MobileRead April 2014 Book Club Vote

[WT Sharpe]

April 2014 MobileRead Book Club Vote

Help us choose a book as the December 2013 eBook for the MobileRead Book Club. The poll will be open for 5 days. There will be no runoff vote unless the voting results a tie, in which case there will be a 3 day run-off poll. This is a visible poll: others can see how you voted. It is You may cast a vote for each book that appeals to you.

We will start the discussion thread for this book on April 20th. Select from the following Official Choices with three nominations each:

• Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: LRF │ Amazon US / Kobo

Spoiler:

Dreiser's unsparing story of a country girl's rise to riches as the mistress of a wealthy man marked the beginning of the naturalist movement in America. Both its subject matter and Dreiser's objective, nonmoralizing approach made it highly controversial, and only a heavily edited version could be published in 1900.

• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
No links provided.

Spoiler:

An Amazon blurb:

Supreme masterpiece recounts in feverish, compelling tones the story of Raskolnikov, an impoverished student tormented by his own nihilism, and the struggle between good and evil.

• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: / ePub / ePub (Complete Works) / Kindle │ Uncensored Version: Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / De Gruyter

Spoiler:

From Wikipedia:

The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine. The magazine's editors feared the story was indecent as submitted, so they censored roughly 500 words, without Wilde's knowledge, before publication. But even with that, the story was still greeted with outrage by British reviewers, some of whom suggested that Wilde should be prosecuted on moral grounds, leading Wilde to defend the novel aggressively in letters to the British press. Wilde later revised the story for book publication, making substantial alterations, deleting controversial passages, adding new chapters, and including an aphoristic Preface that has since become famous in its own right. The amended version was published by Ward Lock & Co in April 1891. Some scholars believe that Wilde would today have wanted us to read the version he originally submitted to Lippincott's.

The novel tells of a young man named Dorian Gray, the subject of a painting by artist Basil Hallward. Basil is impressed by Dorian's beauty and becomes infatuated with him, believing his beauty is responsible for a new mode in his art. Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton, a friend of Basil's, and becomes enthralled by Lord Henry's world view. Espousing a new hedonism, Lord Henry suggests the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfilment of the senses. Realizing that one day his beauty will fade, Dorian (whimsically) expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait Basil has painted would age rather than he. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, and when he subsequently pursues a life of debauchery, the portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act has upon his soul, with each sin displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is considered a work of classic Gothic fiction with a strong Faustian theme.

• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: Oz Omnibus: BBeB/LRF (Illustrated) / ePub / Kindle / Kindle (Illustrated)

Spoiler:

We all know and love the movie, but as we all know "the book is always better than the movie". Let's find out if that is true and discuss together...

• The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Eugine Petrov
Amazon US

Spoiler:

Book Description (from Amazon.com):
Publication Date: December 2, 2013
Ostap Bender is an unemployed con artist living by his wits in postrevolutionary Soviet Russia. He joins forces with Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, a former nobleman who has returned to his hometown to find a cache of missing jewels which were hidden in some chairs that have been appropriated by the Soviet authorities. The search for the bejeweled chairs takes these unlikely heroes from the provinces to Moscow to the wilds of Soviet Georgia and the Trans-caucasus mountains; on their quest they encounter a wide variety of characters: from opportunistic Soviet bureaucrats to aging survivors of the prerevolutionary propertied classes, each one more selfish, venal, and ineffective than the one before.

• The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Amazon US / Kobo

Spoiler:

"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world.

By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper then embarks on a quest to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His search leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition.

• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub / Kindle

Spoiler:

No description provided.

• Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
No links provided.

Spoiler:

No summation provided.

• The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub / Kindle / Kindle (Books 1 & 2) │ Amazon

Spoiler:

Contains these stories:
MOWGLI'S BROTHERS
KAA'S HUNTING
TIGER! TIGER!
THE WHITE SEAL
RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI
TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS
HER MAJESTY'S SERVANTS
PARADE-SONG OF THE CAMP ANIMALS

• Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Patricia Clark Memorial Library: ePub (D'Artagnan Romances, Vol 1) / ePub (French) / ePub (French/English) / Kindle (D'Artagnan Romances, Vol 1) / Kindle (French/English)

Spoiler:

Amazon blurb:

With its rousing cry of "One for all, and all for one," Alexandre Dumas's thrilling adventure novel has captivated generations of readers since its initial publication in 1844. Action, intrigue, and romance abound in this swashbuckling epic, which traces a country lad's path to the French court of the early 1600s and the glorious fraternity of the king's men, the Musketeers.

