Literary Biographies & Memoirs Vote • September 2015

[sun surfer]

Help choose the September 2015 selection to read for the MR Literary Club! The poll will be open for three days and a discussion thread will begin shortly after a winner is chosen.

The vote is multiple choice. You may vote for as many or as few as you like. If you vote for the winner it is hoped that you will read the selection with the club and join in the discussion.

NEW - When the poll ends, bonus votes will be manually added before determining final results. Basically, anyone who has commented in two out of the last six discussion threads is eligible for bonus votes, and everyone eligible will have any votes cast doubled. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to vote if interested in participating in the literary club whether eligible for bonus votes or not, and anyone interested in bonus votes is encouraged to become eligible as it doesn’t take much. Currently eligible:

Spoiler:

BelleZora, bfisher, Bookpossum, Bookworm_Girl, caleb72, ccowie, desertblues, fantasyfan, Hamlet53, HomeInMyShoes, Lynx-lynx, paola, sun surfer

This includes posts in the March to August discussion threads.
*There are a few caveats to eligibility as outlined in this post.
**If anyone feels there is any mistake in eligibility, please let me know before the poll is over. Once the poll ends and the tally with bonus votes added is announced, the results will be final.

In the event of a tie, there will be a one-day non-multiple-choice run-off poll. If the run-off also ends in a tie, then the tie will be resolved in favour of the selection that received all of its initial nominations first.


Select from the following works:


H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

Spoiler:

From Amazon:

Quote:
* Winner of the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize
* Named the Costa Book of the Year
* Amazon Best Book of the Month for March 2015

When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer—Helen had been captivated by hawks since childhood—she'd never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creature as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel, and turned to the guidance of The Once and Future King author T.H. White's chronicle The Goshawk to begin her challenging endeavor. Projecting herself "in the hawk's wild mind to tame her" tested the limits of Macdonald's humanity and changed her life.

Heart-wrenching and humorous, this book is an unflinching account of bereavement and a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, with a parallel examination of a legendary writer's eccentric falconry. Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator.

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

Spoiler:

Here is the Goodreads description:

The wild Cevennes region of France forms the backdrop for the pioneering travelogue 'Travels with a Donkey,' written by a young Robert Louis Stevenson. Ever hopeful of encountering the adventure he yearned for and raising much needed finance at the start of his writing career, Stevenson embarked on the120 mile, 12 day trek and recorded his experiences in this journal. His only companion for the trip was a predictably stubborn donkey called Modestine. 'Travels with a Donkey' gives the reader a rare glimpse of the character of the author, and the journalistic and often comical style of writing is in refreshing contrast to Stevenson's more famous works.

Travels With a Donkey is PD and in the Patricia Clark E-book Library.

Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Spoiler:

It's available on Kindle Unlimited.


Saint Exupéry was a French aristocrat, writer, poet, and pioneering aviator. He won several of France's highest literary awards and also won the U.S. National Book Award. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight.


Best known for his classic children's book The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was also an accomplished novelist and memoirist. For a dozen-plus years preceding the outbreak of World War II, he was a commercial aviator, flying for the French courier company Aéropostale. He was stationed both in South America (flying the spine of the Andes through Chile and Argentina) and in French West Africa (navigating between Toulouse and such African cities as Dakar, Marrakech, Casablanca, and Cairo, and secluded military outposts in the Sahara). Sadly, in 1944 he disappeared without a trace while flying a war-related reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean.

Fans of The Little Prince will gain insight into that strange little book, by reading this strange little book. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Wind, Sand and Stars is the Ur-consciousness of The Little Prince, and its essence can be found in Wind: the little desert foxes, the plane crashes, the calm acceptance of an impending Saharan death, and finally, the thirst-induced hallucinations, during which Saint-Exupéry likely conjured his children's story.

National Geograpic also listed it as one of the 100 best adventure stories:

3. Wind, Sand & Stars. By Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1940)
With beautiful prose, Antoine de Saint-Exupery describes his adventureous flights over the Pyrenees, Andes and Sahara. Probably the best book ever written about flying

[Bookpossum]

I voted for the one that is high on my "want to read" list.

[Lynx-lynx]

Okay, I've done a very silly thing .... I've voted for St Exupery to get it over the line, and because I would have read it. But, I've only just now realised that I will need to buy it from Kobo CA at $15.79 - which is not a price that I want to pay.

