New Leaf Nominations for November 2018 • Lies and Misdirections: Unreliable Narrators

[gmw]

Originally Posted by issybird

[...]No question that some books would be spoilt by knowing the narrator is unreliable going in, but it doesn't really matter for others. Either it's obvious from the start or the reader should have been reserving judgment anyway, that is, I think any first person account should imply the possibility that all is not as the narrator assumes or chooses to tell. [...]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Since suspense is my go-to genre, I've read many books where the twist is that the narrator you've been trusting all along is actually a diabolical liar, and of course revealing that is a spoiler. But often the unreliability is clear from the outset--the narrator has memory loss, for example, and is trying to piece together what happened. [...]

Yes, it's clear that some unreliable narrators are not (necessarily) guilty, but my point was that "some stories" (sic) - that would otherwise seem a perfect fit to the theme - become excluded by the spoiler effect. I had a couple in mind before I realised this (just slow, I guess), and had to go back and reconsider.

[gmw]

After considering and rejecting a number of more serious possibilities, I decided it might be good to offer something a bit lighter. A slightly different take on the unreliable narrator idea ... would you trust a dog as a narrator?

I nominate Dog On It by Spencer Quinn. The first Chet and Bernie mystery

Amazon US - USD$6.17 | Amazon UK - £4.99 | Amazon CA - CAD$8.49 | Amazon AU - AUD$8.60 | Kobo US - USD$12.99 | Kobo UK - £4.99 | Kobo CA - CAD$11.99 | Kobo AU - AUD$20.45

From Amazon (because the Goodread's description is far too detailed):

I could smell him - or rather the booze on his breath - before he even opened the door, but my sense of smell is pretty good, probably better than yours.

So begins this fabulous, funny new detective novel featuring Bernie, a slightly down-at-heel PI; and his offsider, Chet, a dog - and the captivating narrator of the story.

Chet may have flunked out of police school (I'd been the best leaper in K-9 class, which had led to all the trouble in a way I couldn't remember exactly, although blood was involved), but he's just as much a detective as Bernie - superior, sometimes, in his insight into human foibles.

In Dog On It, their first adventure, Chet and Bernie investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl who may or may not have been kidnapped, but who's definitely gotten herself mixed up with some very unsavoury characters.

It's light, it's easy and it's fun. A doggy perspective on an otherwise conventional crime/thriller story. Watch the price at Kobo - get them to match Amazon.


The links above have NOT been fully checked, my VPN service has gone completely flaky and I haven't had time to try and work out why.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by gmw

After considering and rejecting a number of more serious possibilities, I decided it might be good to offer something a bit lighter. A slightly different take on the unreliable narrator idea ... would you trust a dog as a narrator?

I nominate Dog On It by Spencer Quinn. The first Chet and Bernie mystery

I've fixed the Amazon US link and price in the nomination post. It's agency-priced here.

[darryl]

@issybird. I'm afraid the US price I'm coming up with is $12.99, which is consistent with S&S Agency Pricing. It is also not available as an ebook in any of my libraries. The Kindle Edition is indeed $8.60 on Amazon Australia but $20.45 on Kobo. The Publisher is Allen & Unwin. Agency is alive and well in Australia, so this seems to be some sort of discrepancy.

I'm not usually a fan of this type of fiction and my brother's dog is most offended at the mere suggestion that a dog may be an unreliable narrator. Nevertheless I will at least give it a try if it is selected, but only if I can borrow it from a library or pick it up much cheaper than it seems to be on offer at the moment.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by darryl

@issybird. I'm afraid the US price I'm coming up with is $12.99, which is consistent with S&S Agency Pricing.

Thanks for the amplification. I meant that I changed/fixed it in the nomination post. I'll edit my post to make that clear.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by darryl

@issybird. I'm afraid the US price I'm coming up with is $12.99, which is consistent with S&S Agency Pricing. It is also not available as an ebook in any of my libraries. The Kindle Edition is indeed $8.60 on Amazon Australia but $20.45 on Kobo. The Publisher is Allen & Unwin. Agency is alive and well in Australia, so this seems to be some sort of discrepancy.

I'm not usually a fan of this type of fiction and my brother's dog is most offended at the mere suggestion that a dog may be an unreliable narrator. Nevertheless I will at least give it a try if it is selected, but only if I can borrow it from a library or pick it up much cheaper than it seems to be on offer at the moment.

