MobileRead November 2015 Book Club Nominations

[HomeInMyShoes]

Let's go somewhere I haven't been before with:

How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić.

Spoiler:

For young Aleksandar - the best magician in the non-aligned states and painter of unfinished things - life is endowed with a mythic quality in the Bosnian town of Višegrad, a rich playground for his imagination. When his grandfather dies, Aleks channels his storytelling talent to help with his grief.

It is a gift he calls on again when the shadow of war spreads to Višegrad, and the world as he knows it stops. Though Aleks and his family flee to Germany, he is haunted by his past - and by Asija, the mysterious girl he tried to save. Desperate to learn of her fate, Aleks returns to his hometown on the anniversary of his grandfather's death to discover what became of her and the life he left behind.

This would cover Bosnia & Herzegovina.


I will also second Skylark.

[fantasyfan]

I'll third The Train.

[fantasyfan]

I'll third Skylark.

[BenG]

How about The Manuscript Found in the Saragossa by Jan Potocki.
The film version, The Saragossa Manuscript, is a favorite of mine (along with Jerry Garcia and Martin Scorsese who put up the money to fund an English language print).
It has stories within stories (at one point it's a story within a story within a story within a story within a story.)

Spoiler:

Alphonse, a young Walloon officer, is travelling to join his regiment in Madrid in 1739. But he soon finds himself mysteriously detained at a highway inn in the strange and varied company of thieves, brigands, cabbalists, noblemen, coquettes and gypsies, whose stories he records over sixty-six days. The resulting manuscript is discovered some forty years later in a sealed casket, from which tales of characters transformed through disguise, magic and illusion, of honour and cowardice, of hauntings and seductions, leap forth to create a vibrant polyphony of human voices. Jan Potocki (1761-1812) used a range of literary styles - gothic, picaresque, adventure, pastoral, erotica - in his novel of stories-within-stories, which, like the Decameron and Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, provides entertainment on an epic scale.

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Kobo

[BenG]

I'll second How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I think I've got one more nomination to go.

I'm going to nominate Resurrection by Wolf Haas.

Spoiler:

THE FIRST INSPECTOR BRENNER NOVEL

The darkly comic book that launched the bestselling series . . .

Wolf Haas is firmly established as one of the world’s bestselling crime novelists. And now the novel that introduced Simon Brenner, Haas’s inimitable protagonist—a detective who always gets where he’s going, but never the way anyone else would—is available for the first time 
in English.

When the corpses of two Americans turn up on a ski lift in the idyllic Swiss town of Zell, former police inspector Brenner, who needs a new job, not to mention more migraine medication, agrees to investigate the deaths for an insurance company.

But as Brenner gets acquainted with the finer points of curling, community theater, and certain sexy local schoolteachers, he notices one thing starkly missing: any semblance of a clue.

Until he stumbles across a buried secret that might have explosive consequences.

The Brenner books have some action, some humor, some somewhat queasy moments, but not enough of that to turn one off. Just fun books.

For those that read countries like me, this one covers Austria.

[Dazrin]

I will third How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone and hope my library will quickly add it based on my request.

With availability in mind, I will nominate Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky (which is free today at Amazon, maybe elsewhere.)

Goodreads | Amazon US (free 10/23)

My take: Originally, non-English, check (Russian). Easily available, check (free.) Independently published, check (originally free on his website and later published and translated into 35 different languages.) Interesting setting, check (set in the subways of Moscow which have become the world's largest bomb shelter.) Gritty, Russian post-apocalyptic fiction, check (I loved Roadside Picnic when it was nominated for August 2013.)

Description:

Spoiler:

Set in the shattered subway of a post apocalyptic Moscow, Metro 2033 is a story of intensive underground survival where the fate of mankind rests in your hands.

In 2013 the world was devastated by an apocalyptic event, annihilating almost all mankind and turning the earth’s surface into a poisonous wasteland. A handful of survivors took refuge in the depths of the Moscow underground, and human civilization entered a new Dark Age.

