MobileRead February 2014 Book Club Nominations

[SeaWolf]

I've seen the film of Never Let Me Go but not read the book yet, so I'll third that one.

Also, two new nominations. To add some variety I've nominated two books about same-sex romances.

Latakia by JF Smith
Amazon AU SmashWords

Spoiler:

Matthew likes his life in Richmond. He has his friends and his softball and his volunteer work. And he has a very good-looking boyfriend, Brian, who he’s been happily dating for over a year now. So what if his friends tend to question just how good his boyfriend is, and so what if Brian tends to have inexplicable mood swings. And so what if Brian seems to invite Matt’s suspicions on occasion. If he just shows a little faith and trust, he’ll appreciate what he has with Brian the way he should. Right?

But suddenly, Matt finds himself in a desperate life-or-death situation on a trip overseas, and he realizes just how much he misses home, and Brian. He’s luckily rescued by a team of US Spec-Ops Forces, only to find out they’re a bunch of bigoted jerks. Worse, a quirk of his situation forces him to spend time with them that he’d rather not. And that’s when he finds out that first impressions can be misleading. When called upon, he steps up when every fiber of his being tells him not to, and discovers something deep inside himself that he didn’t realize was even there. And his life will never be the same. He finds that he can, after all, make some very overdue changes in his own life.

What Matt doesn’t realize is that the bond of brotherhood runs both ways. And he winds up changing the lives of several of the men on that Spec-Ops team as much as they changed his.

All it takes is faith and trust.

Tigers and Devils by Sean Kennedy
Amazon AU

Spoiler:

The most important things in Simon Murray’s life are football, friends, and film—in that order. His friends despair of him ever meeting someone, but despite his loneliness, Simon is cautious about looking for more. Then his best friends drag him to a party, where he barges into a football conversation and ends up defending the honour of star forward Declan Tyler—unaware that the athlete is present. In that first awkward meeting, neither man has any idea they will change each other's lives forever.

Like his entire family, Simon revels in living in Melbourne, the home of Australian Rules football and mecca for serious fans. There, players are treated like gods—until they do something to fall out of public favour. This year, the public is taking Declan to task for suffering injuries outside his control, so Simon's support is a bright spot.

But as Simon and Declan fumble toward a relationship, keeping Declan's homosexuality a secret from well-meaning friends and an increasingly suspicious media becomes difficult. Nothing can stay hidden forever. Soon Declan will have to choose between the career he loves and the man he wants, and Simon has never been known to make things easy—for himself or for others.

[jj2me]

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

I'll nominate Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan.

It's a gentle, beautiful, and moving time-slip romance between two people living in different eras.

The film with Joseph Cotton and Jennifer Jones is justly famous, but the book is even more engaging.

I nominated this once before but I believe it was more than 6 months ago.


It's available at Amazon UK here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...rait+of+Jennie

and for Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Portrait-Jenni...rait+of+Jennie

Seconded. Short month, short book. 4.8 stars(!) on Amazon U.S., nothing less than a 4-star review.

(Besides, my favorite all-time movie is "Somewhere in Time.")

[issybird]

Third Portrait of Jennie.

Second I Capture the Castle.

[ccowie]

I'm new to book club, but I'm looking forward to participating. I've not read much romance - never been interested. But, having read through the spoilers I'm surprised by the range of material there. I've read The English Patient, but none of the others.

I'd like to second Local Custom.

[Synamon]

I'll third Behold, Here's Poison.

This has been nominated before for Romance month, but never won. I enjoyed it tremendously, so I'll nominate The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Originally Posted by Goodreads

Audrey Niffenegger's dazzling debut is the story of Clare, a beautiful, strong-minded art student, and Henry, an adventuresome librarian, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-three and Henry thirty-one. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: his genetic clock randomly resets and he finds himself misplaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. His disappearances are spontaneous and unpredictable, and lend a spectacular urgency to Clare and Henry's unconventional love story. That their attempt to live normal lives together is threatened by something they can neither prevent nor control makes their story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.

[issybird]

Second The Time Traveler's Wife.

[yekim54]

Third The Time Traveler's Wife

[sqdancer]

Third I Capture the Castle

[Dazrin]

I will third Local Custom. I am not a big fan of romances, but I did like the first Liaden book, so this one is worth a try.

[Rizla]

In the Skin of a Lion and Coming through Slaughter are superior to The English Patient.

Never Let Me Go is a good book though. I'll nominate it.

[WT Sharpe]

The Time Traveler's Wife is still not available as an e-book, due to the fact that the author, Audrey Niffenegger, hates e-books and steadfastly refuses to go along with the program.

EDIT: Scratch that. It appears that there is one source now:

https://zolabooks.com/book/the-time-...-wife/overview

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by ccowie

I'm new to book club, but I'm looking forward to participating. I've not read much romance - never been interested. But, having read through the spoilers I'm surprised by the range of material there...

That's an interesting thing about this club - basically every month the nominations are so diverse within whatever the monthly category is, so it's always fun to see what everyone comes up with.

Originally Posted by SeaWolf

Tigers and Devils by Sean Kennedy
Amazon AU

Spoiler:

The most important things in Simon Murray’s life are football, friends, and film—in that order. His friends despair of him ever meeting someone, but despite his loneliness, Simon is cautious about looking for more. Then his best friends drag him to a party, where he barges into a football conversation and ends up defending the honour of star forward Declan Tyler—unaware that the athlete is present. In that first awkward meeting, neither man has any idea they will change each other's lives forever.

Like his entire family, Simon revels in living in Melbourne, the home of Australian Rules football and mecca for serious fans. There, players are treated like gods—until they do something to fall out of public favour. This year, the public is taking Declan to task for suffering injuries outside his control, so Simon's support is a bright spot.

But as Simon and Declan fumble toward a relationship, keeping Declan's homosexuality a secret from well-meaning friends and an increasingly suspicious media becomes difficult. Nothing can stay hidden forever. Soon Declan will have to choose between the career he loves and the man he wants, and Simon has never been known to make things easy—for himself or for others.

This looks interesting but I'm out of votes. I don't think I've ever read a straight romance book (and by straight I mean fits squarely into the contemporary romance genre, though the pun/double entendre is intended ), and I've definitely never read a gay purely romance book, and I like the Australian setting and the football theme, so I'd give it a go.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Rizla

In the Skin of a Lion and Coming through Slaughter are superior to The English Patient.

Never Let Me Go is a good book though. I'll nominate it.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro has already been fully nominated, unless you're speaking of another book of the same name by a different author.

Sitting this one out. Romances are not my thing and any input from me would serve to shift it from the intended sort of book.

[drofgnal]

I'm a little late to this but I'll put this forward anyway as it's a fantastic book. The Plum Tree by Ellen Marie Wiseman, her debut novel.

Spoiler:

"This title is an extraordinary debut novel in which the author's childhood trips visiting family in Germany impart a heartbreaking realism. A Holocaust story told from the unlikely perspective of a German teenage girl in love with a Jewish boy, it explores the horrors and fears of innocent citizens on the homefront, as well as the risks they were willing to take to do the right thing. Ultimately a story of human survival and enduring love despite insurmountable odds, it's an original and important addition to the World War II canon."- RT Book Reviews, 4.5 stars, TOP PICK!