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WT Sharpe 05-27-2015 01:11 AM

June 2015 Book Club Vote
 
June 2015 MobileRead Book Club Vote



Help us choose a book as the June 2015 eBook for the MobileRead Book Club. 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.



We will start the discussion thread for this book on June 20th. Select from the following Official Choices with three nominations each:



The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Goodreads | Amazon US

Spoiler:
Winner of the Mythopoeic Award in 2014 for Adult Literature.

[/I]From Amazon:[/I]

Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master, the husband who commissioned her, dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York in 1899.

Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop. Though he is no longer imprisoned, Ahmad is not entirely free – an unbreakable band of iron binds him to the physical world.

The Golem and the Jinni is their magical, unforgettable story; unlikely friends whose tenuous attachment challenges their opposing natures – until the night a terrifying incident drives them back into their separate worlds. But a powerful threat will soon bring Chava and Ahmad together again, challenging their existence and forcing them to make a fateful choice.




All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Goodreads | Amazon.com / Kobo CA / Google Play / Overdrive

Spoiler:
Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.



Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.



In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.




A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle

Goodreads | Amazon AU / Amazon CA / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Audible / Kobo

Spoiler:
Won the the British Book Awards Best Travel Book of the Year 1989 and the Prix des libraires du Québec for Lauréats hors Québec 1995. Known for its honesty, wit and humour, this short and popular book inspired several follow-ups as well as radio and television adaptations, and inspired Mayle's novel (and the later film adaptation) A Good Year.



From Goodreads:



In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs. He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious regional cuisine. A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days.




Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs

Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Google Play US / Kobo US / Overdrive Audio / Overdrive eBook / Waterstones UK

Spoiler:
It is the first book in the Temperance Brennan series and this series is the basis for the TV show Bones. Her first novel, Déjà Dead, won the 1997 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. The fictional heroine in her novels, Temperance "Tempe" Brennan, is also a forensic anthropologist.



Her life is devoted to justice — for those she never even knew.



In the year since Temperance Brennan left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec. When a female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in trash bags, Tempe detects an alarming pattern — and she plunges into a harrowing search for a killer. But her investigation is about to place those closest to her — her best friend and her own daughter — in mortal danger….




American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Goodreads | Amazon US/ MP3 / WorldCat

Spoiler:
Days before his release from prison, Shadow's wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.



Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.



Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, AMERICAN GODS takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what and who it finds there...



Awards: Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel (2001), Hugo Award for Best Novel (2002), Nebula Award for Best Novel (2002), Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel (2002), International Horror Guild Award Nominee for Best Novel (2001), World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novel (2002), SFX Award for Best Novel (2002), Geffen Award (2003), Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Nominee for Adult Literature (2002), Prix Bob Morane for roman traduit (2003)

JSWolf 05-27-2015 03:44 AM

OK, I voted.

WT Sharpe 05-27-2015 08:28 AM

June 2015 Book Club Vote
 
I'm not sure if I'll vote or not. These are five very good options and choosing between them will be difficult. I can't think of one that I'd not want to read. By the way, I added a description for The Golem and the Jinni. (There was none provided with the nomination.)

HomeInMyShoes 05-27-2015 12:08 PM

^Thanks for adding the description WT Sharpe. I'm pretty lazy on that front.

I am definitely leaning towards my The Golem and the Jinni and All the Light We Cannot See.

Moe The Cat 05-27-2015 01:44 PM

Off topic, but what is "Windows 9½", Tom?

WT Sharpe 05-27-2015 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moe The Cat (Post 3108759)
Off topic, but what is "Windows 9½", Tom?

Wow. You're the first person to comment on that. I originally put Windows 9 there, but changed it to 9½ when no one seemed to notice. It's a throw-off on the fact that there will be no Windows 9. Microsoft, for whatever reason, will have us going from Windows 8 straight to Windows 10, whenever it's released to the general public.

CRussel 05-27-2015 06:50 PM

Still off-topic, but it's a defense against bad code that would see "Windows 9" and try to interpret it as Windows 95/98.

Voted. I can't say I'm thrilled, and at least two of them are definitely ones I won't be reading if they win.

Inquietum 05-27-2015 09:30 PM

Ok, I voted too!
I don't know if I'm supposed to say which one I voted for, so I won't, but hopefully it wins cause it sounds really interesting.
This is going to be neat, I've never been in a book club. :bookworm:

issybird 05-27-2015 10:26 PM

:D
Quote:

Originally Posted by Inquietum (Post 3108924)
Ok, I voted too!
I don't know if I'm supposed to say which one I voted for, so I won't, but hopefully it wins cause it sounds really interesting.
This is going to be neat, I've never been in a book club. :bookworm:

You voted for All the Light We Cannot See.

We may not be able to see all the light, but we can see all the votes.

JSWolf 05-28-2015 02:27 AM

I voted for three of the books.

WT Sharpe 05-28-2015 01:30 PM

I voted for three, but they all look good.

HomeInMyShoes 05-28-2015 01:50 PM

It's certainly a close vote.

ccowie 05-28-2015 02:53 PM

I'm a little late the party this month. I'll need to look into the contenders a bit before making my choice.

I read Deja Dead when it first came out and really disliked it, primarily because of her treatment of Quebec and Quebeqois culture.

samhy 05-29-2015 01:17 PM

Both my votes are available at my local librairy which is good, but that means physical books for once...

CRussel 05-29-2015 01:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccowie (Post 3109244)
I'm a little late the party this month. I'll need to look into the contenders a bit before making my choice.

