When Lt. General Romeo Dallaire received the call to serve as force commander of the UN mission to Rwanda, he thought he was heading off to Africa to help two warring parties achieve a peace both sides wanted. Instead, he and members of his small international force were caught up in a vortex of civil war and genocide. Dallaire left Rwanda a broken man, disillusioned, suicidal, and determined to tell his story. An award-winning international sensation, Shake Hands with the Devil is a landmark contribution to the literature of war: a remarkable tale of a soldier's courage and an unforgettable portrait of modern war. It is also a stinging indictment of the petty bureaucrats who refused to give Dallaire the men and the operational freedom he needed to stop the killing. 'I know there is a God,' Dallaire writes, 'because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists and therefore I know there is a God.
Rather than Apsley-Garrard's book, which is quite long, I reeeeeeally recommend Endurance, by Alfred Lansing. For sure, it's available on Kindle and the story is literally incredible ('tho true, 100%).
Obviously, I dunno how these polls work 'cause I would have loved to discuss Pride and Prejudice (my fave for 35 yrs) 'til I was blue in the face, but never heard any more of the "Romance" competition.
Anyway, Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage is by far the most non-fiction (proven) a reader will ever come across.
In fact, if more Manly men were to ask themselves more often, "What would Shackleton do?," we might all be living at ease. On Gamma Centauri VII.
Obviously, I dunno how these polls work 'cause I would have loved to discuss Pride and Prejudice (my fave for 35 yrs) 'til I was blue in the face, but never heard any more of the "Romance" competition.
That's because Pride and Prejudice didn't win the vote... A Room with a View won.
If you are in the reading recommendations forum and you select the "Book Club" pre-fix in the filter section you can see all the book club threads. All the discussion threads start with "Discussion". We don't open threads for EVERY book that makes the poll.
Of course, there is nothing stopping you from opening a thread about Pride and Prejudice... it just wouldn't be tagged "book club".
I would like to nominate "Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche" by Haruki Murakami. Here is a wikipedia blurb about it:
Underground (アンダーグラウンド, Andāguraundo?, 1997–1998) is a book by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami about the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Described as a work of "journalistic literature,"[citation needed] it collects a series of separate interviews Murakami conducted with 60 victims of the attacks and 8 members of Aum, descriptions of how the attacks were carried out, and his essay "Blind Nightmare: Where are we Japanese going?"
Underground was originally published in Japan without the interviews of Aum members – they were published in the magazine Bungei Shunju before being collected in a separate volume, The Place That Was Promised. The English translation combines both books into a single volume, but has been abridged. Underground was translated by Alfred Birnbaum; The Place That Was Promised, by Philip Gabriel.
Device: Sony 505| K Fire | KK 3G+Wi-Fi | iPhone 3Gs |Vista 32-bit Hm Prem w/FF
Please check and let me know if there are any errors. The below is updated up to & including Post #77. (Thanks for the extra help, WT Sharpe and lene1949 )
Make sure to check if the book is available to you. Must be available as a legal ebook...
There are now 9 fully nominated books.
The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger [ficbot]Nomination withdrawn I could not find this in ebook?
[2] Gomorrah by Robert Saviano [lila55, Format C:] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
Wikipedia:
The book describes the clandestine particulars of the business of Camorra, a powerful Neapolitan mafia-like organization. In this book Saviano employs prose and news-reporting style to narrate the story of the Camorra, exposing its territory and business connections.
Since 2006, following the publication of the book, Saviano has been threatened by several Neapolitan “godfathers”. The Italian Minister of the Interior has granted him a permanent police escort, but he's often attacked by politicians of Berlusconi's government and also his escort has been questioned
City of Dust: Illness, Arrogance, and 9/11 by Anthony DePalma [lene1949] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
From Amazon:
Nearly a decade after the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in the Sept. 11 attacks, the toxic legacy of the dust cloud that covered the neighborhood endures. DePalma (Here), a former New York Times reporter who covered the attacks and their aftermath, dissects the policy mistakes and bitter medical and legal clashes over the health problems suffered by rescue workers, cleanup crew, and survivors. The political and economic necessity of getting New York up and running again left "no time for the great city to dwell on what the long-term impact of the dust might be." DePalma methodically if occasionally awkwardly traces the efforts of scientists and doctors to assess the effects of the contaminated dust on the tens of thousands exposed, and the methods used to determine compensation. The scope of the aftereffects remains so vast that DePalma's account doesn't always retain a sense of narrative urgency, but he does convey how outrageously bureaucracy has stalled appropriate care for survivors and rescue workers. "Trust collapsed with the towers, and dust buried the truth," he writes, and the path to retribution remains obscured.
