MobileRead July 2013 Book Club Vote

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by orlok

For some reason I thought the vote was over...

Come on all you Fanny lovers .

Gulp!

[desertblues]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

.....
Truth is, Harry, it may be the best and most definitive book on the Titanic in the history of ever, but the topic just doesn't get my juices going. .........

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

What do you mean, "would have"? There are still 3 days left in the voting. Call your friends! Canvass the neighborhood! Get out the vote! The future of democracy is in your hands!

Camp 14, Sleepwalkers or Fanny and Stella could win if nobody votes for the Titanic (Night to remember) any more. Somehow that book reminds me of Jules Verne, which I liked to read in my teens. It's all subjective of course, but I keep hearing that song of the film in my head.

I guess that popular science/trivia books don't do much for me. If I am going to read about science I want the real thing, not simplified, sensationalized, or jazzed up to appeal to a broad audience. Biographies of celebrities and entertainers also leave me cold. I may like the music, acting, comedy, etc. that they produce or not, but minus some reason to attach great historical significance to them I am not interested in who they are as people or what their life has been like. So among the final options for the vote that eliminated Gulp and What Jane Austen . . . for me. I've already read recently a book about North Korea (Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick) so I did not vote for Escape from Camp 14. The others all sound good to me, though I would have preferred Faust in Copenhagen.

[desertblues]

Hamlet53: How is Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick? I'm thinking of visiting North Korea /South Korea in the coming years....

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

I guess that popular science/trivia books don't do much for me. If I am going to read about science I want the real thing, not simplified, sensationalized, or jazzed up to appeal to a broad audience. Biographies of celebrities and entertainers also leave me cold. I may like the music, acting, comedy, etc. that they produce or not, but minus some reason to attach great historical significance to them I am not interested in who they are as people or what their life has been like. So among the final options for the vote that eliminated Gulp and What Jane Austen . . . for me. I've already read recently a book about North Korea (Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick) so I did not vote for Escape from Camp 14. The others all sound good to me, though I would have preferred Faust in Copenhagen.

Faust in Copenhagen ... I should have given that a vote. Does sound interesting.

[Billi]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

The others all sound good to me, though I would have preferred Faust in Copenhagen.

If we would still use the "old" system of one vote I would have given my only vote to Faust in Copenhagen. I will read it anyway, no matter how this voting ends. Thanks for your nomination!

[crich70]

Originally Posted by orlok

For some reason I thought the vote was over...

Come on all you Fanny lovers .

The sex education class is down at the end of the hall on the right. You can't miss it.

[fantasyfan]

Originally Posted by issybird

Actually, I kinda agree with you. A Night to Remember, while important and groundbreaking when it came out, is just a chestnut now. Certainly it can't advance our understanding of what happened and in fact some of it's been disproved. I loved it as an adolescent and I have zero interest in revisiting it now. Good read, but ultimately kind of schlocky. IMHO, of course.

On the other hand, new treatments of historical incidents, of which we have several from which to choose, I find endlessly interesting and illuminating. Just because something happened in the past, doesn't mean that it's not relevant today; again, several choices fall under this rubric.

I would have to agree with Issybird that Lord's book is now somewhat outdated. On the other hand it might be interesting to revisit it in light of what has been uncovered since--something he did himself in The Night Lives On (1976}. Lord in ANTR had the enormous advantage of being able to interview many of the survivors of the disaster first-hand. But he did fail to use sufficiently other important sources such as the American Senate Hearings in which witnesses saw the ship break in two--evidence completely ignored because Lightoller's flawed testimony was given precedence simply because he was an officer. There is also the unsolved mystery of the third ship supported by excellent testimony of some of the survivors.

It is also possible to explore the cultural impact of the loss of Titanic. It has become mythic in its significance. Lord does examine this somewhat in the book but there is much more to be explored.

But, in fact, because we have only recently passed the centenary, we have been bombarded with information and theories--some quite bizarre-- (one holds that it was the Olympic that sank}. I can understand why some might feel that we need a rest from the topic.

I did support ANTR but I can see the attractiveness of Issybird's preference that we look at "new treatments of historical incidents".

Originally Posted by desertblues

Hamlet53: How is Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick? I'm thinking of visiting North Korea /South Korea in the coming years....

I found it a good read and very balanced despite being for the most part a collection of accounts of former North Koreans that had defected to the South. I also liked that it took as a starting point the initial formation of North and South Korea at the end of WWII. The entire partition was purely as the result of drawing of battle lines between the USSR and the US. Koreans were treated as nothing but pawns. I would be fascinated to hear about your impressions of North Korea should that come about. Maybe you could write a book picking up where Demick left off. The book ends before the death of Kim Jong-il.