[tidegirl]

I'm having a case of reader's block. I've been reading entirely too much young adult fiction (which I am not qualified to read LOL) and need to expand my horizons, but can't for the life of me figure out what I want to read. Hopefully this will get me out of the slump.

[Moe The Cat]

Tom, a question about the vote percentages. At this time, there are seven votes cast for six different books. A Picture Of Dorian Gray has two of those seven votes. The right-hand columns shows that as 66.67%. Shouldn't that be "2 divided by 7" or 28.57% of the total vote?

[Moe The Cat]

Oh, I see. You're dividing by the number of voters (3). That way, someone who votes for several books won't carry more weight than someone who votes for a single book. Makes sense!

Whether or not to vote for The Picture of Dorian Gray was the only tough call. I've read the long standard version enough times that I really have no interest in reading that again. The more that I looked into the new version the less interested I became as it apparently adds some, but also subtracts some from the former. That and, at least from the links, it looks like both versions were nominated?

Some of the others I did not vote for are great books, just not books I am keen on reading again at this time.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Moe The Cat

Tom, a question about the vote percentages. At this time, there are seven votes cast for six different books. A Picture Of Dorian Gray has two of those seven votes. The right-hand columns shows that as 66.67%. Shouldn't that be "2 divided by 7" or 28.57% of the total vote?

Originally Posted by Moe The Cat

Oh, I see. You're dividing by the number of voters (3). That way, someone who votes for several books won't carry more weight than someone who votes for a single book. Makes sense!

Actually, I'm doing nothing. The vote tabulation is computed automatically by the MobileRead operating system.

[issybird]

This is a strong slate, but I'd decided that I had to cut back on book club rereads this year and the only choice I haven't read is The Twelve Chairs. It looks fascinating and well worth reading; however, the length gives me pause at a time when I'm already struggling to fit in the books I'd planned to read this year.

Therefore, I've decided not to vote, but I'll try to read the uncensored Dorian Grey or Twelve Chairs if selected.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by issybird

This is a strong slate, but I'd decided that I had to cut back on book club rereads this year and the only choice I haven't read is The Twelve Chairs. It looks fascinating and well worth reading; however, the length gives me pause at a time when I'm already struggling to fit in the books I'd planned to read this year.

Therefore, I've decided not to vote, but I'll try to read the uncensored Dorian Grey or Twelve Chairs if selected.

Ditto in terms of rereads and the fact that I'm behind on my challenge, so I've only voted for Dorian Grey.

[Gronk]

Originally Posted by issybird

This is a strong slate, but I'd decided that I had to cut back on book club rereads this year and the only choice I haven't read is The Twelve Chairs. It looks fascinating and well worth reading; however, the length gives me pause at a time when I'm already struggling to fit in the books I'd planned to read this year.

Therefore, I've decided not to vote, but I'll try to read the uncensored Dorian Grey or Twelve Chairs if selected.

I'm sixty percent through The Twelve Chairs and it is quite a bit shorter novel than the actual page count would imply. There's a lot of empty space in those pages caused by poor formatting and a considerable amount of dialog such that it seems to me to be the equivalent of about a 400-page book.

[caleb72]

I went for The Twelve Chairs and Dorian Grey.

[sun surfer]

I've been trying to narrow my choices down but in the end just decided to vote for all seven(!) of those that interested me as I'd read any of them. There are two I've already read, one very good and one that is in my opinion overrated (Crime and Punishment, and The Picture of Dorian Gray) and one that I wouldn't mind reading but not right now (The Three Musketeers, because it is long and I just read the loo...ooo...ong The Count of Monte Cristo last year). It looks like none of the seven that I voted for may win so c'est la vie - I've read many of both book clubs' selections so far this year so this would give me a little more time in April for other reads.

By the way Tom, if I haven't said it yet, I like the new(ish) flashy "Multiple Choice" graphic!

[WT Sharpe]

There are several on the list I'd like to read, but only one really wanted to read now, but with all the great selections, this is a pretty much "can't lose" month.

Originally Posted by sun surfer

...By the way Tom, if I haven't said it yet, I like the new(ish) flashy "Multiple Choice" graphic!

Thanks! I did that because there are still occasionally people who miss that the vote is multiple choice. Since the MobileRead software doesn't allow animated text, I made an animated gif and inserted it as a picture in line with the text.

[sun surfer]

You made the graphic? Wow!

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

You made the graphic? Wow!

It's not that difficult when you have the right software. Have you ever seen me around here on Halloween?

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

It's not that difficult when you have the right software. Have you ever seen me around here on Halloween?

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

I've some pretty good software and could make that animated color text easy enough. These two are awesome though, especially that first one.