The year is 2033. An entire generation has been born and raised underground, and their besieged Metro Station-Cities struggle for survival, with each other, and the mutant horrors that await outside.

Artyom was born in the last days before the fire. Having never ventured beyond his Metro Station-City limits, one fateful event sparks a desperate mission to the heart of the Metro system, to warn the remnants of mankind of a terrible impending threat. His journey takes him from the forgotten catacombs beneath the subway to the desolate wastelands above, where his actions will determine the fate of mankind.

This book is the basis for the video games Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light.

I will also nominate Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

Goodreads | Amazon US | B&N

This first came to my attention when it was nominated for August 2013. It didn't win* but I was able to get it from the library and really enjoyed it.

Description:

Spoiler:

From Wikipedia:

The novel is set in a post-visitation world where there are now six Zones known on Earth (each zone is approximately five square miles/kilometers in size) which are still full of unexplained phenomena and where strange happenings have briefly occurred, assumed to have been visitations by aliens. World governments and the UN try to keep tight control over them to prevent leakage of artifacts from the Zones, fearful of unforeseen consequences. A subculture of stalkers, thieves going into the Zones to get the artifacts, evolves around the Zones.

Coincidentally, this is also the basis for a video game (Stalker).

*There was very tough competition that month and I would have been happy with any of the selections. I have read six of the nominations from that month and enjoyed all of them (Doomsday Book, Ender's Game, Lost Horizon, A Princess of Mars, Rendezvous with Rama, Roadside Picnic.) I am certain I will try the other four in the future as well.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Ooh, I'm out of nominations, but Roadside Picnic was an excellent read.

[peterwardgd]

I'd like to nominate Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto.

The only Japanese police procedural novel i've read and one of the only translated ones i could find tbh as most don't/didn't make it outside of Japan it seems. I enjoyed it a lot and rated it enough to buy it in paperback form as well digital for my collection.

Goodreads:

The corpse of an unknown provincial is discovered under the rails of a train in a Tokyo station, and Detective Imanishi is assigned to the case.

In a police procedural by Japan's foremost master of mystery, Inspector Imanishi Eitaro, a typically Japanese detective fond of gardening and haiku, must follow a killer's trail across the social strata of Japan.

Amazon

Kobo

[issybird]

Originally Posted by peterwardgd

I'd like to nominate Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto.

The only Japanese police procedural novel i've read and one of the only translated ones i could find tbh as most don't/didn't make it outside of Japan it seems. I enjoyed it a lot and rated it enough to buy it in paperback form as well digital for my collection.

Wow, much cheaper at Amazon US!

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by peterwardgd

I'd like to nominate Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto.

The only Japanese police procedural novel i've read and one of the only translated ones i could find tbh as most don't/didn't make it outside of Japan it seems. I enjoyed it a lot and rated it enough to buy it in paperback form as well digital for my collection.

Goodreads:


Amazon

Kobo

I'll second this.

[issybird]

I'll third Inspector Imanishi Investigates.

[obs20]

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

I've had this on my TBR list for awhile.

[peterwardgd]

I'll second Kafka on the Shore. I've read it already but it is one of my favourite Murakami novels and its the one i recommend to people who haven't read anything of his.

[sun surfer]

I nominate Memoirs of Hadrian by Margeurite Yourcenar, originally written in French. I've wanted to read this for awhile now; it was nominated and ended only one vote away from winning in the other club some years ago.

From Goodreads:

Both an exploration of character and a reflection on the meaning of history, Memoirs of Hadrian has received international acclaim since its first publication in France in 1951. In it, Marguerite Yourcenar reimagines the Emperor Hadrian's arduous boyhood, his triumphs and reversals, and finally, as emperor, his gradual reordering of a war-torn world, writing with the imaginative insight of a great writer of the twentieth century while crafting a prose style as elegant and precise as those of the Latin stylists of Hadrian's own era.

Goodreads