* [3]Tunnel People by Teun Voeten [lene1949, lila55, nimblem] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
From Amazon:
First published in the Netherlands in 1996, this book chronicles Voeten’s five-month exploration of the society that exists underneath the streets of Manhattan. Voeten, an accomplished war photographer and reporter, didn’t write about the people who lived in the tunnels under New York from the point of view of an observer. He lived in the tunnels, grew to know the people who lived there, and came to understand not just how they got there but also the society they have created. Like Jennifer Toth’s Mole People (1993) and Matthew O’Brien’s Beneath the Neon (2007), Voeten’s book captivates readers with its compassionate portraits of the people and their surroundings, while exploring the surprisingly varied reasons why these men and women wound up living just beneath the surface of the reader’s world. --David Pitt
* [3]Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone by Martin Dugard [snipenekkid, sun surfer, seagull] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
It is rare when a historical narrative keeps readers up late into the night, especially when the story is as well known as Henry Morgan Stanley's search for the missionary and explorer David Livingstone. But author and adventurer Dugard, who's written a biography of Capt. James Cook among other works, makes a suspenseful tale out of journalist Stanley's successful trek through the African interior to find and rescue a stranded Livingstone. Dugan has read extensively in unpublished diaries, newspapers of the time and the archives of Britain's Royal Geographical Society; he also visited the African locations central to the story. Together these sources enable him to re-create with immediacy the astounding hardships, both natural and manmade, that Africa put in the path of the two central characters. Dugard also presents thoughtful insights into the psychology of both Stanley and Livingstone, whose respective responses to Africa could not have differed more. Stanley was bent on beating Africa with sheer force of will, matching it brutality for brutality, while Livingstone, possessed of spirituality and a preternatural absence of any fear of death, responded to the continent's harshness with patience and humility.
[2] American Prometheus by Martin J. Sherwin and Kai Bird [snipenekkid, Hamlet53] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
In American Prometheus , Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin delve deep into J. Robert Oppenheimer's life and deliver a thorough and devastatingly sad biography of the man whose very name has come to represent the culmination of 20th century physics and the irrevocable soiling of science by governments eager to exploit its products.
[2] Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson [snipenekkid, VioletVal] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
As a scientist, Albert Einstein is undoubtedly the most epic among 20th-century thinkers. Albert Einstein as a man, however, has been a much harder portrait to paint, and what we know of him as a husband, father, and friend is fragmentary at best. With Einstein: His Life and Universe , Walter Isaacson (author of the bestselling biographies Benjamin Franklin and Kissinger ) brings Einstein's experience of life, love, and intellectual discovery into brilliant focus. The book is the first biography to tackle Einstein's enormous volume of personal correspondence that heretofore had been sealed from the public, and it's hard to imagine another book that could do such a richly textured and complicated life as Einstein's the same thoughtful justice. Isaacson is a master of the form and this latest opus is at once arresting and wonderfully revelatory. --Anne Bartholomew
[2] Remember Why You Play by David Thomas [jhempel24, stylib38] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
If you enjoyed Friday Night Lights, this book is a must-read. Remember Why You Play documents the lives, struggles, and triumphs of the players and coaches of Faith Christian School in Grapevine, Texas.
Sports columnist and author David Thomas followed the team for a full season, recording a story that will inspire readers to understand that relationships are more important than winning.
One of the key events was a game that Faith Christian played against the Gainesville State Tornadoes, a school for convicted juvenile offenders. The story of this spectacular game is being made into a movie, titled One Heart, with an anticipated release in November 2010. Reminiscent of Hoosiers and Remember the Titans, this true story makes a strong statement about the impact of compassion and sportsmanship.
