Literary The MobileRead Literary Book Club July 2011 Nominations

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ea

That doesn't fit into this month's theme at all. It sounds like a common, garden-variety thriller.

This title will only fit into the theme if the reader was mentally challenged.

The term literature means different things to different people. Some of the other nominated books I would not call worth reading. But that's my opinion. And really, literature does not have to mean a dead author with a boring book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ea

That doesn't fit into this month's theme at all. It sounds like a common, garden-variety thriller.

This title will only fit into the theme if the reader was mentally challenged.

So why are you not picking on Midnight's Children?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

So why are you not picking on Midnight's Children?

Because it won the Booker Prize?

Hey, I thought you wanted a book in English by a live guy. There you go.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

Because it won the Booker Prize?

Hey, I thought you wanted a book in English by a live guy. There you go.

I wasn't picking on Midnight's Children. I was asking Ea why not pick on that since it's description is one that makes it seem like a standard type of book. Ea seems to think just because a book is not "high brow" that it's not literature.

[jgaiser]

Out of curiousity, Jon... If the book clubs never choose what you consider *good books*, why do you show up month after month. I would think life would be too short and there's too much to read to be involved with groups that don't match your tastes. I'm beginning to believe you just enjoy being contrary.

On the other hand, *I* think we've got a good list of authors and books this month.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I wasn't picking on Midnight's Children. I was asking Ea why not pick on that since it's description is one that makes it seem like a standard type of book. Ea seems to think just because a book is not "high brow" that it's not literature.

"Highly Challenging (especially difficult or long works we may be hesitant to choose otherwise)"

I think that she was questioning how "Highly Challenging" or "especially difficult" your suggestion was, not whether it should be considered "high brow" literature. That and I have not been following these discussions that long, but you do seem to have the same complaint every time. As though if the category was classic Greek pastoral romances you would complain that all the suggestions were dry and musty and by dead authors.

In fairness to you though in my opinion that are a few books that were nominated that do not meet the "Highly Challenging" or "especially difficult" criteria. But were they put forth as a provocation?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

"Highly Challenging (especially difficult or long works we may be hesitant to choose otherwise)"

I think that she was questioning how "Highly Challenging" or "especially difficult" your suggestion was, not whether it should be considered "high brow" literature. That and I have not been following these discussions that long, but you do seem to have the same complaint every time. As though if the category was classic Greek pastoral romances you would complain that all the suggestions were dry and musty and by dead authors.

In fairness to you though in my opinion that are a few books that were nominated that do not meet the "Highly Challenging" or "especially difficult" criteria. But were they put forth as a provocation?

In that case, my nomination doesn't fit. But I'll nominate one that does fit.

I'll nominate The Stand: Complete and Uncut by Stephen King. That does fit and is a very good book.

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

In 1978 Stephen King published The Stand, the novel that is now considered to be one of his finest works. But as it was first published, The Stand was incomplete, since more than 150,000 words had been cut from the original manuscript.

Now Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil has been restored to its entirety. The Stand : The Complete And Uncut Edition includes more than five hundred pages of material previously deleted, along with new material that King added as he reworked the manuscript for a new generation. It gives us new characters and endows familiar ones with new depths. It has a new beginning and a new ending. What emerges is a gripping work with the scope and moral comlexity of a true epic.

For hundreds of thousands of fans who read The Stand in its original version and wanted more, this new edition is Stephen King's gift. And those who are reading The Stand for the first time will discover a triumphant and eerily plausible work of the imagination that takes on the issues that will determine our survival.

[Nyssa]

I don't know if I can sit through that again; mind you I had the "original" or "regular" version. I don't think there was an uncut version at the time. It has been so long I don't even remember the ending, but I do remember being disappointed.

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

I don't know if I can sit through that again; mind you I had the "original" or "regular" version. I don't think there was an uncut version at the time. It has been so long I don't even remember the ending, but I do remember being disappointed.

Don't know for sure whether I read the uncut version but I remember it was very long (and I read it in the 90s) so it most likely was. I liked it well enough but I don't want to go there again, plus I don't read Stephen King anymore.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

In that case, my nomination doesn't fit. But I'll nominate one that does fit.

I'll nominate The Stand: Complete and Uncut by Stephen King. That does fit and is a very good book.

Sounds legitimate to me. Though with The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, Paradise Lost by Milton and Ulysses by James Joyce each needing only one more vote to complete the five it may be a bit late for your suggestion to make the final five.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

Don't know for sure whether I read the uncut version but I remember it was very long (and I read it in the 90s) so it most likely was. I liked it well enough but I don't want to go there again, plus I don't read Stephen King anymore.

Yes, very long! I read it in high-school so it was the late 80s, early 90s, and I also stopped reading Stephen King a few years after that.

[issybird]

I know we keep going around in the same circles here, but Stephen King really isn't my idea of a "literary" author, no matter how prolix he is.

Again, the Potter Stewart test: I know it when I see it, and Stephen King ain't it. I'm not saying that he shouldn't be read and enjoyed, but I don't think reading King and his ilk is the purpose of a literary book club.

[TGS]

I'll fifth paradise lost - mostly so we can move to a vote!

[Vandy]

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED. We have our five nominations.

Regards,

[sun surfer]

The poll will be up shortly.

TGS, your final vote must have been bittersweet, since the other two books that had four votes each were ones you had originally nominated and seconded.

Vandy, I'm surprised that none of your nominations got seconded. I love War and Peace, but I've already read it. My last vote came down to a choice between The Tale of Genji or Leaves of Grass; it was like a coin toss deciding.