I think dogs are a heck of lot more reliable than people! (Cats too!)

None of my four libraries has it in audiobook or e-book form, though it's in the catalogs for Overdrive and RB Digital.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I think dogs are a heck of lot more reliable than people! (Cats too!)

None of my four libraries has it in audiobook or e-book form, though it's in the catalogs for Overdrive and RB Digital.

I read it a few years ago and I know I must have gotten it from OverDrive, probably Boston. Or unless it's expired at FLP.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

I read it a few years ago and I know I must have gotten it from OverDrive, probably Boston. Or unless it's expired at FLP.

I checked FLP and the three library systems in New York City--NYPL, Brooklyn, and Queens.

[CRussel]

FWIW, King County Library System has it, in both eBook and audio book formats. There's a wait on the ebook, no wait on the audio book.

Personally, I'd like to assume books are available for the purposes of nomination, but focus on availability when we move to voting. Right now, we need to build a slate. So far, we have only a single book fully nominated, and very few even proposed.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I think dogs are a heck of lot more reliable than people! (Cats too!)

None of my four libraries has it in audiobook or e-book form, though it's in the catalogs for Overdrive and RB Digital.

One Flew Over ... ? I see it at BPL and FLP.

[Catlady]

I nominate Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955, 348 pp.).

Awe and exhiliration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in Lolita, Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Lolita Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.

Amazon U.S., $11.99
Amazon Canada, CA $13.99
Amazon UK, £4.99
Amazon Australia, AU $12.99

Kobo U.S., $11.99
Kobo Canada, CA $13.99
Kobo UK, £4.99
Kobo Australia, AU $12.99

Annotated edition also available in all regions at slightly higher price.

Available from Overdrive (e-book and audiobook), RB Digital (audiobook), and Axis360 (e-book and audiobook).

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by John F

One Flew Over ... ? I see it at BPL and FLP.

No, Dog on It.

[issybird]

What's got me a bit stymied is that virtually everything I'd like to nominate is over $10 in $CAUS, but only £4.99 in the UK and depending on your library, available at OD. I don't know if those options are enough for people to go on with. It seems most of us have pretty good libraries, but that doesn't mean everyone does.

It's clear that the place to be to buy ebooks right now is the UK. I've got a long wishlist of books too rich for my blood here, but under £5 in the UK or roughly US$6.50.

How do we feel about length? I've got one contender that I'd nudge into action, but it's 500 pages. Too much?

Then there are the PD options and some very obvious ones, especially, to my mind, Wuthering Heights and Huckleberry Finn. My sense is that we prefer something at least a little more contemporary, at least as to publication if not subject matter.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

What's got me a bit stymied is that virtually everything I'd like to nominate is over $10 in $CAUS, but only £4.99 in the UK and depending on your library, available at OD. I don't know if those options are enough for people to go on with. It seems most of us have pretty good libraries, but that doesn't mean everyone does.

It's clear that the place to be to buy ebooks right now is the UK. I've got a long wishlist of books too rich for my blood here, but under £5 in the UK or roughly US$6.50.

How do we feel about length? I've got one contender that I'd nudge into action, but it's 500 pages. Too much?

Then there are the PD options and some very obvious ones, especially, to my mind, Wuthering Heights and Huckleberry Finn. My sense is that we prefer something at least a little more contemporary, at least as to publication if not subject matter.

I have a marked preference for something I can get as an audiobook. The less interest I have in a title, the more price, lack of library availability, and length become factors. I'm happy to read classics unless I've revisited them recently, which is the case with Wuthering Heights.

[CRussel]

I'm good with 500 pages, but only just. Unless, of course, it's something I was going to read anyway.

On availability -- I routinely check availability and price in two different public libraries and three different Amazons -- US, Canada, and the UK. I buy where it's effectively cheapest, unless WhisperSync is a major consideration. (It is, for long books that I want to be able to go back and forth with.) If WhisperSync is involved, my only two options are US and UK -- I don't have an Audible account in Canada. Yet.

As for PD works? Well, the price is right. But my sense is that they run the risk of not being as successful as we anticipate. (Whose Body and T3M come to mind immediately.)