Literary Journey around the World Vote • July 2015

[sun surfer]

Help choose the July 2015 selection to read for the MR Literary Club! The poll will be open for three days and a discussion thread will begin shortly after a winner is chosen.

The vote is multiple choice. You may vote for as many or as few as you like. If you vote for the winner it is hoped that you will read the selection with the club and join in the discussion.

NEW - When the poll ends, bonus votes will be manually added before determining final results. Basically, anyone who has commented in two out of the last six discussion threads is eligible for bonus votes, and everyone eligible will have any votes cast doubled. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to vote if interested in participating in the literary club whether eligible for bonus votes or not, and anyone interested in bonus votes is encouraged to become eligible as it doesn’t take much. Currently eligible:

Spoiler:

BelleZora, Bookpossum, Bookworm_Girl, caleb72, ccowie, desertblues, fantasyfan, Hamlet53, HomeInMyShoes, Lin2412, paola, sun surfer, Synamon

This includes posts in the January to June discussion threads.
*There are a few caveats to eligibility as outlined in this post.
**If anyone feels there is any mistake in eligibility, please let me know before the poll is over. Once the poll ends and the tally with bonus votes added is announced, the results will be final.

In the event of a tie, there will be a one-day non-multiple-choice run-off poll. If the run-off also ends in a tie, then the tie will be resolved in favour of the selection that received all of its initial nominations first.


Select from the following works:


The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer, South Africa

Spoiler:

The book won the Man Booker and the author won the Nobel.


From Goodreads:

Mehring is rich. He has all the privileges and possessions that South Africa has to offer, but his possessions refuse to remain objects. His wife, son, and mistress leave him; his foreman and workers become increasingly indifferent to his stewardship; even the land rises up, as drought, then flood, destroy his farm.


Amazon AU Amazon UK Amazon US

A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam, Bangladesh

Spoiler:

This would be for Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan.)

The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende, Chile

Spoiler:

Author country Chile, setting Chile


From Wikipedia:

The House of the Spirits (Spanish: La casa de los espíritus, 1982) is the debut novel of Isabel Allende. The novel was rejected by several Spanish-language publishers before being published in Barcelona in 1982. It became an instant best seller, was critically acclaimed, and catapulted Allende to literary stardom. The novel was named Best Novel of the Year in Chile in 1982, and Allende received the country's Panorama Literario award. The House of the Spirits has been translated into over 37 languages.

The book was first conceived by Allende when she received news that her 100-year-old grandfather was dying. She began to write him a letter that ultimately became the manuscript of The House of the Spirits.

The story details the life of the Trueba family, spanning four generations, and tracing the post-colonial social and political upheavals of Chile – though the country's name, and the names of figures closely paralleling historical ones, such as "the President" or "the Poet", are never explicitly given. The story is told mainly from the perspective of two protagonists (Esteban and Alba) and incorporates elements of magical realism.


Hamlet53 says: Unfortunately my searching indicates that this book is not available as an ebook in English. For any who are literate in Spanish there is an ebook though as well as one in Dutch.

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones, New Zealand

Spoiler:

The author is from New Zealand and the book is set on Bougainville, an autonomous island off Papua New Guinea. The book won the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book) and the Kiriyama Prize, and it was a Man Booker finalist.


From Goodreads:

In a novel that is at once intense, beautiful, and fablelike, Lloyd Jones weaves a transcendent story that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the power of narrative to transform our lives.

On a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, where the teachers have fled with most everyone else, only one white man chooses to stay behind: the eccentric Mr. Watts, object of much curiosity and scorn, who sweeps out the ruined schoolhouse and begins to read to the children each day from Charles Dickens's classic Great Expectations.

So begins this rare, original story about the abiding strength that imagination, once ignited, can provide. As artillery echoes in the mountains, thirteen-year-old Matilda and her peers are riveted by the adventures of a young orphan named Pip in a city called London, a city whose contours soon become more real than their own blighted landscape. As Mr. Watts says, “A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe.” Soon come the rest of the villagers, initially threatened, finally inspired to share tales of their own that bring alive the rich mythology of their past. But in a ravaged place where even children are forced to live by their wits and daily survival is the only objective, imagination can be a dangerous thing.


Amazon AU Amazon CA Amazon UK Amazon US

The Plague by Albert Camus, Algeria

Spoiler:

.

[sun surfer]

I'm really interested in all of these and can't decide on any not to vote for, so I just voted for them all. Looking forward to reading whichever wins.

[Bookpossum]

Not easy, but I went for three of them.

[caleb72]

I went for one, but now I don't understand why I limited it to one. Oh well.

I voted for The House of Spirits because I want to read it, that's why I nominated it. The Conservationist because it's a book I will read sooner or later and why not sooner and with the view of others to share in? Finally A Golden Age because the setting and premise is so intriguing. Any of the list would be a fine read I will say, but voting for all would be the same as voting for none.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I'm going to be completely self-serving and vote for the country I haven't checked off my personal list yet.

[sun surfer]

The winner is the same with or without bonus votes so The Plague it is! That was a topsy turvy poll and it was fun to watch play out; it was very close and the leader kept changing from one to another to another. I'll have the discussion thread up within a day or so.

[bfisher]

An excellent set of candidates. I've started on "The Plague", and if time allows I hope to read at least "The Conservationist" and "Mr. Pip" this summer.

[Lynx-lynx]

I've bought: The Conservationist, A Golden Age and Mister Pip, and look forward to reading them as well. (Well, I received an exceptional Kobo code )

[Bookpossum]

Lucky you! Yes, a great list and so a tough choice. I'm in a rainforest in northern New South Wales right now, but will be home next Monday and will get onto Camus then. I hope to read Gordimer and Jones as well, if not all of them. I'm getting used to one finger typing too!

[Bookworm_Girl]

Great choices! Interesting category. I have the book on hold at the library. I'm next in line so it might be a week or so before I can start.