This is the runoff poll to select the book we'll read and discuss in February 2020.
We love new participants. We're happy for you to vote, but in the interest of a vibrant conversation, we'd like to request that you not vote unless you plan to join the discussion whatever the selection. 
So if you haven't posted in a book club thread yet, do please say a quick hello here or in the Welcome thread.
This is a
poll. Vote for as many books as you'd like. Questions?
FAQs | Guidelines Or just ask!
Choices:
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Public domain
Spoiler:
First, this brother / sister team are unlikely collaborators, and quite unprepared when they find themselves at mid-life suddenly raising a precocious child. Second, February can often use a lift, and it’s an optimistic and often quite funny book.
From Amazon.com:
Quote:
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“When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables, Prince Edward Island, send for a boy orphan to help them out at the farm, they are in no way prepared for the error that will change their lives. The mistake takes the shape of Anne Shirley, a redheaded 11-year-old girl who can talk anyone under the table. Fortunately, her sunny nature and quirky imagination quickly win over her reluctant foster parents. Anne's feisty spirit soon draws many friends--and much trouble--her way. Not a day goes by without some melodramatic new episode in the tragicomedy of her life.”
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320 pp.
Local Custom by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Amazon US $6.99;
Amazon CA $8.51;
Amazon UK £4.60;
Amazon AU $8.94;
BaenEbooks.com $6.99;
Audible US $1.99 (WS)
Spoiler:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Goodreads
Master trader Er Thom knows the local custom of Liaden is to be matched with a proper bride, and provide his prominent clan Korval with an heir. Yet his heart is immersed in another universe, influenced by another culture, and lost to a woman not of his world. And to take a Terran wife such as scholar Anne Davis is to risk his honor and reputation. But when he discovers that their brief encounter years before has resulted in the birth of a child, even more is at stake than anyone imagined. Now, an interstellar scandal has erupted, a bitter war between two families-galaxies apart-has begun, and the only hope for Er Thom and Anne is a sacrifice neither is prepared to make...
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384 pp.
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
US$11.99
Spoiler:
From Goodreads:
Quote:
1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. And three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with history - and the future: Sybil Gerard - dishonored woman and daughter of a Luddite agitator; Edward "Leviathan" Mallory - explorer and paleontologist; Laurence Oliphant - diplomat and spy. Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin and purpose. Cards someone wants badly enough to kill for...
Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine is the first collaborative novel by two of the most brilliant and controversial science fiction authors of our time. Provocative, compelling, intensely imagined, it is a startling extension of Gibson's and Sterling's unique visions - in a new and totally unexpected direction!
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429 pp.