10-01-2018, 12:00 PM | #1 |
languorous autodidact ✦
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Fun! Fun! Fun! • October 2018
Help select what we'll read next!
The topic is Fun! Fun! Fun! This is anything to do with the idea of ‘fun’, which is often not something one thinks of in relation to literary books, so it could be an interesting, different and perhaps even revelatory month. It could be a book you think looks (or was) fun to read, a book that somehow seems to have fun in it from title or from content, a book that seems to have some light-hearted or joyful aspect, or something else as the topic is open to interpretation. Detailed nominating and voting guidelines can be found here. Basically, nominations are open for four days and each person may nominate up to three literary selections which will go automatically to the vote. Voting by post then opens for four days, and a voter may give each nomination either one or two votes but only has a limited number of votes to use which is equal to the number of nominations minus one. Any questions, feel free to ask. We hope that you will read the selection with us and join in the discussion. * Nominations and voting are complete. Final results-
Last edited by sun surfer; 10-11-2018 at 02:12 PM. |
10-01-2018, 01:32 PM | #2 |
Wizard
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I’ll nominate The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton, despite the Kafkaesque quality of his plots, is always clearly enjoying every word he writes. His works are most certainly literary and usually involve significant underlying spiritual themes but he is never dull. He had a significant effect on C. S. Lewis but the adult novels of Lewis are not the equal of Chesterton’s.
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10-02-2018, 08:30 AM | #3 |
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I’ll offer as a second nomination J. D. Sallinger’s Catcher In the Rye. The novel details the various ways people “have fun” through playing a game using the stereotyped roles society provides. The irony of this activity is perceived by the lonely narrator who wanders through the various by ways of his world.
Unfortunately this book does not seem to exist in an ebook format and this may be a dealbreaker though we have used paper back editions in the past. PB editions of the novel are easy to obtain and reasonably inexpensive. Last edited by fantasyfan; 10-02-2018 at 08:37 AM. |
10-04-2018, 03:30 PM | #4 |
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I have an old Bantam Classics version of Catcher in the Rye with authentic aged-yellow pages.
I have generated a list of ideas. The hard part is always narrowing it down! |
10-05-2018, 01:21 AM | #5 | |||
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My first nomination is a classic, Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.
From Goodreads: Quote:
From Overdrive: Quote:
From Goodreads: Quote:
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10-05-2018, 09:47 AM | #6 |
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For my final nomination, I’ll offer A Stitch In Time by Penelope Lively.
It is somewhat in the vein of the marvellous Tom’s Midnight Garden but perhaps with a darker slant. From Amazon: “Maria likes to be alone with her thoughts. She talks to animals and objects, and generally prefers them to people. But whilst on holiday she begins to hear things that aren’t there – a swing creaking, a dog barking – and when she sees a Victorian embroidered picture, Maria feels a strange connection with the ten-year-old, Harriet, who stitched it. But what happened to her? As Maria becomes more lost in Harriet’s world, she grows convinced that something tragic occurred…“ |
10-05-2018, 10:24 AM | #7 | |
languorous autodidact ✦
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Interesting nominations so far! About an hour and a half left for nominations.
Quote:
The only one I had so far decided on nominating was Three Men in a Boat, and then realised it is ineligible because it was a selection of the regular book club way back in its first year. That's really almost silly since I don't think even one of us was a club member for that, but that's that. It is churning the gears in my mind about the possibility of a tweaked eligibility guideline for older general book club selections though. Anyway, while I'm still deciding, I'll jot down most of my shortlist here in a spoiler in case anyone is interested for the sake of discovery. It was definitely a 'fun' topic to search for nominations! Spoiler:
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10-05-2018, 12:38 PM | #8 | |||
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All right, I've narrowed my list down and have three nominations. I tried to choose three that were all uniquely different from each other yet all seemed to convey the idea of fun in one way or another and hopefully any would be fun reads.
First, for many people one of the most fun places on earth is the circus, and so I'm nominating Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter, a fantastical novel about a journalist wanting to discover if a performer that he is enamoured with and that is known as being half woman and half swan is really true or not and so he joins the circus, and the book is also a 'magical tour through turn-of-the-nineteenth-century London, St Petersburg and Siberia.' I don't see it available as an ebook on US Amazon, but it does have an ebook and is available on UK Amazon among others. Goodreads 350 pages, 1984, England Quote:
Second, I'm going from a 1984 book to an 1894 book and nominating the swashbuckling adventure The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope. I love a good adventure book and while this one is old it looks like it could be a lot of fun. Goodreads 178 pages, 1894, England Quote:
Finally, I'm going to go a bit 'out there' and nominate a book that immerses itself into the world of literary books and especially classics which could be a lot of fun for a lit club to read - The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. This strange but alluring book envisions a world in which people can go into literary works and wreak havoc, such as Jane Eyre being kidnapped from her own novel. Goodreads 374 pages, 2001, England Quote:
This was just happenstance that I only noticed myself after I chose the three as I was writing this post and including the accompanying information for each nomination, but though I've managed to choose nominations from diverse publication dates and with distinctly different story aspects and settings, anyone eagle-eyed may notice all three have some sense of fantasy about them and all three are tied to or start in London and all are from English writers. To that I say, in the great words of Osgood from Some Like It Hot, 'Well, nobody's perfect!' Last edited by sun surfer; 10-05-2018 at 12:42 PM. |
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10-05-2018, 12:48 PM | #9 |
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It may take me a little while to add all the nominations to the first post so nominations will remain open until I finish.
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10-05-2018, 01:19 PM | #10 |
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Nominations are closed and voting is now open!
Voting will close exactly four days from this post. Each person has EIGHT votes to use. Last edited by sun surfer; 10-05-2018 at 01:21 PM. Reason: EIGHT |
10-06-2018, 09:51 PM | #11 |
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I've read a third of these before and all were either 4 or 5 star reads so I'm happy with all of those although I might not vote for any of them except the one I read the longest ago. Of the rest all look fun and very diverse so it's, as usual, difficult to decide which to vote for. I'll start with three votes for now-
-1 to The Secret Garden -1 to A Stitch In Time -1 to The Prisoner of Zenda |
10-08-2018, 03:41 AM | #12 |
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I’ll start with:
The Prisoner of Zelda A Stich in Time The Secret Garden Two votes each Last edited by fantasyfan; 10-08-2018 at 03:43 AM. |
10-08-2018, 04:06 AM | #13 |
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I hope you'll excuse this interruption to your normal schedule, but did anyone else notice that A Stitch in Time is a very common book title? I counted somewhere around 25 distinct books (before I gave up counting), spanning many different genres.
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10-08-2018, 03:09 PM | #14 |
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Interesting. A pity the amount of distinct books with that title isn't nine.
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10-08-2018, 03:37 PM | #15 |
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I'll also give one vote each to-
-The Man Who Was Thursday -The Queen of the Night -The Eyre Affair |
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