MobileRead Book Club
September 2014 Nominations
Help us select the book that the MobileRead Book Club will read for September, 2014.
The nominations will run through midnight EST August 31 or until 10 books have made the list. The poll will then be posted and will remain open for five days.
Book selection category for September is:
Banned or Challenged Books
In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).
How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.
How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a poll at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.
How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.
How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest.
How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.
When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the initial poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.
The floor is open to nominations.
Please comment if you discover a nomination is not available as an ebook in your area.
Official choices with three nominations each:
(1) The Giver by Lois Lowry
Amazon US /
Goodreads
(2) The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub
Spoiler:
The Call of the Wild is a novel by Jack London published in 1903. The story is set in the Yukon during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush—a period when strong sled dogs were in high demand.
From
Banned Books Awareness:
The book is commonly challenged in the United States because of its violent scenes. Jack London personally experienced the Klondike Gold Rush, including its triumphs and its horrors. The Yukon of the early 20th century wasn’t a Sunday picnic. It was barren, and hard on the mind and body.
Dogs like Buck were cheap, and animal cruelty was commonplace, leading some to criticize London of glorifying or condoning animal abuse.
Furthermore, the real-life atrocities committed against Native tribes in the name of Manifest Destiny were thought of as just and honorable in the wake of the Great Indian Wars that wiped out the cultures across the United States.
This point of contention is explored in the tribe that takes in Buck, the Yeehats. This tribe is entirely of London’s creation, but some groups feel that the negative light he sheds on the Yeehat is a slam against all Native tribes.
So, here we are again, having an early American novel about a period in history challenged because it paints a picture of a past that is dark and bloody that we’d much rather forget about than admit to, or learn from.
But most notably, according to the University of Pennsylvania, Jack London’s writing was not favored among several European dictatorships during the 1920’s and 1930’s, resulting in many regimes censoring his work.
In 1929, Italy and Yugoslavia banned Call of the Wild for being ‘too radical’. London’s works were also burned by the Nazi Party in 1933 because he had an infamous reputation for being an outspoken supporter of Socialism.
(3) To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Amazon Ca /
Amazon UK /
Amazon US /
Angus & Robertson /
B&N /
Google Play /
Kobo US /
Overdrive
(4) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Amazon UK /
Amazon US /
Barnes & Noble /
Overdrive UK /
Overdrive US /
Pottermore GBP /
Pottermore USD
Spoiler:
NOTE: This book is also known as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Harry, an orphan, lives with the Dursleys, his horrible aunt and uncle, and their abominable son, Dudley.
One day just before his eleventh birthday, an owl tries to deliver a mysterious letter the first of a sequence of events that end in Harry meeting a giant man named Hagrid. Hagrid explains Harry's history to him: When he was a baby, the Dark wizard, Lord Voldemort, attacked and killed his parents in an attempt to kill Harry; but the only mark on Harry was a mysterious lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.
Now he has been invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where the headmaster is the great wizard Albus Dumbledore. Harry visits Diagon Alley to get his school supplies, especially his very own wand. To get to school, he takes the Hogwarts Express from platform nine and three-quarters at King's Cross Station. On the train, he meets two fellow students who will become his closest friends: Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.
Harry is assigned to Gryffindor House at Hogwarts, and soon becomes the youngest-ever Seeker on the House Quidditch team. He also studies Potions with Professor Severus Snape, who displays a deep and abiding dislike for Harry, and Defense Against the Dark Arts with nervous Professor Quirrell; he and his friends defeat a mountain troll, help Hagrid raise a dragon, and explore the wonderful, fascinating world of Hogwarts.
But all events lead irrevocably toward a second encounter with Lord Voldemort, who seeks an object of legend known as the Sorcerer's Stone.
(5) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Amazon
(6) Rabbit Run by John Updike
No links provided.
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:
Rabbit, Run is the book that established John Updike as one of the major American novelists of his—or any other—generation. Its hero is Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is twenty-six years old, a man-child caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society, sexual gratification and family duty—even, in a sense, human hard-heartedness and divine Grace. Though his flight from home traces a zigzag of evasion, he holds to the faith that he is on the right path, an invisible line toward his own salvation as straight as a ruler’s edge.
From Banned Book Club:
Labeled as obscenity (for sex scenes and promiscuity) and banned in Ireland (1962) by the Irish Board of Censors, but apparently was allowed into circulation in 1967. This board, btw, apparently still exists – meets in secret BUT is required to review all submissions (some check whoever submitted a complaint regarding the Bible, in 1988). In the US, was challenged in Maine (1976) and Wyoming (1986) – the Maine students were allowed to read it if parents granted permission. (Well, the whole story felt remarkably like a field trip…)
(7) The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien
Amazon Au /
Amazon UK /
Goodreads
(8) Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: Kindle |
Kindle (Omnibus) |
ePub
(9) Fanny Hill: Memoirs for a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland
Amazon US /
Feedbooks /
Project Gutenberg
Spoiler:
From Amazon:
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (popularly known as Fanny Hill), is an erotic novel by John Cleland first published in England in 1748. Written while the author was in debtors' prison in London, it is considered "the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel." One of the most prosecuted and banned books in history; it has become a synonym for obscenity.
From her position of wealth and happy respectability, Fanny Hill looks back at her early life and disreputable adventures. Arriving in London alone, poor and innocent, she falls into the hands of a brothel-keeper. But only when she is separated from the man she loves does she enroll in the 'unhappy profession' of prostitution. Fanny becomes a kept woman and also works in an elegant bawdy-house, entertaining polite voluptuaries. By the age of eighteen, she can afford to retire; in her marriage she can at last combine sexual passion with romantic love.
Fanny Hill, shrouded in controversy for most of its more than 250-year life, & banned from publication in the U.S. until 1966, was once considered immoral & without literary merit, even earning its author a jail sentence for obscenity.
The tale of a naïve young prostitute in bawdy eighteenth-century London who slowly rises to respectability, the novel & its popularity endured many banning’s & critics, & today Fanny Hill is considered an important piece of political parody & sexual philosophy on par with French libertine novels.
(10) A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Amazon Au /
Amazon Ca /
Amazon UK /
Amazon US /
Barnes & Noble/
Goodreads/
OverDrive