Every Breath You Take by Ann Rule [hedwig] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
From Booklist:
Well-told true-crime stories, a category that Rule's book certainly falls into, tend to pull readers in hook, line, and sinker. Rule, who has written 16 best-sellers over the past quarter-century, once again gathers her considerable resources, this time, to deliver a troubling but absolutely riveting account of the recent and horrendous murder of a young wife and mother, Sheila Bellush. As astonishing as it sounds, Sheila told her sister, Kerry, that she was in fear for her life and if anything should happen to her, Kerry was to contact Rule; Sheila did not know the author, but she felt Rule would successfully and truthfully investigate her story and broadcast it to the world. The result is a sober, nonsensational account of Sheila's murder, the mind-boggling series of events preceding it, and the nail-biting sequence of twists and turns in the investigation of the crime and the eventual prosecution of her volatile, violent ex-husband. As usual, Rule excels at painting psychologically perceptive portraits of all the characters in this stranger-than-fiction but nevertheless real-life drama. Expect high demand from her many fans. Brad Hooper
Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life by Frances Mayes [arkietech] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
For the lovers of Under the Tuscan Sun there is more! as described in goodreads:
Frances Mayes offers her readers a deeply personal memoir of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the changes she has experienced since Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany appeared, and sensuous, evocative reflections on the timeless beauty and vivid pleasures of Italian life. Among the themes Mayes explores are how her experience of Tuscany dramatically expanded when she renovated and became a part-time resident of a 13th century house with a stone roof in the mountains above Cortona, how life in the mountains introduced her to a "wilder" side of Tuscany--and with it a lively engagement with Tuscany's mountain people. Throughout, she reveals the concrete joys of life in her adopted hill town, with particular attention to life in the piazza, the art of Luca Signorelli (Renaissance painter from Cortona), and the pastoral pleasures of feasting from her garden. Moving always toward a deeper engagement, Mayes writes of Tuscan icons that have become for her storehouses of memory, of crucible moments from which bigger ideas emerged, and of the writing life she has enjoyed in the room where Under the Tuscan Sun began.
With more on the pleasures of life at Bramasole, the delights and challenges of living in Italy day-to-day and favorite recipes, Every Day in Tuscany is a passionate and inviting account of the richness and complexity of Italian life.
* [3] Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne [voodooblues, WT Sharpe, obs20] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
From Amason:
The vast, semi-arid grasslands of the southern Great Plains could be dominated by hunters and warriors on horseback. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the Comanches, often referred to as “lords of the Plains,” were the single most powerful military force in the region, to the frustration of both the Mexican and U.S. governments. In this engrossing chronicle, award-winning journalist Gwynne traces the rise of the Comanche people from their roots as primitive bands of hunter-gatherers to their mastery of the horse and emergence as the feared power brokers of the area. At the center of the narrative is the charismatic Quanah Parker, who skillfully navigated the gaps between his traditional culture and the emerging, settled culture of the late-nineteenth century. Quanah was the son of a Comanche warrior and a woman named Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped at the age of nine and chose to stay with the Comanches. Quanah was a brilliant, feared war chief who guided his people in adapting to new realities after their final suppression by the U.S. Calvary. An outstanding addition to western-history collections. --Jay Freeman
* [3]Progress and Poverty by Henry George [VioletVal, WT Sharpe, beppe] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
From Wikipedia:
Progress and Poverty was written by Henry George in 1879. The book is a treatise on the cyclical nature of an industrial economy and its remedies.
Progress and Poverty seeks to explain why poverty exists notwithstanding widespread advances in technology and even where there is a concentration of great wealth such as in cities.
The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard [issybird] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
The Wiki blurb:
The Worst Journey in the World is a memoir of the 1910-1913 British Antarctic Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott. It was written and published in 1922 by a survivor of the expedition, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, and has earned wide praise for its frank treatment of the difficulties of the expedition, the causes of its disastrous outcome, and the meaning (if any) of human suffering under extreme conditions.
[2] Shake Hands with the Devil by Romeo Dallaire [seagull, lila55] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
When Lt. General Romeo Dallaire received the call to serve as force commander of the UN mission to Rwanda, he thought he was heading off to Africa to help two warring parties achieve a peace both sides wanted. Instead, he and members of his small international force were caught up in a vortex of civil war and genocide. Dallaire left Rwanda a broken man, disillusioned, suicidal, and determined to tell his story. An award-winning international sensation, Shake Hands with the Devil is a landmark contribution to the literature of war: a remarkable tale of a soldier's courage and an unforgettable portrait of modern war. It is also a stinging indictment of the petty bureaucrats who refused to give Dallaire the men and the operational freedom he needed to stop the killing. 'I know there is a God,' Dallaire writes, 'because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists and therefore I know there is a God.
