared cell, they still live in the "enormous room" of his mind.

Christ Stopped At Eboli
by Carlo Levi
Goodreads: It was to Lucania, a desolate land in southern Italy, that Carlo Levi—a doctor, painter, philosopher, and man of letters—was confined as a political prisoner because of his opposition to Italy's Fascist government at the start of the Ethiopian war in 1935. While there, Levi reflected on the harsh landscape and its inhabitants, peasants who lived the same lives their ancestors had, constantly fearing black magic and the near presence of death. In so doing, Levi offered a starkly beautiful and moving account of a place and a people living outside the boundaries of progress and time.


The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas
by Gertrude Stein
Goodreads: “Largely to amuse herself, [Gertrude Stein] wrote The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas in 1932...using as a sounding board her companion Miss Toklas, who had been with her for twenty-five years. It has been said that the writing takes on very much Miss Toklas' conversational style, and while this is true the style is still a variant of Miss Stein's conversation style. ...She usually insisted that writing is an entirely different thing from talking, and it is part of the miracle of this little scheme of objectification that she could by way of imitating Miss Toklas put in writing something of her own beautiful conversation. So that, aside from making a real present of her past, she created a figure of herself, established an identity a twin, a Doppelganger.... The book is full of the most lucid and shapely anecdotes, told in a purer and more closely fitting prose... than even Gide or Hemingway have ever commanded .... " -- Donald Sutherland

The alternative story is that she wrote it for the money. More than half of it was published in the Atlantic Monthly in four installments.

The Untouchable
by John Banville
Goodreads: One of the most dazzling and adventurous writers now working in English takes on the enigma of the Cambridge spies in a novel of exquisite menace, biting social comedy, and vertiginous moral complexity. The narrator is the elderly Victor Maskell, formerly of British intelligence, for many years art expert to the Queen. Now he has been unmasked as a Russian agent and subjected to a disgrace that is almost a kind of death. But at whose instigation?

As Maskell retraces his tortuous path from his recruitment at Cambridge to the airless upper regions of the establishment, we discover a figure of manifold doubleness: Irishman and Englishman; husband, father, and lover of men; betrayer and dupe. Beautifully written, filled with convincing fictional portraits of Maskell's co-conspirators, and vibrant with the mysteries of loyalty and identity, The Untouchable places John Banville in the select company of both Conrad and le Carre.


The Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Goodreads: A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can choose -and change - their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.


The Emigrants
by W.G. Sebald
Goodreads: At first The Emigrants appears simply to document the lives of four Jewish émigrés in the twentieth century. But gradually, as Sebald's precise, almost dreamlike prose begins to draw their stories, the four narrations merge into one overwhelming evocation of exile and loss.

Written with a bone-dry sense of humour and a fascination with the oddness of existence The Emigrants is highly original in its heady mix of fact, memory and fiction and photographs.


To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Goodreads: To the Lighthouse is made up of three powerfully charged visions into the life of one family living in a summer house off the rocky coast of Scotland. As time winds its way through their lives, the Ramsays face, alone and simultaneously, the greatest of human challenges and it greatest triumph--the human capacity for change. A portrait in miniature of family life, it also has universal implications, giving language to the silent space that separates people and the space that they transgress to reach each other.


Babette's Feast
by Karen Blixen
Goodreads: With the mysterious arrival of Babette, a refugee from France's civil war, life for two pious sisters and their tiny hamlet begins to change. Before long, Babette has convinced them to try something other than boiled codfish and ale bread: a gourmet French meal. Her feast scandalizes the elders, except for the visiting general. Just who is this strangely talented Babette, who has terrified this pious town with the prospect of losing their souls for enjoying too much earthly pleasure?

Note - a short novella or even a short story at 54 pages. It was adapted as a wonderful movie (in Danish, but available with subtitles)

[Bookworm_Girl]

Great list! Now the hard part is deciding! Thanks, bfisher!

[HomeInMyShoes]

Lots to chew on here. I've read To the Lighthouse so that one is probably not getting my support, but the others are all interesting, although I am leaning towards all the ones not from United States or United Kingdom.

Slim pickings from my library though. Only four titles available and only one not from the United States or United Kingdom. Looks like my library is going to busy with an interlibrary loan for me.

[sun surfer]

The poll is up!

Thanks for being the first volunteer of our new cycle bfisher; that's a wonderful list. I watched the film of Babette's Feast long ago and barely remember it, except that I really liked it. What's surprising to me is that I've never made the connection that the person who wrote Out of Africa is the same person who wrote Babette's Feast!

[sun surfer]

Who would like to take their turn selecting the nominations for the upcoming rotating month in February?


General info-

Spoiler:

The only requirements for the month's selections are that they are literary, that none have been the monthly selection of either book club yet (nominees can be previous nominees though) and that they number at least four. That’s it, pretty simple.

Lists of previous selections - Lit Club / General club

Previous volunteers by month this cycle (currently ineligible)-
2015 December, bfisher

First post

And any questions, just ask!

[Bookpossum]

Unless someone else is wanting to have a go, I'm happy to do February.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Woohoo. Go for it Bookpossum.

<<secretly hoping for another round of Australia>>

[sun surfer]

February is yours, Bookpossum! I'll ask for your nominations at the beginning of the month.

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Woohoo. Go for it Bookpossum.

<<secretly hoping for another round of Australia>>

Thanks HomeInMyShoes! A bit more international this time but there's an Aussie lurking in there.

[sun surfer]

It's time for February's selections. Bookpossum, what choices do you have for us?

