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WT Sharpe 12-20-2014 10:57 AM

January 2015 VOTE
 
MobileRead Book Club
January 2015
VOTE


Help us select the next book that the MobileRead Book Club will read for January, 2014.

Book selection category for January is:

Second Chance

There will be no nominations this month. The way Second Chance works is that the poll is comprised of selections that either came in second place or tied for second place during the previous 11 months.

The poll will be open for 5 days. There will be no runoff vote unless the voting results a tie, in which case there will be a 3 day run-off poll. This is a visible poll: others can see how you voted. It is http://wtsharpe3.com/Pictures/Multiple-Choice_C3.gif You may cast a vote for each book that appeals to you. Here are the selections you will be considering:

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Cocaine Blues (Phryne Fisher #1) by Kerry Greenwood
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
The Giver by Lois Lowry
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
The Iron King by Maurice Druon
The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

<><><> Descriptions <><><>

February: Romance
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Zola (Exclusive)
Spoiler:
Full Description (from Zola):

The Time Traveler’s Wife, one of the best romance books of all time, is now available as an eBook!

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.

Plus, the long-awaited sequel to Audrey Niffenegger’s time-traveling love story is finally here!

The ebook includes the first 25 pages of Niffeneger’s sequel featuring Henry and Clare’s daughter, Alba. Gifted with Clare’s beauty and Henry’s unique abilities, Alba finds herself caught between her real-time husband, Zach, and her other husband, Oliver, a fellow time-traveler and musician.

Get your ebook today and dive into this classic romance novel. Find the rest of Audrey Niffenegger’s books here and more of the best love story books. Shop eBooks today!


March: Travel/Adventure
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Amazon Ca / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Kobo
Spoiler:
From National Geographic:

With all the flash and fireworks of Wolfe's writing, it's easy to overlook that, at bottom, he's a great reporter. And this long and intimate look into the lives, minds, and deeds of the men who rode the first American rockets into space remains Wolfe's best book and the first true classic from the dawn of space exploration. The race with the Russians, the dauntless Chuck Yeager—Wolfe piles story upon story, and the pile glows.
Bantam, 1996.


April: Classics
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: Oz Omnibus: BBeB/LRF (Illustrated) / ePub / Kindle / Kindle (Illustrated)
Spoiler:
We all know and love the movie, but as we all know "the book is always better than the movie". Let's find out if that is true and discuss together...


May: Mystery/Thriller
Cocaine Blues (Phryne Fisher #1) by Kerry Greenwood
Amazon US / Kobo
Spoiler:
The Amazon description:
From Publishers Weekly
The growing American audience for Phryne Fisher, Australian author Greenwood's independent 1920s female sleuth, will be delighted that her diverting first mystery is finally available in the U.S. Fisher's off-the-cuff solving of a high society jewel theft leads her to her first professional engagement when a witness to her brilliance asks her to investigate a possible poisoning-in-progress. The detective's admirable willingness to intervene to help those in distress involves her in a variety of other puzzles, including identifying the King of Snow, who has taken over the Melbourne drug trade. Many of the members of Fisher's entourage familiar from later novels make their debuts as well.

From Booklist
Australian Greenwood has been exporting her outstanding Phryne Fisher series to the U.S. for the past several years, but the books haven't arrived in chronological order. Finally, we have the series debut, which explains how the irrepressible flapper (the series is set in the 1920s) became a detective. Phryne fans will relish the chance to see how beloved characters like Bert, Cec, Dot, and Inspector Robinson wandered into Phryne's life, and newcomers will enjoy getting to know ultrafashionable Phryne, who's wealthy enough to do whatever she wants but whose previous poverty has created a strong empathy for the working class. In Melbourne to investigate the mysterious illness of the daughter of a family friend, Phryne stumbles into a case involving two of the 1920s' signature evils: cocaine and back-alley abortions. Banding together with a crew of colorful local characters, and finding time to indulge in some erotic fun with a sexy Russian dancer, Phryne soon leaves her mark on Melbourne. From beginning to end, Greenwood infuses her series with evocative settings, multidimensional characters, and satisfying mysteries.


