Literary Region Nominations • November 2013

[BelleZora]

Second Lyrics Alley.

[Billi]

I third Lyrics Alley

(and don't have the slightest idea for which book not to vote...)

[Bookpossum]

I'll fourth Lyrics Alley and
fourth In the Country of Men.

I agree Billi, it's going to be very difficult! I'm being guided by what I can get from my library.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I think I'll be reading this month's selection as I'm not hitting a lot of Northern Africa and the Middle East in my geography challenge for next year. The fact that most of my research hadn't yielded any of these titles should make it easy to participate.

@sun surfer: while it's a bit of work, a country lust would be useful. I've gone through too many categorizations of regions that I stopped thinking of Australia having anything to do with say Tuvalu.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

I think I'll be reading this month's selection as I'm not hitting a lot of Northern Africa and the Middle East in my geography challenge for next year. The fact that most of my research hadn't yielded any of these titles should make it easy to participate.

@sun surfer: while it's a bit of work, a country lust would be useful. I've gone through too many categorizations of regions that I stopped thinking of Australia having anything to do with say Tuvalu.

I agree it would be useful, and I also agree that it would be a bit of work.

The map makes clear enough most countries though, and people can ask for clarifications. The confusion on the South Pacific is a specific case with the broad outlines but now the air has been cleared about it.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I'd like everyone to refrain from voting for Lyrics Alley as I do have that on my list of books-countries for next year. :P

I can always participate way late. I will fourth Lyrics Alley.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

I'd like everyone to refrain from voting for Lyrics Alley as I do have that on my list of books-countries for next year. :P

I can always participate way late. I will fourth Lyrics Alley.

Lyrics Alley has already been fully nominated, so you get your nomination back.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I'll nominate a couple of other titles then, just to get them out there for interest:

Damascus Nights by Rafik Schami (Syria)

Originally Posted by GoodReads

It is 1959, Damascus. The most famous storyteller in Damascus, Salim, the coachman, has mysteriously lost his voice. For seven nights, his seven old friends gather to break the spell with their seven different, unique stories -- some personal, some modern, some borrowed from the past. Against the backdrop of shifting Middle Eastern politics, Schami's eight characters, lost to the Arabian nights, weave in and out of tales of wizards and princesses, of New York skyscrapers and America. With spellbinding power, Schami imparts a luscious vision of storytelling as food for thought and salve for the soul, as the glue which holds our lives together

The Yacoubian Buidling by Alaa Al Aswany (Egypt)

Originally Posted by GoodReads

All manner of flawed and fragile humanity reside in the Yacoubian Building, a once-elegant temple of Art Deco splendor now slowly decaying in the smog and bustle of downtown Cairo: a fading aristocrat and self-proclaimed "scientist of women"; a sultry, voluptuous siren; a devout young student, feeling the irresistible pull toward fundamentalism; a newspaper editor helplessly in love with a policeman; a corrupt and corpulent politician, twisting the Koran to justify his desires.

These disparate lives careen toward an explosive conclusion in Alaa Al Aswany's remarkable international bestseller. Teeming with frank sexuality and heartfelt compassion, this book is an important window on to the experience of loss and love in the Arab world.

[issybird]

I've got two nominations left, so I'll third Hope and Other Pursuits and second The Yacoubian Building.

[paola]

with my last nomination I will third The Yacoubian building

Add to nominations for Hope and Other Pursuits and The Yacoubian Building.

[sun surfer]

I had been thinking of nominating something in particular but left off because I thought the author may seem a bit too familiar when this region inspired me to look deeper, but with my last nomination I want to nominate it, to include something from Algeria (and my do we have a selection from all across the region this month!) and, like HIMS, to get it out there for interest.

I nominate The Plague by Albert Camus.

From Goodreads:

A gripping tale of human unrelieved horror, of survival and resilience, and of the ways in which humankind confronts death, The Plague is at once a masterfully crafted novel, eloquently understated and epic in scope, and a parable of ageless moral resonance, profoundly relevant to our times. In Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, the plague begins as a series of portents, unheeded by the people. It gradually becomes a omnipresent reality, obliterating all traces of the past and driving its victims to almost unearthly extremes of suffering, madness, and compassion.


ETA - By the way, we are only two days away from the 100th anniversary of his birth.

[BelleZora]

Second The Plague. I was just thinking about re-reading this.

[Bookpossum]

It's a great book, but I have run out of nominations!

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

It's a great book, but I have run out of nominations!

We need some that have nominations remaining to step up and get this party started.