Literary Silence Is Golden • January 2020

[sun surfer]

All right, my votes are:

1 to Tin Man
1 to Goldfinger
1 to Crome Yellow
1 to The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra
1 to Three Horses
1 to Cup of Gold
1 to Where'd You Go, Bernadette
1 to Northern Lights
1 to The Day of the Owl

[AnotherCat]

Mine are:

Crome Yellow - 2
Northern Lights - 2
Cup of Gold - 2
The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra - 2
Goldfinger - 1

[sun surfer]

About a day left to vote!

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

I've read all the previews and the problem for me is that I'm having a hard time deciding which book not to vote for, lol. Usually I can at least eliminate one if the full slate looks good to me.

I agree! The list was very good, and I would like to read them all. I have several to add to my TBR now. I predict another run-off vote to break the ties.

Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley - 2
Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck - 2
The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra by Pedro Mairal - 2
The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson - 1
Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple - 1
Three Horses by Erri De Luca - 1

[sun surfer]

Your prediction is correct, Bookworm_Girl.

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

-Crome Yellow
-The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra
-Cup of Gold


Run-off voting is now open!

Voting will close exactly TWO DAYS from this post.

Each person has TWO votes to use.

If the run-off ends in a tie, the selection that received all its votes first will win.

[sun surfer]

I'll be good with any of the three, so I'm making this decision based on the author I've most recently read. I haven't ever read Mairal, and I've only read one Huxley, his most famous Brave New World, and that a long time ago in school. With Steinbeck, I've read both The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row in the last five or so years (both as selections for the general book club some years ago), as well as Of Mice and Men a long time ago. So my votes go to

1 to The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra
1 to Crome Yellow

But I'll be happy if Cup of Gold wins as well; I just couldn't think of a better way to decide! For what it's worth, I love a good open seas adventure story so it's right up my alley.

[AnotherCat]

Crome Yellow - 1
The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra - 1

I'm happy with Cup of Gold too.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I am happy with any of these! I suppose I'll read through some samples on Saturday morning and then make my decision.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Well, reading samples was not much help. I was waiting to see if anyone else expressed a preference. I want to read all three books!

So to break the tie between both of you, I'll select:

Crome Yellow - 1

[sun surfer]

Run-off voting is complete and we have a winner. We’re starting a brave new decade with Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow!

I’ll have the discussion thread up soon.

[sun surfer]

The discussion thread is up.

One thing I hadn't noticed before is that, even if we'd gone with a 20s decade topic as we were close to doing (books written or set in the 2020s, 1920s, 1820s, etc.), this book would still have fit!

Also, it's almost exactly 100 years old. It was published in 1921, so there's a chance he was working on it exactly 100 years ago anyway.

[sun surfer]

I read two of the non-winning selections over the last month, Where'd You Go, Bernadette and Tin Man.

I wasn't impressed with Where'd You Go, Bernadette despite relating to her character and finding some parts quite funny. It was too precocious and something of a disappointment so I'm glad it didn't win, although who knows, sometimes it's fun to discuss a book's shortcomings (i.e. shred a book to pieces, lol).

On the other hand, I loved the sensitive and lyrical Tin Man. However, though it's ultimately hopeful it was extremely melancholic, even more than I thought it might be, so I'd recommend the book to anyone interested with the caveat to make sure you're ready for a terribly sad book.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

I read two of the non-winning selections over the last month, Where'd You Go, Bernadette and Tin Man.

I wasn't impressed with Where'd You Go, Bernadette despite relating to her character and finding some parts quite funny. It was too precocious and something of a disappointment so I'm glad it didn't win, although who knows, sometimes it's fun to discuss a book's shortcomings (i.e. shred a book to pieces, lol).

On the other hand, I loved the sensitive and lyrical Tin Man. However, though it's ultimately hopeful it was extremely melancholic, even more than I thought it might be, so I'd recommend the book to anyone interested with the caveat to make sure you're ready for a terribly sad book.

Maybe Where'd You Go, Bernadette is better as a movie. It's still on my list to read. Thanks for the info on Tin Man.

[sun surfer]

I haven't seen the film of Bernadette; have you? And when you do end up reading it I'll be curious your take on it.