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing [CO'Neil] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
This review is from: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage (Paperback)
This is an absolutely amazing and true accounting of the 1914 Antarctic expedition gone to hell. It is clear that the author did an incredible amount of research, and though this book doesn't read like a novel, its presentation is much more powerful this way, giving a panoramic view of the whole terrible and desperate situation of these men.
I don't have any experience even comparable to what these men went through, the closest I've ever come is rowing down the coast of Maine in the summer in a 30 foot pulling boat, and I'll tell you, this guy gets every detail.
Anyway, an absolutely incredible look at human endurance, at what a person will go through if he must. I definitely recommend this book to everyone.
One note...make sure the version you buy or get at the library has expedition photographer Hurley's photographs in it. Some paperback editions don't, and you're really missing part of the experience without them.
[2] Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami [Latinandgreek, seagull] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
From Wikipedia:
Underground (アンダーグラウンド, Andāguraundo?, 1997–1998) is a book by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami about the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Described as a work of "journalistic literature,"[citation needed] it collects a series of separate interviews Murakami conducted with 60 victims of the attacks and 8 members of Aum, descriptions of how the attacks were carried out, and his essay "Blind Nightmare: Where are we Japanese going?"
Underground was originally published in Japan without the interviews of Aum members – they were published in the magazine Bungei Shunju before being collected in a separate volume, The Place That Was Promised. The English translation combines both books into a single volume, but has been abridged. Underground was translated by Alfred Birnbaum; The Place That Was Promised, by Philip Gabriel.
* [3] - Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton [GA Russell, issybird, jgaiser]
Free in MR Library - upload by Patricia Clark | mobi/PRC | lrf | LIT | IMP | ePub upload by weatherwax | Also @ Project Gutenberg
Spoiler:
Chesterton wrote a book called Heretics. He was criticized for attacking the ideas of others without stating what his own beliefs were. So he wrote Orthodoxy in response.
What I found particularly interesting was that the ideas he was confronting a hundred years ago are alive and well, and perhaps more influential, today.
[2] Just Kids by Patti Smith [Hamlet53, sun surfer] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
[2] The Dark Side The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer [JSWolf, WT Sharpe] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
* [3]The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin [VioletVal, Hamlet53, jgaiser]
Free in the MR Library - uploaded by RWood - Eliot, Charles W. (editor), Harvard Classics 01: Franklin/Woolman/Penn mobi/PRC | IMP | lrf
Spoiler:
Every series has to start somewhere. For this series it is with The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Perhaps one of the greatest US autobiographies ever written. I have read it too many times to count. There are not graphics in this version, there is stand alone version that has many graphics in it.
The Journal of John Woolman, also available as a stand alone version, is the account of an early Quaker and his journey to see the evils of slavery many years before the Civil War.
Some Fruits of Solitude by William Penn is a mine of pithy comment upon human life, which combines with the acute common sense of Franklin the spiritual elevation of Woolman.
Free in the MR Library uploaded by weatherwax ePub
Spoiler:
From Wikipedia:
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears to have called the work his Memoirs. Although it had a tortuous publication history after Franklin's death, this work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of autobiography ever written.
Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath by Michael Norman [jgaiser] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
Here, from Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman, is the story of the worst defeat in American military history, the four-month fight for the tiny peninsula of Bataan in the Philippine Islands – the first major land battle for America in World War II. On April 9, 1942, more than 76,000 men under American command surrendered to their Japanese captors, who set them walking sixty-six miles to prison camp, a notorious walk that came to be known as "The Bataan Death March."
