New Leaf Voting for October • The Times They Are a'Changin': Revolution

[CRussel]

It's time to select the book that the New Leaf Book Club will read and discuss in October, 2020. The theme is The Times They Are a'Changin': Revolution

We love new participants. We're happy for you to vote, but in the interest of a vibrant conversation, we'd like to request that you please not vote unless you plan to join the discussion whatever the selection. So if you haven't posted in a book club thread yet, do please say a quick hello here or in the Welcome thread.

This is a poll. Vote for as many books as you'd like. Questions? FAQs | Guidelines Or just ask!

Choices:

• The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss
  Spoiler:

  The nail-biting climax of one of the greatest political battles in American history: the ratification of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote.
  
  "With a skill reminiscent of Robert Caro, [Weiss] turns the potentially dry stuff of legislative give-and-take into a drama of courage and cowardice."--The Wall Street Journal
  
  "Weiss is a clear and genial guide with an ear for telling language ... She also shows a superb sense of detail, and it's the deliciousness of her details that suggests certain individuals warrant entire novels of their own... Weiss's thoroughness is one of the book's great strengths. So vividly had she depicted events that by the climactic vote (spoiler alert: The amendment was ratified!), I got goose bumps."--Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times Book Review
  
  Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, twelve have rejected or refused to vote, and one last state is needed. It all comes down to Tennessee, the moment of truth for the suffragists, after a seven-decade crusade. The opposing forces include politicians with careers at stake, liquor companies, railroad magnates, and a lot of racists who don't want black women voting. And then there are the "Antis"--women who oppose their own enfranchisement, fearing suffrage will bring about the moral collapse of the nation. They all converge in a boiling hot summer for a vicious face-off replete with dirty tricks, betrayals and bribes, bigotry, Jack Daniel's, and the Bible.
  
  Following a handful of remarkable women who led their respective forces into battle, along with appearances by Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Frederick Douglass, and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Woman's Hour is an inspiring story of activists winning their own freedom in one of the last campaigns forged in the shadow of the Civil War, and the beginning of the great twentieth-century battles for civil rights.

  417 pp.
  
• 10 Days that Shook the World, by John Reed.
  Spoiler:

  “Ten Days That Shook the World” is American journalist and socialist John Reed’s first-hand account of the Russian October Revolution of 1917. First published in 1919, Reed died soon after the book was released and was buried at the Kremlin in Moscow, one of only three Americans interred there, in tribute to his friendship with Vladimir Lenin and his important contribution to the new Soviet regime. While it was intended as an impartial and unbiased account, by Reed’s own admission, “in the struggle [his] sympathies were not neutral.” While Reed sided with the Bolsheviks and the Communist Revolution, his account of this pivotal time in world history is riveting, detailed, passionate, and brutally honest. “Ten Days That Shook the World” remains one of the most important and consequential works of American journalism and continues to influence the modern understanding of this violent and transformative time. An important historical document by an eyewitness of an event that would change the political landscape for most of the 20th century, “Ten Days That Shook the World” is a must read for those interested in communism, socialism, and how the October Revolution shaped Russian history.

  ~300 pp.
  
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
  Spoiler:

  Originally Posted by Goodreads

  In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.
  
  Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.
  
  When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.

  356 pp.
  
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
  Spoiler:

  8 starred reviews ∙ Goodreads Choice Awards Best of the Best ∙ William C. Morris Award Winner ∙ National Book Award Longlist ∙ Printz Honor Book ∙ Coretta Scott King Honor Book ∙ #1 New York Times Bestseller!
  
  "Absolutely riveting!" —Jason Reynolds
  
  "Stunning." —John Green
  
  "This story is necessary. This story is important." —Kirkus (starred review)
  
  "Heartbreakingly topical." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
  
  "A marvel of verisimilitude." —Booklist (starred review)
  
  "A powerful, in-your-face novel." —Horn Book (starred review)
  
  Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
  
  Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
  
  But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

  447 pp.
  
• The Secret Life of Bletchley Park: The WWII Codebreaking Centre and the Men and Women Who Worked There, by Sinclair McKay.
  Spoiler:

  Originally Posted by Amazon

  Bletchley Park has played a vital role in British history. This Victorian country house in the Buckinghamshire countryside was was where one of the war’s most famous – and crucial – achievements was made: the cracking of Germany’ s 'Enigma' code in which its most important military communications were couched. It was home to some of Britain’s most brilliant mathematical brains, such as Alan Turing, and the scene of immense advances in technology – indeed, the birth of modern computing. The military codes deciphered there were instrumental in turning both the Battle of the Atlantic and the war in North Africa.
  
