MobileRead August 2010 Book Club Nominations

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Ea

No, interesting heroines are as rare as gold dust.
For myself I very much enjoy the heroines of the novels of Judith Merkle Riley. An unusual and lovely combination of innocence and intelligence.

And as you mention, Lisbeth Salander is one of the great ones, too.

You mean this one?
Medieval Word of Margaret of Ashbury Series
A Vision of Light (1988)
In Pursuit of the Green Lion (1990)
The Water-devil (2007)
[edit]Single novels
The Oracle Glass (1994)
The Serpent Garden (1996)
The Master of All Desires (1999)

Do you think I might like them? I adore feminine heroines, not only in blood thirsty setting.

Did you read Kristin Lavransdatter?

[Ea]

Originally Posted by beppe

I am sure that our pilot and chairman, may the powers above hold him always close to their heart for having given me this wonderful eating technology, would like it, after the pillars and before the eye of the needle. Not so hidden symbols.

No, not hidden at all

Originally Posted by beppe

By the way, and staying in subject, you film lovers, in which not so recent, but nevertheless wonderful film, the gesture of passing a thread in the eye of a needle was done while speaking of Catherine Deneuve? Karma to go.
Too much Dedalus today.

Yes, far too much You'd better finish it soon.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by beppe

You mean this one?
Medieval Word of Margaret of Ashbury Series
A Vision of Light (1988)
In Pursuit of the Green Lion (1990)
The Water-devil (2007)
[edit]Single novels
The Oracle Glass (1994)
The Serpent Garden (1996)
The Master of All Desires (1999)

Do you think I might like them? I adore feminine heroines, not only in blood thirsty setting.

Did you read Kristin Lavransdatter?

All of them, though my favourite is "The Master of all Desires". None of her heroines are blodthirsty, but naive and intelligent, and while pushed into dependence upon men by society - in their hearts they remain completely independent and that is what save them and shapes their destiny. And the stories are great fun to read.

And no, I have not read Kristin Lavransdatter (I recognise it is a black mark... I know I should have)

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Ea

All of them, though my favourite is "The Master of all Desires". None of her heroines are blodthirsty, but naive and intelligent, and while pushed into dependence upon men by society - in their hearts they remain completely independent and that is what save them and shapes their destiny. And the stories are great fun to read.

You think it would be very difficult to get?

And no, I have not read Kristin Lavransdatter (I recognise it is a black mark... I know I should have)

Oh no. Here, get this soft skin eraser right away. Imagine a black mark on your pretty avatar.

All 3 books are over depressing. But the first one is a true masterpiece, descriptions, feelings, reconstructions of life of that time. It is with this that I started to love you Northerners. Stately and coldish at the outside and burning with passion inside.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Ea

No, not hidden at all


Yes, far too much You'd better finish it soon.

756 pages, one single word at a time? There are paragraphs of 3 pages. Just the famous monologue , and I am still far from it. will take most of a week. This morning I put a wet pork gland in my pocket while admiring the stout arms of the girl that bought those sausages before me and paid 7 different coins against my 3 pence's. Slowly, easy. Ah the paper that wraps those packages. Only Boll could describe things like that. Maybe Proust but I never tackled that one.

Bye Ea, I am going to bed and thank you for the very nice literary evening.
Bye you guys.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Ellie Kennard

The Book of Negroes (US title Someone Knows My Name) is a book I read in paper form as it was picked as the Canada Reads title for 2009. It was excellent. More info on it here:
http://www.squidoo.com/thebookofnegroes
http://www.kobobooks.com/search/sear...0of%20negroes&
I have seen it also for sale in the UK sites.
Fantastic book, I just loved it. I will definitely also buy it in ebook format.

Is there an eBook of this somewhere? No Kindle edition.

BOb

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Is there an eBook of this somewhere? No Kindle edition.

BOb

Yes, The Book of Negroes does exist as an eBook. But, it seems to be only in the UK. So given that we've nominated books that are US only, I'd say this one is a keeper but probably won't win.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by beppe

I am putting up the info, but I am not proposing it yet.

WHA? It already has been seconded up to the message I am replying to.

On the list.

BOb

[pilotbob]

Wow... nominations go fast... we've already got 9 on the list.

Here is the status:


(3) Sh*t My Dad Says by Halpern, Justin
More than a million people now follow Mr. Halpern's philosophical musings on Twitter, and in this book, his son weaves a brilliantly funny, touching coming-of-age memoir around the best of his quotes. An all-American story that unfolds on the Little League field, in Denny's, during excruciating family road trips, and, most frequently, in the Halperns' kitchen over bowls of Grape-Nuts, Sh*t My Dad Says is a chaotic, hilarious, true portrait of a father-son relationship from a major new comic voice.