June: Award Winners
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
Amazon US
Spoiler:
In one of Robert Heinlein's most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe--and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind's most frightening enemy.


July: Non-fiction
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin
Amazon Au / Amazon Ca / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Google Play
Spoiler:
Amazon.com Review
Oliver Sacks on Your Inner Fish:
(Since the 1970 publication of Migraine, neurologist Oliver Sacks's unusual and fascinating case histories of "differently brained" people and phenomena—a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome, a community of people born totally colorblind, musical hallucinations, to name a few--have been marked by extraordinary compassion and humanity, focusing on the patient as much as the condition. His books include The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Awakenings (which inspired the Oscar-nominated film), and 2007's Musicophilia. He lives in New York City, where he is Professor of Clinical Neurology at Columbia University.)

Your Inner Fish is my favorite sort of book—an intelligent, exhilarating, and compelling scientific adventure story, one which will change forever how you understand what it means to be human.

The field of evolutionary biology is just beginning an exciting new age of discovery, and Neil Shubin's research expeditions around the world have redefined the way we now look at the origins of mammals, frogs, crocodiles, tetrapods, and sarcopterygian fish—and thus the way we look at the descent of humankind. One of Shubin's groundbreaking discoveries, only a year and a half ago, was the unearthing of a fish with elbows and a neck, a long-sought evolutionary "missing link" between creatures of the sea and land-dwellers.

My own mother was a surgeon and a comparative anatomist, and she drummed it into me, and into all of her students, that our own anatomy is unintelligible without a knowledge of its evolutionary origins and precursors. The human body becomes infinitely fascinating with such knowledge, which Shubin provides here with grace and clarity. Your Inner Fish shows us how, like the fish with elbows, we carry the whole history of evolution within our own bodies, and how the human genome links us with the rest of life on earth.

Shubin is not only a distinguished scientist, but a wonderfully lucid and elegant writer; he is an irrepressibly enthusiastic teacher whose humor and intelligence and spellbinding narrative make this book an absolute delight. Your Inner Fish is not only a great read; it marks the debut of a science writer of the first rank.


August: Science Fiction
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Kobo
Spoiler:
The Time Traveller, a dreamer obsessed with traveling through time, builds himself a time machine and, much to his surprise, travels over 800,000 years into the future. He lands in the year 802701: the world has been transformed by a society living in apparent harmony and bliss, but as the Traveler stays in the future he discovers a hidden barbaric and depraved subterranean class. Wells's transparent commentary on the capitalist society was an instant bestseller and launched the time-travel genre.


September: Banned/Challenged Books
The Giver by Lois Lowry (Tie for 2nd place)
Amazon US / Goodreads
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:

Jonas' world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear or pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the Community. When Jonas turns twelve, he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back.


To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Tie for 2nd place)
Amazon Ca / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Angus & Robertson / B&N / Google Play / Kobo US / Overdrive
Spoiler:
Harper Lee's Pulitzer prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep south—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred, available now for the first time as an e-book.

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father-a crusading local lawyer-risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.


October: Patricia Clark Memorial Library
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
The Patricia Clark Memorial Library: EPub | Kindle
Spoiler:
No synopsis given.


November: Foreign (originally non-English)
The Iron King by Maurice Druon
Amazon US / Kobo CA / Kobo US / Overdrive
Spoiler:
Goodreads blurb:

The Iron King – Philip the Fair – is as cold and silent, as handsome and unblinking as a statue. He governs his realm with an iron hand, but he cannot rule his own family: his sons are weak and their wives adulterous; while his red-blooded daughter Isabella is unhappily married to an English king who prefers the company of men.

A web of scandal, murder and intrigue is weaving itself around the Iron King; but his downfall will come from an unexpected quarter. Bent on the persecution of the rich and powerful Knights Templar, Philip sentences Grand Master Jacques de Molay to be burned at the stake, thus drawing down upon himself a curse that will destroy his entire dynasty

Originally published in 1955 in French.