  But, though plenty has been written about the boffins, and the codebreaking, fictional and non-fiction – from Robert Harris and Ian McEwan to Andrew Hodges’ biography of Turing – what of the thousands of men and women who lived and worked there during the war? What was life like for them – an odd, secret territory between the civilian and the military? This is the first oral history of life at Bletchley Park, an amazing compendium of memories from people now in their eighties – of skating on the frozen lake in the grounds (a depressed Angus Wilson, the novelist, once threw himself in) – of a youthful Roy Jenkins, useless at codebreaking, of the high jinks at nearby accommodation hostels – and of the implacable secrecy that meant girlfriend and boyfriend working in adjacent huts knew nothing about each other's work.

  372 pp.
  
• Factfulness by Hans Rosling
  Spoiler:

  Originally Posted by Goodreads

  Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.
  
  When asked simple questions about global trends - why the world's population is increasing; how many young women go to school; how many of us live in poverty - we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.
  
  In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and a man who can make data sing, Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens, and reveals the ten instincts that distort our perspective.
  
  It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most.
  
  Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world.

  342 pp.
  
• The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.
  Spoiler:

  The Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and its amazing 'White City' was one of the wonders of the world. This is the incredible story of its realization, and of the two men whose fates it linked: one was an architect, the other a serial killer.
  
  The architect was Daniel H. Burnham, the driving force behind the White City, the massive, visionary landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals and gardens. The killer was H. H. Holmes, a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair - and his own devilish charms - to lure scores of young women to their deaths. While Burnham overcame politics, infighting, personality clashes and Chicago's infamous weather to transform the swamps of Jackson Park into the greatest show on Earth, Holmes built his own edifice just west of the fairground. He called it the World's Fair Hotel. In reality it was a torture palace, a gas chamber, a crematorium.
  
  These two disparate but driven men together with a remarkable supporting cast of colourful characters, including as Buffalo Bill, George Ferris, Thomas Edison and some of the 27 million others who converged on the dazzling spectacle of the White City, are brought to life in this mesmerizing, murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America and set it on course for the twentieth century.

  447 pp.
  
• The Soldier’s Song By Alan Monaghan
  Spoiler:

  Originally Posted by Amazon

  Dublin, 1914. As Ireland stands on the brink of political crisis, Europe plunges headlong into war. Among the thousands of Irishmen who volunteer to fight for the British Army is Stephen Ryan, a gifted young maths scholar whose working class background has marked him out as a misfit among his wealthy fellow students.
  
  Sent to fight in Turkey, he looks forward to the great adventure, unaware of the growing unrest back home in Ireland. His romantic notions of war are soon shattered and he is forced to wonder where his loyalties lie, on his return to a Dublin poised for rebellion in 1916 and a brother fighting for the rebels. Everything has changed utterly, and in a world gone mad his only hope is his growing friendship with the brilliant and enigmatic Lillian Bryce.

  308 pp.

[CRussel]

Choices, choices...

I've voted for 1/2, my default, but I've also put holds on an additional two others at the library because I'd like to read them.

I must say, we've been having a really good run of nominations of late. Y'all should be commended.

[JSWolf]

My votes are cast.

[JSWolf]

In case there are still voters...

Originally Posted by Catlady

I don't know anything about that, but both the Brooklyn Library and NYPL show Parable of the Sower as "always available."

ETA: "Always available" through Overdrive.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Parable of the Sower is available at Hoopla as an eBook and available at Freading.

ALways available at Hoopla. Not sure of Freading. Hoopla can be read online (web browser) or with the Hoopla app. Freading is ePub like Overdrive.

Originally Posted by issybird

Freading is similar to Hoopla, in that books are always available on demand, with the added benefit that the books can be downloaded through ADE. Nice find.

So get out there and vote.

[CRussel]

Last Call. Polls will close in about 2 hours!

[CRussel]

Oh, my. A four-way runoff. Poll coming up shortly

[drofgnal]

Darn, missed the vote! I would have voted for10 days That Shook the World. That would have pushed it to the runoff. Rats!