Literary The MobileRead Literary Book Club July 2011 Nominations

[sun surfer]

Vandy, thanks so much for keeping track of the nominations. Regarding post #5: Mansfield Park and Rabbit Boss also each have one nomination.

[jgaiser]

You know, I think I'll third "The Tale of Genji" with my last vote. It's been on my Kindle for ages and just seem to continue to put of reading it.

[Nyssa]

I will 5th Bleak House!

Edit:

Originally Posted by Vandy

*** NOMINATION RESULTS FOR THE JULY BOOK CHOICE ***

Choices are shown in Vote order first then alphabetically.

NOTE: Nomination will continue until 27 JULY or when five books receives five votes each.

Nominations . . . . . Book Title / Author
(4) . . . . . . . . . . . Bleak House by Charles Dickens
(3) . . . . . . . . . . . The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
(3) . . . . . . . . . . . The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (pb only...?)
(3) . . . . . . . . . . . Midnight's Chidren by Salmon Rushdie
(3) . . . . . . . . . . . Ulysses by James Joyce
(2) . . . . . . . . . . . Paradise Lost by Milton
(1) . . . . . . . . . . . Captain Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
(1) . . . . . . . . . . . Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (pb only...?)
(1) . . . . . . . . . . . Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
(1) . . . . . . . . . . . The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
(2) . . . . . . . . . . . Paradise Lost by Milton
(1) . . . . . . . . . . . Moby Dick by Herman Melville
(1) . . . . . . . . . . . The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
(1) . . . . . . . . . . . War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy


Up-to-Date as of Post #27, Page 2.

You have Paradise Lost listed twice.

[orlok]

I'd like to nominate The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. Challenging, as it is fairly long (528 pages), but more significantly as it is written in Middle English.

"Although difficult at first to get your head around the Old English, be patient and before long you will enjoy Geoffrey Chaucers unique sense of humour and light critizicm of the times." (Amazon review)

Available in ebook and paper form.

In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce. A story-telling competition between a group of pilgrims from all walks of life is the occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight's account of courtly love and the ebullient Wife of Bath's Arthurian legend, to the ribald anecdotes of the Miller and the Cook.

[Vandy]

Hello, All.

I've updated the Nominations Results. They can be viewed in Post #5, Page 1.


@sun surfer
It is my pleasure to help out with keeping the nominations current. I do enjoy administrative tasks such as these. I'll be glad to continue doing so. Thank you for finding two of my three errors. I do appreciate your checking "behind" me to ensure the results are accurate. I guess I'm just getting forgetful in my "old" age.

@Nyssa
Thank you for finding my third error of the duplicate nomination. I shall be dilligent to ensure errors don't happen in the future. Nonetheless, as I wrote to sun surfer above, thank you for checking my nominations for errors.

Regards,

[paola]

Originally Posted by TGS

On the criteria "especially difficult or long works we may be hesitant to choose otherwise" I'd like to nominate The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. It is pretty huge - 850-odd paper pages. A review at blogcritics is here.

I have found a pdf of the 1926 translation of Mhe Magic Mountain (translated by H. T. LOWE-PORTER), so given the year I think it is out of copyright - before uploading it I wanted to double check whether you all agree that this is indeed a legitimate, allowable copy. If the club ended up reading it, it might be a way of proofreading a nice epub (after conversion) on the MObileread library!

[Nyssa]

I would like to 2nd both The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens & Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

[odiakkoh]

Not sure if my opinion counts since I've never spoken up before but if it does then I'd like to 4th The Tale of Genji.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by odiakkoh

Not sure if my opinion counts since I've never spoken up before but if it does then I'd like to 4th The Tale of Genji.

Everyone who wants to participate gets a vote. 3 votes actually, so don't be shy. MobileRead is a very welcoming place.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by paola

I have found a pdf of the 1926 translation of Mhe Magic Mountain (translated by H. T. LOWE-PORTER), so given the year I think it is out of copyright - before uploading it I wanted to double check whether you all agree that this is indeed a legitimate, allowable copy. If the club ended up reading it, it might be a way of proofreading a nice epub (after conversion) on the MObileread library!

I'm open to correction on this, but I believe the policy at MR is that you should only upload files that are in the public domain in your location, so that's your call. Similarly, you should only download files that are pd in your own country.

*Whistles guiltily, looking over my shoulder.*

I know I'd love to see Magic Mountain in e-format. For those who are entitled to download it, of course.

[Vandy]

Hello, All.

I've updated the Nominations Results. They can be viewed in Post #5, Page 1.

Regards,

[toomanybooks]

I will use my last nomination to fifth the Tale of Genji.

Holey cow! When I put up The Tale of Genji I thought it would not have a snow ball's chance in hell of even making it to the vote. So on the chance that it does actually become the selected book, or for those who might want to read it in any case, let me mention something about translations [into English]. There are a number of translations out there (Yes again. What are you going to do? ), including some that are abridged. The two to consider, in my opinion, are the Seidensticker or Tyler translations. It is the Seidensticker translation that I have read, and the consensus seems to be that he takes some liberties with the translation, but in doing so actually makes the text more accessible to the modern reader and [paradoxically?] is truer to the 'feel' of the original. What seems to be said about the Tyler translation is that it is more faithfully literal, includes footnotes some may find useful, but is dryer than the Seidensticker translation. It's the old question, is a Literal literal translation the best? What I say is that it is probably not worth over worrying which translation one can obtain or choose to read.

So now we just need more of these books in contention to make it to the finals. I am actually surprised that Ulysses has not done so. When I saw the category for this month that is the first book I thought of.


On that topic let me add a further plug for Rabbit Boss. I read this over 20 years ago and would not mind at all reading it again. It is certainly not

Originally Posted by sun surfer

Highly Challenging (especially difficult or long works we may be hesitant to choose otherwise)

in the sense that Ulysses (or The Tale of Genji) are, but to elaborate a little on what information I have previously supplied . . .

As stated the book spans over 100 years, but this is not done in a linear fashion. The author continually jumps back and forth in time. Layered on top of that is that sometimes the author is writing about real events [for the book's characters], and sometime about their dreams and fantasies.

So any way, whatever book is chosen, I hope this will generate enough readers and discussion that this does not become a black hole month.

[paola]

Originally Posted by issybird

I'm open to correction on this, but I believe the policy at MR is that you should only upload files that are in the public domain in your location, so that's your call. Similarly, you should only download files that are pd in your own country.

*Whistles guiltily, looking over my shoulder.*

I know I'd love to see Magic Mountain in e-format. For those who are entitled to download it, of course.

Thanks for the tip! So while I try and figure out whether the pdf I have is public domain or not (I am in the UK, but found it on scribd, and sometimes files there are of dubious origin), I'd like to cast a vote for The Magic Mountain.

I would also like to second Ulysses and Don Quixote.

[Ea]

I third Paradise Lost