Jon, the nomination process includes discovery. That's the time to come up with objections to a book, whether they be eligibility or availability. I'll note that a fully nominated suggestion of my own was withdrawn on the grounds of eligibility during the process. Once the voting starts, it's too late. It's a case of that injunction heard in some wedding ceremonies, "Speak now or forever hold your peace." The nominations are the time to speak now; during the voting, it's forever hold your peace.

Jon, it's obvious you're upset and I'm sorry. It's all just for fun. You did vote for the potential winner, after all; you must have thought you'd like reading it, even if you'd prefer a different choice. There's no point in discussing your options, which are far from the only choices and result in either disenfranchising people who voted in good faith or making a lot more work for Tom and to what end? People have chosen the book they prefer and it's neither fattening nor illegal.

My apologies to everyone else, too. I didn't mean to start anything. I was just, as I tried to indicate, highly amused both that a book could be nominated four times and that it would slip through the cracks in terms of the waiting period. As I said, time to scratch the itch! If it wins, it can never be nominated again.

Well, we can try... That has happened a couple times before. :D

But, I hope I will recognize it next time given that I maintain the list...

I'm not upset. But I do think it's unfair for the other books nominated.

What would you suggest if this book was found not to have an eBook version (I know this is not the case)? Would you suggest it be removed from the voting list?

My feeling is that if a book is found to be violating the rules and the voting is not over then that book should be removed to keep withing the rules since there is still time for it to be removed.

I did vote for it and still think it's going is a good idea.

I am certain that a book that is not available as an ebook would not be excluded if it made it to the vote. Our Man in Havana from last year is not available as an ebook in the US but was our May selection.

Maybe we need to keep a list of all the fully nominated works each month in the selections list thread? I don't want to do that but I would link to it in the selections thread if someone else thinks it is necessary and wants to maintain it. Personally, I think that we have done a fairly good job with policing it informally (despite this oops) and making it formal is unnecessary.

One way to solve the no eBook problem is that if a nomination posted but does not have any links to an eBook edition, it doesn't count until such time as at least one link is provided. That would solve that problem.

I do think a link to the past six months of nominated eBooks would be a good idea. Then we can do our own policing of that.

I don't think either is necessary. For links/ebook availability, most people already look at availability (and cost) before they choose what to vote for, so if they vote for a book that isn't available as an ebook they should have been aware of that before voting. Not having a link is a big warning sign for me. For the 6 month rule, we can already do our own policing since finding the last 6 months isn't hard to do, it's just that no one seems concerned enough about it to do it for each nomination.

Like I said, if you want to make and maintain a 6-month list I would add that to the selections list thread, you could put it in that thread if you wanted. I keep the selection list updated with links to all of the nomination/vote threads, so it shouldn't take too much time to create one (or to check them without the list).

Why I didn't vote for Our Man in Havana, a book I would have otherwise liked to read. And why I've been a bit reluctant to read other books that are over my $10 pain point. I think we all do the parsing of those factors quite well.

The poll is closed, and a winner has been chosen. And as it is clear that the majority has no desire to start the nomination and voting procedure over from scratch in order to recover from an unfortunate mistake, happy reading! The Night Life of the Gods by Thorne Smith it is.

When the six months is up, I'm going to nominate this one again so it can properly be in the vote.

I've started and it's delightfully witty. I enjoyed Topper and always meant to get to this, so, no matter by what skullduggery, I'm glad it was chosen. Finally! I've been touring it around on my gadgets since its first nomination. :D

downloaded and transferred to my Kindle. But it needs to wait in line for a few more days.

March 2016 Book Club Vote
 

I managed to get my hands on a copy of the 1935 movie based on the book. It's really close to the book with one glaring exception. The following spoiler reveals something from chapter 2:



Back to the movie: Gilbert Emery's performance as Betts the butler has convinced me Stephen Fry is a time traveler. Emery couldn't have done a better impression of Fry's Reginald Jeeves if he tried, which is remarkable considering he died 12 years before Fry was born. Not only does Emery act like Fry, in this film he even looks remarkably like Fry.