[Bookpossum]

This time I have put together a mix of books I have read and want to reread (some PD, some not) plus some on my TBR shelves. I thought it would be okay to present Eucalyptus again, as it's a couple of years since my last turn, when it didn't quite make the cut.

Not in any sort of preferential order, just alphabetical by author's surname. The comments are culled from Goodreads. As far as I can make out, all books should be available.


Murray Bail - Eucalyptus
The gruff widower Holland has two possessions he cherishes above all others: his sprawling property of eucalyptus trees and his ravishingly beautiful daughter, Ellen.

When Ellen turns nineteen Holland makes an announcement: she may marry only the man who can correctly name the species of each of the hundreds of gum trees on his property.

Ellen is uninterested in the many suitors who arrive from around the world, until one afternoon she chances on a strange, handsome young man resting under a Coolibah tree. In the days that follow, he spins dozens of tales set in cities, deserts, and faraway countries. As the contest draws to a close, Ellen and the stranger's meetings become more erotic, the stories more urgent. Murray Bail's rich narrative is filled with unexpected wisdom about art, feminine beauty, landscape, and language. Eucalyptus is a shimmering love story that affirms the beguiling power of storytelling itself.

Margaret Drabble - The Red Queen
Two hundred years after being plucked from obscurity to marry the Crown Prince of Korea, the Red Queen doesn’t want her extraordinary existence to be forgotten. Her long and privileged life behind the Korean palace walls was not all it seemed, and the Red Queen (or her ghost) is still desperate to retell her tale.

Dr. Barbara Halliwell, with her own complicated past, seems the perfect envoy – having read the memoirs of the Crown Princess on the plane to Seoul, Barbara has become utterly engrossed in her story. But why has the Red Queen selected Barbara to keep her story alive, and what else does she want from her? As she explores the inner sanctums and the royal courts, Barbara Halliwell begins to feel a strong affinity for everything related to the princess and her mysterious life. After a brief, intense, and ill-fated love affair, she returns to London. Is she ensnared by the events of the past week, of the past two hundred years, or will she pick up her life where she left it?

Set in eighteenth-century Korea and the present day, The Red Queen is a rich, playful, and atmospheric novel about love, about personal and public history, and what it means to be remembered. Beautifully told, ingeniously constructed, this novel reveals Margaret Drabble at her extraordinary best.

F Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,” it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.

E M Forster - Where Angels Fear to Tread
When a young English widow takes off on the grand tour and along the way marries a penniless Italian, her in-laws are not amused. That the marriage should fail and poor Lilia die tragically are only to be expected. But that Lilia should have had a baby -- and that the baby should be raised as an Italian! -- are matters requiring immediate correction by Philip Herriton, his dour sister Harriet, and their well-meaning friend Miss Abbott.

Graham Greene - The Human Factor
A leak is traced to a small sub-section of SIS, sparking off the inevitable security checks, tensions and suspicions. The sort of atmosphere where mistakes could be made? For Maurice Castle it is the end of the line anyway and time for him to retire with his African wife, Sarah.

The Human Factor is Greene’s most extensive attempt to incorporate into fiction what he had learned of espionage when recruited by MI6 during World War II ... What it offers is a veteran excursion into Greene’s imaginative world ... Sometimes seen as a brooding prober into the dark recesses of the soul where sins and scruples alike fester, he is equally at home in sending a narrative careering along at break-neck pace ... Raising the demarcation line between ‘serious’ fiction and fast-plotted entertainment, Greene ensures that components of both jostle energizingly together in his pages.” –from the Introduction by Peter Kemp.


Doris Lessing - London Observed
Across eighteen short stories, Lessing dissects London and its inhabitants with the power for truth and compassion to be expected of the Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature 2007.

'During that first year in England, I had a vision of London I cannot recall now … it was a nightmare city that I lived in for a year. Then, one evening, walking across the park, the light welded buildings, trees and scarlet buses into something familiar and beautiful, and I knew myself to be at home.'

Lessing’s vision of London – a place of nightmares and wonder – underpins this brilliantly multifaceted collection of stories about the city, seen from a cafe table, a hospital bed, the back seat of a taxi, a hospital casualty department; seen, as always, unflinchingly, and compellingly depicted.

Bernhard Schlink - The Reader
An exceptionally powerful novel exploring the themes of betrayal, guilt and memory against the background of the Holocaust. An international bestseller.

For 15-year-old Michael Berg, a chance meeting with an older woman leads to far more than he ever imagined. The woman in question is Hanna, and before long they embark on a passionate, clandestine love affair which leaves Michael both euphoric and confused. For Hanna is not all she seems.

Years later, as a law student observing a trial in Germany, Michael is shocked to realize that the person in the dock is Hanna. The woman he had loved is a criminal. Much about her behaviour during the trial does not make sense. But then suddenly, and terribly, it does - Hanna is not only obliged to answer for a horrible crime, she is also desperately concealing an even deeper secret.

'A tender, horrifying novel that shows blazingly well how the Holocaust should be dealt with in fiction. A thriller, a love story and a deeply moving examination of a German conscience' INDEPENDENT SATURDAY MAGAZINE


Evelyn Waugh - Scoop
Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of the "Daily Beast", has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another. Acting on a dinner-party tip from Mrs Algernon Smith, he feels convinced that he has hit on just the chap to cover a promising little war in the African Republic of Ishmaelia.

One of Waugh's most exuberant comedies, Scoop is a brilliantly irreverent satire of "Fleet Street" and its hectic pursuit of hot news.

[bfisher]

Great list, Bookpossum.

[caleb72]

I can't even...!
That's a great list!