* [3]Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand [edbro, JSWolf, JaneD] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
From Amazon:
From the 1936 Olympics to WWII Japan's most brutal POW camps, Hillenbrand's heart-wrenching new book is thousands of miles and a world away from the racing circuit of her bestselling Seabiscuit. But it's just as much a page-turner, and its hero, Louie Zamperini, is just as loveable: a disciplined champion racer who ran in the Berlin Olympics, he's a wit, a prankster, and a reformed juvenile delinquent who put his thieving skills to good use in the POW camps, In other words, Louie is a total charmer, a lover of life--whose will to live is cruelly tested when he becomes an Army Air Corps bombardier in 1941. The young Italian-American from Torrance, Calif., was expected to be the first to run a four-minute mile. After an astonishing but losing race at the 1936 Olympics, Louie was hoping for gold in the 1940 games. But war ended those dreams forever. In May 1943 his B-24 crashed into the Pacific. After a record-breaking 47 days adrift on a shark-encircled life raft with his pal and pilot, Russell Allen "Phil" Phillips, they were captured by the Japanese. In the "theater of cruelty" that was the Japanese POW camp network, Louie landed in the cruelest theaters of all: Omori and Naoetsu, under the control of Corp. Mutsuhiro Watanabe, a pathologically brutal sadist (called the Bird by camp inmates) who never killed his victims outright--his pleasure came from their slow, unending torment. After one beating, as Watanabe left Louie's cell, Louie saw on his face a "soft languor.... It was an expression of sexual rapture." And Louie, with his defiant and unbreakable spirit, was Watanabe's victim of choice. By war's end, Louie was near death. When Naoetsu was liberated in mid-August 1945, a depleted Louie's only thought was "I'm free! I'm free! I'm free!" But as Hillenbrand shows, Louie was not yet free. Even as, returning stateside, he impulsively married the beautiful Cynthia Applewhite and tried to build a life, Louie remained in the Bird's clutches, haunted in his dreams, drinking to forget, and obsessed with vengeance. In one of several sections where Hillenbrand steps back for a larger view, she writes movingly of the thousands of postwar Pacific PTSD sufferers. With no help for their as yet unrecognized illness, Hillenbrand says, "there was no one right way to peace; each man had to find his own path...." The book's final section is the story of how, with Cynthia's help, Louie found his path. It is impossible to condense the rich, granular detail of Hillenbrand's narrative of the atrocities committed (one man was exhibited naked in a Tokyo zoo for the Japanese to "gawk at his filthy, sore-encrusted body") against American POWs in Japan, and the courage of Louie and his fellow POWs, who made attempts on Watanabe's life, committed sabotage, and risked their own lives to save others. Hillenbrand's triumph is that in telling Louie's story (he's now in his 90s), she tells the stories of thousands whose suffering has been mostly forgotten. She restores to our collective memory this tale of heroism, cruelty, life, death, joy, suffering, remorselessness, and redemption.
* [3]Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal by Rob Riemen [beppe, Latinandgreek, SameOldStory] Inkmesh search
Spoiler:
"Written with such elegance, erudition and skill, a singular reflection of fundamental problems, virtues and vices, of our time."-Ivan Klima (Ivan Klima 20081022) "Rob Riemen's essays spring from a deep and firm conviction-they are like water from artesian wells and this is, I think, the main reason why they are so important and refreshing."-Adam Zagajewski (Adam Zagajewski ) "The author's … more »vast cultural knowledge, his firm commitment to liberal ideals and the agility of his pen make these essays an invaluable guide to orient us amid the great political and cultural problems-and the ideological confusions-of the world in which we live."-Mario Vargas Llosa (Mario Vargas Llosa ) "Rob Riemen has written a rare and much needed book, one which we appreciate not because we necessarily agree with its views, but for its commitment to ideas and its passion for imagination. It is a timely reminder of how imaginative knowledge can become a way of questioning, connecting to and changing the world as well as ourselves."-Azar Nafisi (Azar Nafisi ) "Mr. Riemen's Nobility of Spirit is intended as a meditation on the forces that threaten civilization and, no less important, on the forces that are desperately needed to sustain it."-Darrin M. McMahon, Wall Street Journal (Darrin M. McMahon Wall Street Journal ) "Agree or disagree with Riemen's profound, ambitious and high-minded plea, you will be thinking about his words for a long time. It's been ages since a work of non-fiction moved us this way. Read it."-The Elegant Variation (Blog) ( The Elegant Variation (Blog) ) In the pages of this slim, powerful book Rob Riemen argues with passion that “nobility of spirit” is the quintessence of a civilized world. It is, as Thomas Mann believed, the sole corrective for human history. Without nobility of spirit, culture vanishes. Yet in the early twenty-first century, a time when human dignity and freedom are imperiled, the concept of nobility of spirit is scarcely considered. Riemen insists that if we hope to move beyond the war on terror and create a life-affirming culture, we must address timeless but neglected questions: What is a good society? Why art? Why culture? What is the responsibility of intellectuals? Why anti-Americanism? Why nihilism? Why the cult of death of fundamentalists? In a series of three essays, the author identifies nobility of spirit in the life and work of Baruch Spinoza and of Thomas Mann; explores the quest for the good society in our own time; and addresses the pursuit of truth and freedom that engaged figures as disparate as Socrates and Leone Ginzburg, a Jewish Italian intellectual murdered by Nazis. “The forces now aligned against humanistic values are manifold,” observes George Steiner in the foreword to the book. In this imaginative and compelling volume, Riemen addresses these forces and speaks to every reader who believes in the power of classical ideas to restore Western civilization’s highest values. (20080610) (from Amazon.com)
