Literary Always a Bridesmaid • August 2019

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

Yes.

I had read her first novel The Rehearsal previously and thought that a pretty lumpy effort, even for a first go, together with having a tired theme. I didn't see a budding super novelist in it and so was quite surprised with the The Luminaries Booker.

But maybe there is another book coming, six years in the works so far, that will establish an enduring reputation, otherwise may be another Keri Hulme (no second book for more than 30 years, although rumors fanned by her persist that she is still writing it )

I started to read The Luminaries. I remember liking it but for some reason I just stopped reading at ~10% and went on to something else. That was 2 years ago, and I keep telling myself I need to try it again...

[Bookworm_Girl]

Your nominations are very intriguing, sun surfer! I would like to read many of these books.

I am going to give my votes to:

Great House - 1
Salt Rain - 2
Lies of Silence - 1
Pascali's Island - 1

[sun surfer]

~To tie is human, to run-off divine.~


Initial voting is complete and we have a tie! The tie is between:

-Salt Rain
-Lies of Silence


Run-off voting is now open to determine our 99th selection!

Voting will close exactly TWO DAYS from this post.

Each person has ONE vote to use.

If the run-off also happens to end in a tie, the selection that received all its votes first will win.

[sun surfer]

This might be a temporary shirking of my voting responsibilities, heh, but I think I'll abstain from voting in the run-off this time since I'd really like to read both, equally, and let the others of you decide.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

...since I'd really like to read both, equally, and let the others of you decide.

They are both short novels, perhaps we could read both? It was a toss up between these two as to which I would give an extra vote in the main round.

Am flying blind quite a lot with this month's books, so will have to go through a few more mental gymnastics before coming down to which one to vote for now.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I am equally fine with either. I downloaded samples of each and that didn't help to pick one! They are very different but both sound interesting.

In the absence of any strong opinions we could go with whichever one got votes first in the original vote.

[AnotherCat]

I am happy with either, too.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I’m going to make a decision and vote for Lies of Silence. Here is my logic.

1) Brian Moore has been nominated for the Booker three times. He has a large body of work in varied genres. Some of his other works look interesting to add to my TBR.

2) This book looks like it might have interesting moral questions for discussion.

3) I read The Milkman by Anna Burns, also about the Northern Ireland conflict, which won the 2018 Booker Prize. I’m interested in the comparison.

[AnotherCat]

I'll go with Lies of Silence too.

[sun surfer]

It looks like you've all sorted everything out before I chimed in, but there were some interesting ideas nevertheless.

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

They are both short novels, perhaps we could read both?

This reminds me of the idea I had of spreading votes & discussions out by length instead of strictly monthly, so that if the selections were shorter we might read two or so in a month and so on. There was interest in trying it out but so far I haven't because logistically it might be a little complicated to plan out. Your suggestion reminded me of it since we had a short selection last month and both of these are on the slimmer side. Though it looks like the run-off is settling on a selection this month, it could be fun to try something like that at some point.

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

In the absence of any strong opinions we could go with whichever one got votes first in the original vote.

Yes, that sounds good, though I'm not quite sure if you mean the one that got any vote first, or the one that got all its votes first. Oddly enough though, if no one had voted in the run-off, whether we broke the tie by the first that got any votes, or the first that got all its votes, or even the first fully nominated (as has been used as a tie-breaker in the past), the same book would've won the tie-breaker regardless, heh.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

Yes, that sounds good, though I'm not quite sure if you mean the one that got any vote first, or the one that got all its votes first. Oddly enough though, if no one had voted in the run-off, whether we broke the tie by the first that got any votes, or the first that got all its votes, or even the first fully nominated (as has been used as a tie-breaker in the past), the same book would've won the tie-breaker regardless, heh.

Oh, I didn't have any specific order in mind. I just recalled that you had posted something like "the first that got all its votes" in the past if the run-off had a tie.

[sun surfer]

Run-off voting is complete, and we're off to Belfast for Lies of Silence! I'll have the discussion thread up soon.

[sun surfer]

The discussion thread is up!


If I don't stay too busy then sometime soon I may also read Salt Rain as it quite interested me.