MobileRead Forums - MobileRead November 2016 Book Club Nominations

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Quote:

Originally Posted by din155 (Post 3415153)

Damn I just realized that art of war is not technically a history book :chinscratch:

The Art of War needs to be pulled from the nominations.

I'll second Lawrence in Arabia and Jacksonland.

I'll second Devil in the White City.

Darn, I wanted to nominate Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution Through British Eyes by Christopher Hibbert but apparently it's only available as print or audio cassettes. :(

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenG (Post 3415557)

Darn, I wanted to nominate Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution Through British Eyes by Christopher Hibbert but apparently it's only available as print or audio cassettes. :(

I read a terrific book last year, Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America by Nick Bunter, on the origins of the revolution from the British perspective, if it's the topic that speaks to you. That is available in ebook and digital audiobook.

In order to help speed things up here, we just need one more nod to The Devil in the White City.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hamlet53 (Post 3415194)

I almost paid no attention to this expecting it to be a category that I'd have no interest in. However I love reading history books. So three suggestions from me.

Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle

Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America

Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab

Quote:

Originally Posted by issybird (Post 3415434)

I'll second Lawrence in Arabia and Jacksonland.

And I'll give huge, strong, highly motivating second to Soul of a People: The WPA Writers' Project Uncovers Depression America. I'd really like to read this, it sounds seriously interesting.

And I'll third Lawrence. An interesting character, and I've heard good things about this book. I'm not as excited by this one as Soul of a People, but it should be interesting.

I third Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

I nominate The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

Amazon

Goodreads

Written by a man who was there. A tome to be dipped into wherever you fancy. It continues to be my favorite history book.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pajamaman (Post 3416149)

I have been looking to read this book for long time but the length has always given me a pause. Not sure if I will get enough time to finish this book in the coming weeks.

I second The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Quote:

Originally Posted by din155 (Post 3416341)

I have been looking to read this book for long time but the length has always given me a pause. Not sure if I will get enough time to finish this book in the coming weeks.

Read it. I couldn't though. I had a beef with the formatting problems of my ebook. Too many long paragraphs. Sounds like something trivial, but it made me hesitate and question my commitment to the book. I read the first 4 or 5 %. It's a very entertaining book. If chosen by this book club, then I'll do my utmost to read it.

I'd like to nominate Midnight at the Pera Palace: the Birth of Modern Istanbul, by Charles King.

The Amazon blurb:

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"Timely . . . brilliant . . . hugely enjoyable, magnificently researched and deeply absorbing.”―Jason Goodwin, New York Times Book Review

At midnight, December 31, 1925, citizens of the newly proclaimed Turkish Republic celebrated the New Year. For the first time ever, they had agreed to use a nationally unified calendar and clock.
Yet in Istanbul―an ancient crossroads and Turkey's largest city―people were looking toward an uncertain future. Never purely Turkish, Istanbul was home to generations of Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, as well as Muslims. It welcomed White Russian nobles ousted by the Russian Revolution, Bolshevik assassins on the trail of the exiled Leon Trotsky, German professors, British diplomats, and American entrepreneurs―a multicultural panoply of performers and poets, do-gooders and ne’er-do-wells. During the Second World War, thousands of Jews fleeing occupied Europe found passage through Istanbul, some with the help of the future Pope John XXIII. At the Pera Palace, Istanbul's most luxurious hotel, so many spies mingled in the lobby that the manager posted a sign asking them to relinquish their seats to paying guests.

In beguiling prose and rich character portraits, Charles King brings to life a remarkable era when a storied city stumbled into the modern world and reshaped the meaning of cosmopolitanism.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luffy (Post 3416385)

A book that's 1614 pages should be decided upon a month in advance. That's just too big to read in the given amount of time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf (Post 3416403)

A book that's 1614 pages should be decided upon a month in advance. That's just too big to read in the given amount of time.

I agree that it's far too long to be a realistic choice. If people are interested in Shirer, I'd suggest Berlin Diary, his journal while an American foreign correspondent from 1934 to 1941. It's a thousand pages shorter and the immediacy of his first-hand impressions while not knowing the outcome is fascinating.

(Not a nomination; I'm out.)