I read Deja Dead when it first came out and really disliked it, primarily because of her treatment of Quebec and Quebeqois culture.

Hmmm. Can I change my vote?

Ah, well, it's looking fairly unlikely that I'll be reading this month's book regardless, though the votes can certainly still change.

treadlightly 05-29-2015 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccowie (Post 3109244)
I read Deja Dead when it first came out and really disliked it, primarily because of her treatment of Quebec and Quebeqois culture.

I lived in Montreal for 5 years while I was a student and read Deja Dead fairly recently. I don't recall anything that specifically jumped out at me. In fact, I was rather nostalgically reminiscing while the author described various locations around the city. Montreal is a very special place and is a character in this series. One book features the Rock Machine motorcycle gang - they dominated the local news in the 90s (whenever the referendum didn't). The author's feelings about the city did not come across as negative to me, but rang true to my experience as a non-native anglophone living there.

ccowie 05-29-2015 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by treadlightly (Post 3109669)
I lived in Montreal for 5 years while I was a student and read Deja Dead fairly recently. I don't recall anything that specifically jumped out at me. In fact, I was rather nostalgically reminiscing while the author described various locations around the city. Montreal is a very special place and is a character in this series. One book features the Rock Machine motorcycle gang - they dominated the local news in the 90s (whenever the referendum didn't). The author's feelings about the city did not come across as negative to me, but rang true to my experience as a non-native anglophone living there.

Perhaps I shouldn't have made that comment. I was born in Montreal and have lived there a lot as well. It's been a long time since I read the book so I may not be remembering it accurately. My recollection was not that she was harsh, but rather quite the opposite, characterizing the city its culture and politics a little too cutesy.

CRussel 05-31-2015 12:18 PM

Last chance for someone to break the tie! I'm really hoping for Neil Gaiman's book, since I have no desire to read the other book in the tie.

Dazrin 05-31-2015 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CRussel (Post 3110401)
Last chance for someone to break the tie! I'm really hoping for Neil Gaiman's book, since I have no desire to read the other book in the tie.

The Golem and the Jinni didn't sound like a book I would enjoy when I first looked at it but it turned it to be one of my favorite books last year. If it does win Wynn I would encourage you to try it out.

Edit: I hate posting from a phone...

sun surfer 06-01-2015 01:53 AM

Well, I think issybird for one will be thrilled with this selection - it's fantasy and a previously-selected author! :p

Kidding aside, American Gods sounds interesting but I didn't like Neverwhere at all so I'm going to sit this one out. I will give Gaiman another shot though with highly-praised Sandman whenever I get around to it - hopefully I'll enjoy his work on graphic novels better than regular ones.

Nyssa 06-01-2015 08:18 AM

I made an attempt at reading American Gods sometime last year, but I did not get very far. Not sure I'm ready to make another attempt, as I have a few books/series currently on deck.

treadlightly 06-01-2015 09:06 AM

I have read American Gods and gave it three stars. I thought Neverwhere was better.

HomeInMyShoes 06-01-2015 01:45 PM

^Neverwhere was a bit more accessible from a plot-line, but American Gods was a more satisfying read. I think you've missing out sun surfer, but if mythology is not one's interest, then American Gods will be a slog. I really liked it when I read it.

JSWolf 06-02-2015 11:15 AM

We got gypped. Neil Gaiman is just the wrong choice. I thought we were going to have one of the three bets books in the list. But we didn't. Please next time pick books that aren't Neal Gaiman and the like.

WT Sharpe 06-03-2015 02:31 AM

June 2015 Book Club Vote
 
If anyone's interested in a low cost audio version, Amazon's selling a MP3 disc for $11.15. That's cheaper than buying the Kindle version for $7.99 then adding Whispersync for an additional $12.99. Keep in mind, though, that this is a MP3 disc; it won't play in your car's CD player.

http://amazon.com/American-Gods-Low-...ews/0062314297

I just added the link to the first post.

fantasyfan 06-06-2015 11:45 AM

I liked Neverwhere and his YA books are great. I look forward to reading this one.

CRussel 06-06-2015 12:16 PM

Well, I have it on hold at the library, hopefully it will come in soon enough that I can read it for this month's discussion.

sun surfer 06-06-2015 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes (Post 3110847)
...I think you've missing out sun surfer, but if mythology is not one's interest, then American Gods will be a slog. I really liked it when I read it.

You might be right that I'm missing out; the problem is, I have so much I want to read that I'm inevitably missing out on loads of books all the time!

WT Sharpe 06-06-2015 11:49 PM

I'm doing this one as an audiobook and so far really liking it, although I'm feeling kind of stupid that it didn't hit me until the fourth chapter who Mr. Wednesday really is. Of course, once that clicks into place, the true identities of some of the other characters become obvious. I'll say no more than that, lest I be accused of posting spoilers.

HomeInMyShoes 06-08-2015 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sun surfer (Post 3113243)
You might be right that I'm missing out; the problem is, I have so much I want to read that I'm inevitably missing out on loads of books all the time!

We all have to make choices in what to read. Not reading some selections is totally reasonable. I'm reading a book club selection right now, but it is Spring Snow. I might eventually get to Greene as well. :rofl:

WT Sharpe 06-16-2015 11:53 PM

American Gods is going to be made into a television series for Starz. This is the same network that brought Outlander—another Mobileread Book Club winner—to the small screen.

http://mashable.com/2015/06/16/neil-...an-gods-starz/

HomeInMyShoes 06-17-2015 12:52 PM

^I'm definitely interested in that.


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