New Leaf Nominations for November 2019 • Books like Onions: Layers

[CRussel]

So far, I'm not coming up with books that "fit". Or rather, I can come up with them, but I've either read it already and have no desire to re-read, or it's not available somewhere, or it's >600 pages. Sigh.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by issybird

We've decided that the publication date is a recommendation. This is fine.

I should have it from OverDrive within the next three weeks myself. I'll note that the Canadian price is cheaper than the US price.

Thanks, given the preferences already indicated, I will leave it in place.

I had it in my head the US price wasn't that far from usual, but it must just have been the other books I was looking at at the time. (Details like price get a bit hazy after you've been staring at pages and pages of books all night. Oh the stress and strain of book shopping. ).

[CRussel]

FWIW, one of my libraries it's a 6 month wait, gmw. But I checked the other and it's only 2 weeks there.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by CRussel

FWIW, one of my libraries it's a 6 month wait, gmw. But I checked the other and it's only 2 weeks there.

I ran into that disparity with Night Watch. Six months wait at one library, I'm next up at another.

[astrangerhere]

I will second Heyer and I will make my own recommendation for Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. From the goodreads blurb:

'A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following. Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.'

I'm at work so I can't run prices right now, but the book was published in 1985 and I think would be available at many libraries.

[Dazrin]

I was going to third the Heyer but it's already done, so I will just second Hard-Boiled Wonderland.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by gmw

I nominate Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

Blurb from Kobo:

464 pages

Indicative pricing (from Kobo): USD $12.99, CAD $14.99, GBP £4.99, AUD $12.99.

Goodread's blurb is a bit long-winded, but here's the link.


Right there in the blurb it says "multi-layered" so I'm covered for the theme.

I will second this book. I just finished it and really enjoyed it!

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

It could be a problem in some libraries I suppose, though apparently not in mine, so I leave that for others to respond to.

I thought The Thirteenth Tale was very good indeed when I read it many years ago, and can certainly recommend it if you decide to go with it.

The Thirteenth Tale was my first ebook read on my brand new Sony PRS500 in 2007.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I second The Night Watch by Sarah Waters.

I read her book The Little Stranger a couple of years ago and thought it was very good, so would like to read more books by her.

I will third this book. I have been wanting to read something by Sarah Waters.

[issybird]

I am absolutely gobsmacked.

I've been toying with making a second nomination depending on how things go. I thought Fifth Business by the greatest of all Canadian authors, Robertson Davies, (Margaret who?) would fit. I read it decades ago and loved it and have planned to reread it eventually, as I have his other two trilogies in the past few years. And, it's cheap here; only $1.99.

It's not available in Australia! Or the UK, which I always check for price comparison purposes. It continues to shock when great authors aren't universally published in Anglophone countries, but I do bump into it, as we all do with nominations here. Well, so much for that.

[Bookpossum]

How very annoying of the publishers! I have checked, and can get it through one of my libraries. So if gmw could also, maybe it could still go up.

[Bookpossum]

I have a similar dilemma with the book I want to nominate, which isn't available in Canada as an ebook, as far as I can make out. I would like to crave my Canadian cousins' forgiveness and put it up anyway, in the hope that if you are interested in reading it, you can get it from a library.

So, I would like to nominate Ever After by Graham Swift. From Goodreads:

Dazzling in its structure and shattering in its emotional force, Graham Swift's Ever After spans two centuries and settings from the adulterous bedrooms of postwar Paris to the contemporary entanglements in the groves of academe.

It is the story of Bill Unwin, a man haunted by the death of his beautiful wife and a survivor himself of a recent brush with mortality. And although it touches on Darwin and dinosaurs, bees and bridge builders, the true subject of Ever After is nothing less than the eternal question, "Why should things matter?"

(I thought that sounded as if it would have a few layers to it!)

Kobo prices: $US11.99, $A12.99, ￡5.99.

295 pages.

[gmw]

It seems as if Australia is more interested in books about Robertson Davies than we are in reading books written by him. My library options for ebooks are pretty limited, and those I searched could find no match.

I do still have two votes, but I have been waiting to see what else is nominated before casting them.

[Catlady]

I'm trying to find something with a Rashomon vibe and not having much luck. I feel like I've read books that would work, but I can't pull the titles from my brain, and looking at various lists isn't helping.

I did come across one possibility (An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears), but it's quite long and lacks an unabridged audiobook, and that combination of factors is a turn-off for me, so I decided against it.

[CRussel]

FWIW, I get most of my books from the U.S. Amazon store, and I'm pretty Victoria has access to a U.S. store as well. So don't let Canadian availability be a concern.

Charlie.