December: Short Stories
The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub (Complete Works) / LibriVox (Audiobook) / Project Gutenberg (Various Formats)
Spoiler:
From LibriVox:

The American Minister and his family have bought the English stately home Canterville Chase, complete with the ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville - blood-stains, clanking chains and all. But these modern Americans will have no truck with ghostly goings-on, and set out to beat the spectre at his own game. (Summary by David Barnes)

WT Sharpe 12-20-2014 11:01 AM

Wondering if a particular book is available in your country? The following spoiler contains a list of bookstores outside the United States you can search. If you don't see a bookstore on this list for your country, find one that is, send me the link via PM, and I'll add it to the list.

Spoiler:
Australian
Angus Robertson
Booktopia
Borders
Dymocks
Fishpond
Google

Canada
Amazon. Make sure you are logged out. Then go to the Kindle Store. Search for a book. After the search results come up, in the upper right corner of the screen, change the country to Canada and search away.
Google
Sony eBookstore (Upper right corner switch to/from US/CA)

UK
BooksOnBoard (In the upper right corner is a way to switch to the UK store)
Amazon
Foyle's
Google
Penguin
Random House
Waterstones
WH Smith

GA Russell 12-20-2014 11:39 AM

First!

Hamlet53 12-20-2014 01:54 PM

Wish that I could cast multiple votes for Your Inner Fish. :D

crich70 12-20-2014 01:57 PM

Not sure if I'm 2nd or 3rd. lol.

obs20 12-20-2014 04:43 PM

I'd like to read The Time Traveler's Wife but Zola doesn't give much information on their website on how to use it.

WT Sharpe 12-20-2014 04:46 PM

There were five books on that list for which I didn't vote for no better reason than that I'd already read them: The Time Traveler's Wife, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Cocaine Blues, The War of the Worlds, and The Canterville Ghost.

WT Sharpe 12-20-2014 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by obs20 (Post 3007419)
I'd like to read The Time Traveler's Wife but Zola doesn't give much information on their website on how to use it.

Ms. Niffenegger has never been known to be a great fan of e-books. I can't get the site to render correctly.

WT Sharpe 12-20-2014 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by obs20 (Post 3007419)
I'd like to read The Time Traveler's Wife but Zola doesn't give much information on their website on how to use it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe (Post 3007428)
Ms. Niffenegger has never been known to be a great fan of e-books. I can't get the site to render correctly.

Try the link now. I changed it from https://zolabooks.com/book/the-time-travelers-wife/overview to https://www.zolabooks.com/book/9781939126016/.

obs20 12-20-2014 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe (Post 3007431)
Try the link now. I changed it from https://zolabooks.com/book/the-time-travelers-wife/overview to https://www.zolabooks.com/book/9781939126016/.

What device can I read their books on? I have a Nook glow which will read epub and a Kindle basic and Fire phone. I also have a 10 inch android tablet which will probably work with it but I generally find it too large for comfortable reading. There is always the paperback.

WT Sharpe 12-20-2014 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by obs20 (Post 3007457)
What device can I read their books on? I have a Nook glow which will read epub and a Kindle basic and Fire phone. I also have a 10 inch android tablet which will probably work with it but I generally find it too large for comfortable reading. There is always the paperback.

Evidently you need to download their app for Apple or Android and read it on one of those platforms.

https://www.zolabooks.com/get-the-app/

JSWolf 12-20-2014 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe (Post 3007470)
Evidently you need to download their app for Apple or Android and read it on one of those platforms.

https://www.zolabooks.com/get-the-app/

Because of this, if The Time Traveler's Wife wins, I will not read it. I will not read any eBook where I need an iPad app to read it.

WT Sharpe 12-21-2014 12:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf (Post 3007568)
Because of this, if The Time Traveler's Wife wins, I will not read it. I will not read any eBook where I need an iPad app to read it.


You can also read it on Android devices with the Zola app for Android.

I suspect, but don't know, that the format is something related to PDF format. The reason I suspect this is because Ms. Niffenegger is a visual artist and much of her well-known animosity to e-books seems to stem from the way eInk e-book readers render visuals.

WT Sharpe 12-21-2014 10:37 AM

Look at that spread. I think this one's going down to the wire.

HomeInMyShoes 12-22-2014 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe (Post 3007670)
You can also read it on Android devices with the Zola app for Android.