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

. . . There is also the unsolved mystery of the third ship supported by excellent testimony of some of the survivors. . . .

This article from a while back might be interesting to you and others.

Did the Titanic Sink Because of an Optical Illusion?

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by jmilica

I have read Sleepwalkers, the first few chapters, unfortunately. As many of the new treatments of historical incidents books which are recently appearing in order to cash on 100 year anniversary of the Great War + to celebrate "newly found" (though as events are going, not a long lasting) love in Europe and adoration of Germany, it twists facts...Also, the new so called historical treatment includes defining people fighting against colonisers as terrorists.
In the rewriting process, I would not be surprised to see in a few year somebody finding similarities between Mahatma Gandhi with the villain Osama. And all along the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Prussia, Britain and the rest were oh so naive, wishing all the best for the colonies and nothing for themselves...

Yes, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. I must admit, I never thought they were sleepwalking into war, but, in the case of Britain and Germany at least, were spoiling for it over many years. So I was interested in this book to get a different perspective, but I don't like the sound of it from your comments, jmilica. I still find the logic (if that's the right word) of why they all went to war with each other incomprehensible.

I won't take part in reading ANTR if it wins, but will read one or more of the other nominations, probably starting with the Gourevitch because I think that is the most important one, though also the most harrowing.

[jmilica]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Yes, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. I must admit, I never thought they were sleepwalking into war, but, in the case of Britain and Germany at least, were spoiling for it over many years. So I was interested in this book to get a different perspective, but I don't like the sound of it from your comments, jmilica. I still find the logic (if that's the right word) of why they all went to war with each other incomprehensible.

The causes, apart from re-balancing the international order, were many and deep, and they do go far back from the year 1914. But trying to put the guilt for the war on Serbia and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand for me is not only rewriting and recreating the history which more than obviously shows this was only the casus belli, it is an insult to a thinking mind...If you consider all the great powers involved, the preparations which were happening on a military level for a long time prior to 1914, and then check the map and see where and how big Serbia was at the time, I guess you might feel something similar.
Anyway, the ebook edition is brilliantly formatted and I really did my best to read it despite the advise of my friends and colleagues who told me that there is no point in it. I had to drop it after first part of the book and leave the second and third part unread...
But, I am sure for many readers it will be a brilliant read, especially for ones who so far have not had deeper interest in the Great War. And I am writing this for them, hoping they will not take this book as an ultimate history account but as just one (and not very much facts based) "modern treatment" of the past.

[desertblues]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

I found it a good read and very balanced despite being for the most part a collection of accounts of former North Koreans that had defected to the South. I also liked that it took as a starting point the initial formation of North and South Korea at the end of WWII. The entire partition was purely as the result of drawing of battle lines between the USSR and the US. Koreans were treated as nothing but pawns. I would be fascinated to hear about your impressions of North Korea should that come about. Maybe you could write a book picking up where Demick left off. The book ends before the death of Kim Jong-il.

Thanks Hamlet53; I'll see if I can get it at a good price and then it will be next on my list. I have started on Camp 14 now. (and reading The Swerve of course).

I don't know about the Titanic though.

[desertblues]

Originally Posted by jmilica

The causes, apart from re-balancing the international order, were many and deep, and they do go far back from the year 1914. But trying to put the guilt for the war on Serbia and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand for me is not only rewriting and recreating the history which more than obviously shows this was only the casus belli, it is an insult to a thinking mind...If you consider all the great powers involved, the preparations which were happening on a military level for a long time prior to 1914, and then check the map and see where and how big Serbia was at the time, I guess you might feel something similar.
......
But, I am sure for many readers it will be a brilliant read, especially for ones who so far have not had deeper interest in the Great War. And I am writing this for them, hoping they will not take this book as an ultimate history account but as just one (and not very much facts based) "modern treatment" of the past.

For those interested in the First World War and The Sleepwalkers: read up on the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which caused a lot of trouble in Europe and elsewhere.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles

[JChip]

Originally Posted by desertblues

For those interested in the First World War and The Sleepwalkers: read up on the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which caused a lot of trouble in Europe and elsewhere.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles

I think that prior to war is more relevant than after the war.
Here's a link on Franco-Prussian War after which in 1871 France was forced to sign humiliating treaty with Germany loosing Alsace-Lorraine...This was before the humiliation of Germany that followed much later in Versailles in which France got Alsace-Lorraine back...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War