Kobo Au, NZ nor India have the ebook listed. And Amazon Au just has the lesson plans, and they cost $20 ish.

I apologise profusely for having voted without checking the price and location of the book first!

[Bookpossum]

Never mind Lynx-lynx - we've all done it at some time!

ETA: For a while there I thought I would be joining you on the bench to sit this one out if that book won, but have now found that I can get it through my library. Phew!

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

I apologise profusely for having voted without checking the price and location of the book first!

Not at all - you didn't do anything wrong! Ditto to what Bookpossum said. Supporting a book in nominations doesn't oblige you to vote for it on the poll.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Okay, I've done a very silly thing .... I've voted for St Exupery to get it over the line, and because I would have read it. But, I've only just now realised that I will need to buy it from Kobo CA at $15.79 - which is not a price that I want to pay.

Kobo Au, NZ nor India have the ebook listed. And Amazon Au just has the lesson plans, and they cost $20 ish.

I apologise profusely for having voted without checking the price and location of the book first!

Geographical publishing rights are frustrating. Under My Skin by Doris Lessing is not available by ebook in the US although the second volume, Walking in the Shade, is available.

I agree with the others. No need to apologize. I use my nomination votes for books that I think would make interesting reads for the club. I don't always vote for the same ones in the final vote.

I haven't decided what to vote for yet this month. Usually I vote for about 50% of the selections so I don't know whether to vote for 1 or 2 and if 2 which 2! All 3 are available to me through borrowing, and I would like to read all 3 although I know which one I prefer most.

[bfisher]

H Is For Hawk looks very interesting, but going by the waiting list at the Ottawa Public Library, I will not get it until the spring of 2016

I think Wind, Sand and Stars will be more readily available. Also, I'm a bit intrigued by what Anne Murrow Lindbergh wrote about him (from Lynne Olson - Those Angry Days) after his disappearance and presumed death:

'“a sun or a moon or stars which light the earth, which make the whole world and life more beautiful. Now the earth is unlit and it is no longer so beautiful. I go ahead in it stumbling and without joy.”'

[Bookpossum]

Hope you can get it sooner than that bfisher! Actually it's the same situation with my library, but I really wanted this book anyway as it got such great reviews - and I'm a birdwatcher and photographer. So I'm going to buy a copy from Kobo.

Thanks for nominating it, Bookworm_Girl.

[Bookpossum]

So I rushed off to Kobo and bought it, only to find that the URL link has some sort of problem and it won't download. Aaargh! I have tried to send a message to Kobo about it, but I have to say their help page is less than totally helpful, so I may or may not hear back.

Meantime I have retrieved my Kobo Touch from the retirement box and am charging it up so that I can (I hope) download the book through the Kobo website.

Sigh.

[sun surfer]

The result is the same with or without bonus votes so the winner is H is for Hawk! I'll have the discussion thread up a little later.

That's a pain, Bookpossum; I hope you get your download sorted out quickly.


ETA - The discussion thread is up.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

So I rushed off to Kobo and bought it, only to find that the URL link has some sort of problem and it won't download. Aaargh! I have tried to send a message to Kobo about it, but I have to say their help page is less than totally helpful, so I may or may not hear back.

Meantime I have retrieved my Kobo Touch from the retirement box and am charging it up so that I can (I hope) download the book through the Kobo website.

Sigh.

When I checked Kobo Canada, the site said it was not available as an ebook in Canada, although I can get it via Amazon Canada or the Ottawa Public Library's Overdrive portal

I did have some luck getting an express lending copy from a suburban branch of the Ottawa library. I'll have to get on with it, as it's a seven day lending period with doubled daily overdue fines

[Bookpossum]

That's good.

We managed to solve my problem (after I enquired elsewhere on MR) by downloading the previous version of Adobe Digital Editions. For some reason that works better than the version I had, and it still lets me use the good offices of Apprentice Alf, which a more recent update apparently does not.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Glad to hear you got your issues sorted out with Kobo, Bookpossum. And that you were able to get a copy too, bfisher. I was able to get a copy from one of my libraries with no wait.

[Bookpossum]

Just started it this evening!

[bfisher]

It's a stunning book. I didn't vote for it, but I'm glad that it won the vote.