I suspect, but don't know, that the format is something related to PDF format. The reason I suspect this is because Ms. Niffenegger is a visual artist and much of her well-known animosity to e-books seems to stem from the way eInk e-book readers render visuals.

I voted for it because there happens to be my wife's copy sitting on the shelf here so it would be a free read and I've been tempted to read it before. Had I checked the availability issues I would not have voted for it.

sun surfer 12-22-2014 01:05 PM

I started reading The Iron King earlier this month without realising it'd be a candidate for the second chance month poll. I'm enjoying it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe (Post 3007873)
Look at that spread. I think this one's going down to the wire.

Looking at the end date, it'll be a Christmas surprise then!

treadlightly 12-22-2014 01:41 PM

The Iron King is on sale now for $2.99 in the Kobo CA store.

CRussel 12-22-2014 01:55 PM

Even though I've read Cocaine Blues, the first book in the wonderful Phryne Fisher series, I voted for it because this would present an excellent reason to do another pass through this series. Plus, since all the books are also available from Audible, read by Stephanie Daniel, this will give me an alternate way to read the series. (I've sampled the narration, and found it excellent, btw.)

HomeInMyShoes 12-23-2014 12:24 PM

We need one more vote for Starship Troopers.

Just saying.

WT Sharpe 12-23-2014 12:40 PM

Military sci-fi looks to be the least interesting choice.

Well, this sucks. December 23 is no time to have the batteries in the keyboard die only to discover that the family has completely devoured that large stack of AA cells you thought you had. Good thing I have a touchscreen monitor.

issybird 12-23-2014 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes (Post 3009572)
We need one more vote for Starship Troopers.

Just saying.

Heh. Of those I haven't read, I voted for half and not Heinlein!

HomeInMyShoes 12-23-2014 02:35 PM

Oddly enough, I've read To Kill a Mockingbird, but I voted for it. Weirdness. I almost never read things again.

My vested interest is that Heinlein would count as a second chance author as well as a book club read for next year's challenges. :)

Hamlet53 12-23-2014 02:51 PM

As things are shaping up I wish that I'd cast a vote for To Kill a Mockingbird, though I have read it multiple times. I also read Starship Troopers in my younger Sci-Fi fan days. Typical Heinlein. :rolleyes: Can't say I'm sorry to see a couple of tired old books by H. G. Wells perhaps falling by the wayside.

sun surfer 12-23-2014 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe (Post 3009584)
Military sci-fi looks to be the least interesting choice.

Well, this sucks. December 23 is no time to have the batteries in the keyboard die only to discover that the family has completely devoured that large stack of AA cells you thought you had. Good thing I have a touchscreen monitor.

Have you ever tried rechargeables? I love them - they're better for the environment and save me money.

issybird 12-23-2014 03:23 PM

Mockingbird is a must read if you haven't, so I get using the club as a club. But having also read it multiple times, I don't care to revisit; I feel as if I wouldn't have anything fresh or interesting to say about it. I'm minded of Scout's comment, "Maycomb was a tired old town." For me, Mockingbird is a tired old book. I'd rather reread Wells. :rolleyes:

HomeInMyShoes 12-23-2014 03:52 PM

^That's saying a lot. I liked both of the Wells titles, but I don't want to revisit them. I read Mockingbird so long ago (more than 20 years probably) that it would be pretty fresh for me.

I'm a little disappointed that Inner Fish isn't doing better, but then non-fiction always seems to fall by the wayside in the second chance competition.

WT Sharpe 12-24-2014 03:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sun surfer (Post 3009703)
Have you ever tried rechargeables? I love them - they're better for the environment and save me money.

It might be a good idea to keep a couple on hand; I have a charger. Batteries tend to last so long in devices these days that it's easy to forget them until they die.

crich70 12-24-2014 04:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe (Post 3010134)
It might be a good idea to keep a couple on hand; I have a charger. Batteries tend to last so long in devices these days that it's easy to forget them until they die.

We do take things for granted now days. I remember last time we had a power outage here I knew the power was off but when I would enter a room where there was no light my hand automatically went to the light switch.