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman [obs20] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
“Fascinating . . . One of the finest works of history written . . . A splendid and glittering performance.” – The New York Times “MORE DRAMATIC THAN FICTION . . . A MAGNIFICENT NARRATIVE . . . elegantly phrased, skillfully paced and sustained . . . The product of painstaking and sophisticated research.” – Chicago Tribune “A BRILLIANT PIECE OF MILITARY HISTORY which proves up to the hilt the … more »force of Winston Churchill’s statement that the first month of World War I was ‘a drama never surpassed.’ A writer with an impeccable sense of telling detail, Mrs. Tuchman is able to evoke both the enormous pattern of the tragedy and the minutiae which make it human.” – Newsweek “[A] BEAUTIFULLY ORGANIZED, COMPELLING NARRATIVE.” – San Francisco Chronicle “AN EPIC NEVER FLAGGING IN SUSPENSE . . . It seemed hardly possible that anything new of significance could be said about the prelude to and the first month of World War I. But this is exactly what Mrs. Tuchman has succeeded in doing . . . by transforming the drama’s protagonists as well as its immense supporting cast, from half-legendary and half shadowy figures into full-dimensional, believable persons.” – The Christian Science Monitor “EXCELLENT . . . [ The Guns of August ] has a vitality that transcends its narrative virtues.” – The Wall Street Journal From the Paperback edition. Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman has brought to life again the people and events that led up to Worl War I. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledge of her subject and its characters, Ms. Tuchman reveals, for the first time, just how the war started, why, and why it could have been stopped but wasn't. A classic historical survey of a time and a people we all need to know more about, THE GUNS OF AUGUST will not be forgotten. Note: This edition does not include the photo insert. (from Amazon.com)
Godless by Ann Coulter [THE TERMINATOR] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
"If a martian landed in America and set out to determine the nation's official state religion, he would have to conclude it is liberalism, while Christianity and Judaism are prohibited by law. Many Americans are outraged by liberal hostility to traditional religion. But as Ann Coulter reveals in this, her most explosive book yet, to focus solely on the Left's attacks on our Judeo-Christian … more »tradition is to miss a larger point: liberalism is a religion—a godless one. And it is now entrenched as the state religion of this county. Though liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, it bears all the attributes of a religion. In Godless , Coulter throws open the doors of the Church of Liberalism, showing us its sacraments (abortion), its holy writ ( Roe v. Wade ), its martyrs (from Soviet spy Alger Hiss to cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal), its clergy (public school teachers), its churches (government schools, where prayer is prohibited but condoms are free), its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the "absolute moral authority" of spokesmen from Cindy Sheehan to Max Cleland), and its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident). Then, of course, there's the liberal creation myth: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. For liberals, evolution is the touchstone that separates the enlightened from the benighted. But Coulter neatly reverses the pretense that liberals are rationalists guided by the ideals of free inquiry and the scientific method. She exposes the essential truth about Darwinian evolution that liberals refuse to confront: it is bogus science . Writing with a keen appreciation for genuine science, Coulter reveals that the so-called gaps in the theory of evolution are all there is—Darwinism is nothing but a gap. After 150 years of dedicated searching into the fossil record, evolution's proponents have failed utterly to substantiate its claims. And a long line of supposed evidence, from the infamous Piltdown Man to the "evolving" peppered moths of England, has been exposed as hoaxes. Still, liberals treat those who question evolution as religious heretics and prohibit students from hearing about real science when it contradicts Darwinism. And these are the people who say they want to keep faith out of the classroom? Liberals' absolute devotion to Darwinism, Coulter shows, has nothing to do with evolution's scientific validity and everything to do with its refusal to admit the possibility of God as a guiding force. They will brook no challenges to the official religion. Fearlessly confronting the high priests of the Church of Liberalism and ringing with Coulter's razor-sharp wit, Godless is the most important and riveting book yet from one of today's most lively and impassioned conservative voices. "Liberals love to boast that they are not 'religious,' which is what one would expect to hear from the state-sanctioned religion. Of course liberalism is a religion. It has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own high priests, its own saints, its own total worldview, and its own explanation of the existence of the universe. In other words, liberalism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as 'religion.'" —From Godless From the Hardcover edition. Ann Coulter is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, including How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) , Treason, Slander, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors . From the Trade Paperback edition. (from Amazon.com
