Literary Time Period Nominations • May 2014

[caleb72]

I would also like to endorse Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad. I enjoyed Heart of Darkness so wouldn't mind reading another of his works.

And my last nomination I'd like to make for John Buchan's The 39 Steps - 1915.

The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan. It first appeared as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine in August and September 1915 before being published in book form in October that year by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh.[1] It is the first of five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a miraculous knack for getting himself out of sticky situations.

I'm not sure if this is literary enough for this club, so I'll throw it in and see what people think.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by caleb72

And my last nomination I'd like to make for John Buchan's The 39 Steps - 1915. <snip> I'm not sure if this is literary enough for this club, so I'll throw it in and see what people think.

I don't see why not. At least for me, classic mystery/thriller qualifies.

Originally Posted by paola

Ccowie, I loved Main Street, but I am tempted by other nominations I have not read.

I've got one nomination left and this is what restrains me in regard to all of the other nominations which are without exception great suggestions, but I'm holding out a bit longer for something new to me. But I'll gladly reread if one if them is selected!

[sun surfer]

caleb72, you still have one nomination left (you get four). issybird, similar situation as with paola. Most of the sources I looked at dated The Education of Henry Adams as first privately published in 1907 (though one source lists 1906), but various sources also seem confident that he wrote it in 1905 so that's what I've used (though one other source lists 1903).

[paola]

I probably should throw in another title, as I suspect issybird is right that we may be quite thin, and fewer books will make it, but you guys may have already read a lot of the classics in English, so I'll do it nonetheless, nominating The Gods Will Have Blood also known as The Gods are athirst (original title Les Dieux ont soif, by Anatole France, another Nobel Prize laureate.

The book was published in 1912, and the translation by Mrs Wilfrid Jackson, or you can get the more recent Penguin edition on Amazon or Kobo.

From the back cover of the Penguin edition:

Published in 1912, when Anatole France was sixty-eight, The Gods Will Have Blood is the story of Gamelin, an idealistic young artist appointed as a magistrate during the French Revolution. Gamelin's ideals lead him to the most monstrous mass murder of his countrymen, and the links between Gamelin and his family, his mistress and the humanist Brotteaux are catastrophically severed. The Gods Will Have Blood recreates the violence and devastation of the Terror with breathtaking power, and weaves into it a tale which grips, convinces and profoundly moves. The perfection of Anatole France's prose style, with its myriad subtle ironies, is here translated by Frederick Davies with admirable skill and sensitivity. That The Gods Will Have Blood is Anatole France's masterpiece is beyond doubt. It is also one of the most brilliantly polished novels in French literature.

[paola]

Originally Posted by issybird

I'm going to nominate The Education of Henry Adams

I was hoping to read Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres first, but as this is not going to happen soon, I may as well third The Education of Henry Adams now!

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by paola

I probably should throw in another title, as I suspect issybird is right that we may be quite thin, and fewer books will make it, but you guys may have already read a lot of the classics in English, so I'll do it nonetheless, nominating The Gods Will Have Blood also known as The Gods are athirst (original title Les Dieux ont soif, by Anatole France

I will second this book. Sounds fascinating!

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by caleb72

I would also like to endorse Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad. I enjoyed Heart of Darkness so wouldn't mind reading another of his works.

And my last nomination I'd like to make for John Buchan's The 39 Steps - 1915.



I'm not sure if this is literary enough for this club, so I'll throw it in and see what people think.

I liked The 39 Steps. Although I think it was already selected by the other book club in June 2010. I'm not sure if that matters to the literary club's rules.

[issybird]

Third The Gods Will Have Blood.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

I liked The 39 Steps. Although I think it was already selected by the other book club in June 2010. I'm not sure if that matters to the literary club's rules.

I haven't read it, but I did enjoy the 1935 Hitchcock film version. We don't have any rule about previous other book club selections for regular nomination months like this one, although it is a requirement that they not be nominated in rotating months.

[caleb72]

I'm going to lend my voice to The Gods Will Have Blood for my final nomination. Looks great. Even the blurb got my heart racing.

[Bookpossum]

I will fourth The Education of Henry Adams and reserve my last vote a bit longer, while I try to make up my mind!

[pynch]

Epubs of some of the nominated books can be found here in the MR library in the complete works of Max Beerbohm, Joseph Conrad, and Edith Wharton.

[paola]

Originally Posted by paola

I probably should throw in another title..

oh dear, what I meant was "I probably should NOT throw in another title. .."

[BelleZora]

I'll fourth The Mother and second The Thirty-Nine Steps.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I will third Zuleika Dobson.