WT Sharpe 12-24-2014 11:15 AM

The day before the poll closes and it's looking like we may have an unprecedented four-way run-off. We now have four books tied for first place.

crich70 12-24-2014 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe (Post 3010385)
The day before the poll closes and it's looking like we may have an unprecedented four-way run-off. We now have four books tied for first place.

Come on Starship Troopers! :rofl:

caleb72 12-24-2014 07:33 PM

I only just read Startship Troopers a while ago and loved it. However, I almost wouldn't call it military sci-fi. There was very little action (or at least significantly less than in the movie).

It was almost like an exploration of military psychology with a dose of conservative political views. I ended up buying the paperback for my Dad for Christmas as I thought he'd probably like it.

sun surfer 12-25-2014 12:28 AM

Merry Christmas! :xmas:

I just finished The Iron King and in my opinion it has good material for an interesting discussion. I listened to it and Peter Joyce is a good narrator that really fits the story well, if anyone else is interested in the audiobook. Next up on the listening front for me is Sissy Spacek reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Never read it before so I'm excited to finally get this one crossed off.

It's serendipity for me if either win. I had already planned to listen to them, the reason being that I'm trying to finish a few subgoals for my reading challenge before the end of the year and one of them is to read club nominees from July-December that didn't win. I needed two more but I have other books taking up my actual reading so I decided to use audiobooks for this which limited my options. Because of that I had to set aside a few others I was considering that didn't have audiobooks but luckily I was interested in these two and they worked perfectly, and to find both are nominees for second chance month is an added bonus!

I'm also interested in The Time Machine and haven't ever read it either, so I'm good with any of those three winning. Starship Troopers on the other hand... :D

Hamlet53 12-25-2014 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sun surfer (Post 3010786)
Merry Christmas! :xmas:

I just finished The Iron King and in my opinion it has good material for an interesting discussion. I listened to it and Peter Joyce is a good narrator that really fits the story well, if anyone else is interested in the audiobook. Next up on the listening front for me is Sissy Spacek reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Never read it before so I'm excited to finally get this one crossed off.

It's serendipity for me if either win. I had already planned to listen to them, the reason being that I'm trying to finish a few subgoals for my reading challenge before the end of the year and one of them is to read club nominees from July-December that didn't win. I needed two more but I have other books taking up my actual reading so I decided to use audiobooks for this which limited my options. Because of that I had to set aside a few others I was considering that didn't have audiobooks but luckily I was interested in these two and they worked perfectly, and to find both are nominees for second chance month is an added bonus!

I'm also interested in The Time Machine and haven't ever read it either, so I'm good with any of those three winning. Starship Troopers on the other hand... :D

So is The Iron King historical fiction. That is taking real people and events and weaving a fictional story out of that material?

WT Sharpe 12-25-2014 01:59 PM

January 2015 VOTE
 
A FOUR WAY TIE!!!!! I'm away from my computer at the moment, and setting up a poll on an iPad isn't the easiest task in the world, so it will be a while before I post the runoff vote, but barring unforeseen circumstances, it will be posted before midnight tonight, EST. ;) :)

WT Sharpe 12-25-2014 05:46 PM

I'm Baaaaack. And the 3-day run-off poll is here. :)

sun surfer 12-26-2014 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hamlet53 (Post 3010998)
So is The Iron King historical fiction. That is taking real people and events and weaving a fictional story out of that material?

Yes, it's historical fiction. It's set in the early 1300's under the reign of Philip IV, also known as Philip the Fair or the Iron King, who was very handsome but also very cold and hard. He was ambitious and had been successful in centralising his power over many feudal regions, though he was susceptible to large debts that he dealt with in...creative ways. His daughter Isabella was married to the king of England and was therefore queen of England even though her husband may have been more interested in men. His three sons were all married but there was worry about a lack of male heirs and questions about the parentage of female heirs.

There was a lot of interesting stuff going on at the time, including the French Inquisition, a papacy based in France whom Philip had influence over, the persecution of the Knights Templar and scandalous accusations within the royal family. The novel follows a cast of characters from different social strata though they're all in some way related to the central royal plot.


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