[2] What Am I Doing Here? by Bruce Chatwin [beppe, sun surfer] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
This is the last of Bruce Chatwin's works to be published while he was still alive (he penned the introduction in 1988, a few months before he died). It's a collection of Chatwin gems--profiles, essays, and travel stories that span the world, from trekking in Nepal and sailing down the Volga to working on a film with Werner Herzog in Ghana and traveling with Indira Gandhi in India. Chatwin … more »excels, as usual, in the finely honed tale. Whether he is cruising down the Volga, gauging the effects of French colonialism in Algeria or searching for the Yeti ("Abominable Snowman") in the Himalayas, Chatwin, who died recently, exudes natural curiosity and a nose for adventure. By the author of In Patagonia and The Songlines , this mosaic of travelogues, profiles, semi-fictionalized stories and fragments is an endless feast, rich in small discoveries and larger perceptions of the world. In India, Chatwin investigates the case of a "wolf-boy" who survived years living in the wild. In Hong Kong he meets a geomancer, who determines the best site for a building or a marriage bed by aligning it with the Earth's "dragon-lines." There are pieces on art auctioneering, nomads, Afghanistan, a California LSD guru who thinks he's the Savior, power politics in ancient China. There are also perceptive encounters with filmmaker Werner Herzog, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Indira Gandhi, Andre Malraux, couturier Madeleine Vionnet and many others. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. (from Amazon.com)
* [3] Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff [JaneD, voodoo_pepperweb, Latinandgreek] Inkmesh searchMay not be available internationally
Spoiler:
The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer brings to life the most intriguing woman in the history of the world: Cleopatra the last queen of Egypt. Her palace shimmered with onyx garnets and gold but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years it reshaped the … more »contours of the ancient world. She was married twice each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well; incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen however to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar and--after his murder--three more with his protégé. Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt to forge a new empire in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since. Famous long before she was notorious Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo Tiepolo and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way Cleopatra's supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail epic in scope Schiff 's is a luminous deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life. (from Kobo)
Last edited by dreams; 03-02-2011 at 12:28 AM.
Reason: Updated up to & including Post #77.
That's because Pride and Prejudice didn't win the vote... A Room with a View won.
If you are in the reading recommendations forum and you select the "Book Club" pre-fix in the filter section you can see all the book club threads. All the discussion threads start with "Discussion". We don't open threads for EVERY book that makes the poll.
Of course, there is nothing stopping you from opening a thread about Pride and Prejudice... it just wouldn't be tagged "book club".
while that kinda sucks, not sure if this was a condtion of the recommendations. Remember veeeeehafffourvays. Even a large number of PD books are technically copyright violations if downloaded by people in other countries. I don't see how people can ensure every book recommended is available to everyone without some sort of slight-of-hand to allow a person to buy them.
Device: Paperwhite, Kindles 10 & 4 and jetBook Lite
I nominate Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton. I read it recently, and need to read it again to absorb it all!
Chesterton wrote a book called Heretics. He was criticized for attacking the ideas of others without stating what his own beliefs were. So he wrote Orthodoxy in response.
What I found particularly interesting was that the ideas he was confronting a hundred years ago are alive and well, and perhaps more influential, today.
Orthodoxy is available from the MobileRead library, and was uploaded by our dear Patricia Clark.
I can't second anything, I did not realize it was a nominate or second/third deal, d'oh!! Otherwise I would second Orthodoxy because, well, it has be quite intrigued!! Either way I know I have two new titles for my "BUY" list, thanks no matter what!
Outstanding, I totally missed the books being in Patricia's Memorial Library here on MR....toddling off to d/l them bot now then!! YIPPIE, I love when a plan comes together. Now as to when I will get around to reading either, sigh, I have a good decade worth of books I MUST read before I croak. But I am gonna take my Kindle with me dagnabit!!
Last edited by snipenekkid; 02-24-2011 at 06:42 PM.
02-24-2011, 01:26 PM
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Even a large number of PD books are technically copyright violations if downloaded by people in other countries. I don't see how people can ensure every book recommended is available to everyone without some sort of slight-of-hand to allow a person to buy them.
Now as to when I will get around to reading either, sigh, I have a good decade worth of books I MUST read before I croak. But I am gonna take my Kindle with me dagnabit!! 
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