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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 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)