MobileRead July 2013 Special Run-Off Vote

[WT Sharpe]

July 2013 Mobile Read Book Club Special Run-Off Vote

Since this month's vote resulted in a tie, we are having a Special Run-Off Vote between the two leading candidates. I will not vote in this poll unless my vote is needed to break a tie. This poll will be open for 3 days, and all MobileRead members are invited to participate. This is a visible poll. It is NOT multiple choice.

We will start the discussion thread for this book on July 20th. Select from the following Two Choices:

• A Night to Remember by Walter Lord
Amazon UK

Spoiler:

From HarryT:

This is the classic account of the sinking of the Titanic from the eye-witness accounts of the survivors. A simply amazing book which everyone should read.

• Fanny and Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England by Neil McKenna
Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Kobo

Spoiler:

28th April 1870. The flamboyantly dressed Miss Fanny Park and Miss Stella Boulton are causing a stir in the Strand Theatre. All eyes are riveted upon their lascivious oglings of the gentlemen in the stalls. Moments later they are led away by the police. What followed was a scandal that shocked and titillated Victorian England in equal measure. It turned out that the alluring Miss Fanny Park and Miss Stella Boulton were no ordinary young women. Far from it. In fact, they were young men who liked to dress as women. When the Metropolitan Police launched a secret campaign to bring about their downfall, they were arrested and subjected to a sensational show trial in Westminster Hall. As the trial of 'the Young Men in Women's Clothes' unfolded, Fanny and Stella's extraordinary lives as wives and daughters, actresses and whores were revealed to an incredulous public. With a cast of peers, politicians and prostitutes, drag queens, doctors and detectives, "Fanny and Stella" is a Victorian peepshow, exposing the startling underbelly of nineteenth-century London. By turns tragic and comic, meticulously researched and dazzlingly written, "Fanny and Stella" is an enthralling tour-de-force.

[Bookpossum]

Go, Fanny and Stella!

[JSWolf]

This is not good. Here we have two old and moldy books to choose from. Neither are interesting, modern, fun, enriching or educational. Sorry, but this month had a chance to be good, but soon went into the toilet fast.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This is not good. Here we have two old and moldy books to choose from. Neither are interesting, modern, fun, enriching or educational. Sorry, but this month had a chance to be good, but soon went into the toilet fast.

Uh, Fanny and Stella was published this year. And while the setting is Victorian, I think the subject matter sounds to be both fun and tragic in its own way as well as highly relevant to issues today. It would make for a great discussion.

[medard]

What happened to Gulp? I already started reading it. It's brilliant.

[Bookpossum]

It didn't get enough votes.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

Uh, Fanny and Stella was published this year. And while the setting is Victorian, I think the subject matter sounds to be both fun and tragic in its own way as well as highly relevant to issues today. It would make for a great discussion.

Yes it was published this year, but the subject matter is old and stale.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by medard

What happened to Gulp? I already started reading it. It's brilliant.

I have three books on the go and once I finish them, Gulp is next.

The problem is that people just didn't listen and didn't vote for the best book in the list. They decide old, stale, moldy subjects were preferred. They didn't want something fun, fresh, modern and enjoyable.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Yes it was published this year, but the subject matter is old and stale.

Gender and sexual politics? Society's outrage at those who don't conform? The use of the legal system to keep the errant in line? Yup, old and stale.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

Gender and sexual politics? Society's outrage at those who don't conform? The use of the legal system to keep the errant in line? Yup, old and stale.

The setting is Victorian. That's the problem. It should have been set now. But because of the Victorian bit, that's what ruins it.

[Bookpossum]

If it was set now, I don't think there would be much of a drama about it! Society has, thank goodness, progressed a bit since then.

But it's very important for us not to lose sight of how things were, or the bigots will try to push society back to the same or similar laws against people who are different from the norm, ie what they (the bigots) think is right.

[WT Sharpe]

For what it's worth, Jon, at the moment I'm reading a biographical graphic novel on my iPad about a man whose life began in the Victorian era on October 12, 1875 and ended on December 1, 1947 and it's very interesting. Like Fanny and Stella, this gentleman shocked England; him with his drugs, his occult claims that he was put on Earth to proclaim that the only law is "Do what thou with", and his wild sexual escapades that involved both men and women. He was denounced by the popular media of his day as "the wickedest man in the world". You should check it out before declaring any book about an earlier era than our own being by definition old, stale, and musty.

Aleister Crowley: Wandering the Waste by Martin Hayes and R.H. Stewart.

[medard]

So there are two books left now, a book about an accident that caused the death of thousands and a book about victorian cross-dressing.

Oh well..

On the other hand, maybe this fun, fresh, modern and enjoyable stuff is not suitable for everybody here. We can't force people to read good books, can we?

[HarryT]

Vote for "A Night to Remember". You know it makes sense!

[medard]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Aleister Crowley: Wandering the Waste by Martin Hayes and R.H. Stewart.

Ah that would be cool actually. This guy fooled a lot of people that tried to get "occult knowledge" desperately. Crowley was indeed one of the first pop artists of the 20th century. He even meet Fernando Pessoa once or twice in Lisbon. I don't like him but he was a genuis. Interesting stuff indeed.

Maybe next time.