Literary Non-Fiction Vote • March 2016

[sun surfer]

Help choose the March 2016 selection to read for the MR Literary Club!


Select from the following works:


Orwell's Victory by Christopher Hitchens

Spoiler:

Called in the US Why Orwell Matters


From Kobo:

In this widely acclaimed biographical essay, Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the achievements, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. In true emulative and contrarian style, Hitchens is both admiring and aggressive, sympathetic yet critical, taking true measure of his subject as hero and problem. Answering both the detractors and the false claimants, Hitchens tears down the façade of sainthood erected by the hagiographers and rebuts the critics point by point. He examines Orwell and his perspectives on fascism, empire, feminism, and Englishness, as well as his outlook on America, a country and culture towards which he exhibited much ambivalence. Whether thinking about empires or dictators, race or class, nationalism or popular culture, Orwell's moral outlook remains indispensable in a world that has undergone vast changes in the fifty years since his death. Combining the best of Hitchens's polemical punch and intellectual elegance in a tightly woven and subtle argument, this book addresses not only why Orwell matters today, but how he will continue to matter in a future, uncertain world.Christopher Hitchens, one of the most incisive minds of our own age, meets Orwell on the page in this provocative encounter of wit, contention and moral truth.

In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

Spoiler:

From Bookworm_Girl:

This book was the winner of the 2000 National Book Award for Nonfiction, an annual US literary award. The tragedy of the whaleship Essex was the inspiration for Moby Dick.


From Goodreads:
Quote:
In the Heart of the Sea brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex—an event as mythic in its own century as the Titanic disaster in ours, and the inspiration for the climax of Moby-Dick. In a harrowing page-turner, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history.

In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.

In the Heart of the Sea tells perhaps the greatest sea story ever. Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, the book delivers the ultimate portrait of man against nature, drawing on a remarkable range of archival and modern sources, including a long-lost account by the ship's cabin boy. At once a literary companion and a page-turner that speaks to the same issues of class, race, and man's relationship to nature that permeate the works of Melville, In the Heart of the Sea will endure as a vital work of American history.

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro

Spoiler:

Shapiro's book won the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction in 2006.


The Goodread's blurb:

Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.

James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare’s staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.

*

The poll will be open for three days and a discussion thread will begin shortly after a winner is chosen.

The vote is multiple choice. You may vote for as many or as few as you like. If you vote for the winner it is hoped that you will read the selection with the club and join in the discussion.

Bonus votes:

Spoiler:

When the poll ends, bonus votes will be manually added before determining final results. Basically, anyone who has commented in two out of the last six discussion threads is eligible for bonus votes, and everyone eligible will have any votes cast doubled.

Everyone is welcome and encouraged to vote if interested in participating in the literary club whether eligible for bonus votes or not, and anyone interested in bonus votes is encouraged to become eligible as it doesn’t take much.

Currently eligible-
bfisher, Bookpossum, Bookworm_Girl, caleb72, fantasyfan, Hamlet53, HomeInMyShoes, issybird, sun surfer

This includes posts thus far in the September to February discussion threads.
*There are a few caveats to eligibility as outlined in this post.
**If anyone feels there is any mistake in eligibility, please let me know before the poll is over. Once the poll ends and the tally with bonus votes added is announced, the results will be final.

In the event of a tie, there will be a one-day single-choice run-off poll. If the run-off also ends in a tie, then the tie will be resolved in favour of the selection that received all of its initial nominations first.

[Bookpossum]

Tough choice! I ended up voting for the first two as I would have to purchase the one on Shakespeare, but that was my only reason not to vote for it, and it isn't ruinous.

[sun surfer]

In the Heart of the Sea it is! I'll have the discussion thread up within a day.

[Bookpossum]

Looking forward to it - just ordered it from my library.

[fantasyfan]

I have my Kindle copy now. I anticipate an enjoyable and informative read .

[Bookworm_Girl]

Got my library copy too. Plan to start it over the weekend.

[bfisher]

I'm on the wait list at the library, so I fear I will be late to the party - why are so many people requesting a title published in 2001

I just received "Why Orwell Matters" which looks very good, so I'll amuse myself with that while I'm waiting.

I'm looking forward to reading Philbrick's book. I've read several of his other books, and found his prose very readable.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by bfisher

I'm on the wait list at the library, so I fear I will be late to the party - why are so many people requesting a title published in 2001

I just received "Why Orwell Matters" which looks very good, so I'll amuse myself with that while I'm waiting.

I'm looking forward to reading Philbrick's book. I've read several of his other books, and found his prose very readable.

It was released as a movie just a few months ago in December 2015. Maybe that explains the popularity at your library? Ron Howard was the director.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1390411/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

I read Mayflower when it was published in hardcover.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

It was released as a movie just a few months ago in December 2015. Maybe that explains the popularity at your library? Ron Howard was the director.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1390411/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

I read Mayflower when it was published in hardcover.

Thanks Bookworm_Girl. That explains it.

I'm way out of the loop on Hollywood. The last movie I went to see was Lincoln.