(3) The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler.
Here are a few quotes from the Amazon page:
"Every time I finish reading one of Chandler's Marlowe novels, I end up feeling depressed, because it's one less Chandler novel that I can read for the first time. In my mind, he's that good -- he is one of the only writers that I am consistenly incapable of setting down to go to sleep... I finished the last half of "The Long Goodbye" at about 5:00 am -- I was so wrapped up in it, that I failed to notice the time."

(2) The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
This book, an actual document, provides a short but immensely revealing record of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the US for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all of its own. Aminata's eventual return to Sierra Leone—passing ships carrying thousands of slaves bound for America—is an engrossing account of an obscure but important chapter in history that saw 1,200 former slaves embark on a harrowing back-to-Africa odyssey.

(1) One Day by David Nicholls
The episodic story takes place during a single day each year for two decades in the lives of Dex and Em. Dexter, the louche public school boy, and Emma, the brainy Yorkshire lass, meet the day they graduate from university in 1988 and run circles around one another for the next 20 years. Dex becomes a TV presenter whose life of sex, booze, and drugs spins out of control, while Em dully slogs her way through awful jobs before becoming the author of young adult books. They each take other lovers and spouses, but they cannot really live without each other. Nicholls is a glib, clever writer, and while the formulaic feel and maudlin ending aren't ideal for a book, they'll play in the multiplex.

(3) Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
It is 1944 and weeks before D-Day. The Allies are disguising their invasion plans with a phoney armada of ships and planes. Their plan would be scuppered if an enemy agent found out... and then, Hitler's prize agent, “The Needle”, does just that. Hunted by MI5, he leads a murderous trail across Britain to a waiting U-Boat. But he hasn't planned for a storm-battered island, and the remarkable young woman who lives there.

(3) Don't Sleep There Are Snakes by Daniel Everett
The Pirahã Indians of the Amazon are a very peculiar people. They number fewer than 400 and have no myths, rituals or history. Their language is unrelated to any other living tongue. It can be whistled, sung, hummed or spoken. It has no words for numbers, colours, left or right, brother or sister.

(3) The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
"More dramtatic than fiction...THE GUNS OF AUGUST is a magnificent narrative—beautifully organized, elegantly phrased, skillfully paced and sustained....The product of painstaking and sophisticated research."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman has brought to life again the people and events that led up to World War I. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledge of her subject and its characters, Ms. Tuchman reveals, for the first time, just how the war started, why, and why it could have been stopped but wasn't. A classic historical survey of a time and a people we all need to know more about, THE GUNS OF AUGUST will not be forgotten.

(1) One Second After by William R. Forstchen
The explosion of nuclear bombs in space by an unknown adversary emits electromagnetic pulses (EMP) that instantly and permanently disable electronic devices throughout the United States, wreaking havoc. Forstchen's (We Look Like Men of War) well-crafted and compelling story, which focuses on one man's struggle to protect his family in an isolated North Carolina town, reminds us of how helpless we'd be without modern technology—a chilling thought, as EMP is a real threat to the industrialized world.

(3) Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel written by Yann Martel. In the story, the protagonist Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck, while stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean. Martel brought the idea of rituals many times throughout the novel as well as storytelling. Rituals give structure to abstract ideas and emotions—in other words, ritual is an alternate form of storytelling. It was rituals and storytelling that kept Pi Patel sane.

(3) Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster
A delightful, witty, easily accessible set of talks on the topic of the novel. Relatively short, too.

(3) The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger and her younger brother are being taken by their mother to live with a foster family outside Munich. Liesel's father was taken away on the breath of a single, unfamiliar word - Kommunist - and Liesel sees the fear of a similar fate in her mother's eyes. On the journey, Death visits the young boy, and notices Liesel. It will be the first of many near encounters. By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery.So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.The Book Thief is a story about the power of words to make worlds. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

(2) "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by the Dominican author Junot Díaz.
A short summary (from wikipedia.org):
The novel is narrated by Yunior de Las Casas and Lola de Leon and chronicles both the life of Oscar de Leon, an overweight Dominican boy growing up in Paterson, New Jersey who is obsessed with science fiction and fantasy novels and with falling in love, as well as the curse that has plagued his family for generations.
The middle sections of the novel center on the lives of Oscar's runaway sister, Lola; his mother, Hypatia Belicia Cabral; and his grandfather, Abelard. Rife with footnotes, science fiction and fantasy references, comic book analogies, and various Spanish dialects, the novel is also a meditation on story-telling, the Dominican diaspora and identity, masculinity, and oppression.

(1) Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
The book is available from Gutenberg, being published in 1903. It is at once a spy thriller, a fine sea story, and in fact a book that actually had an impact on history. It was immensely popular when it came out and was responsible for a fortuitous shift in British naval strategy. Anyone interested can check it out on Wikipedia, then proceed to Gutenberg for a copy. It is a great read!

(1) 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot by Richard Wiseman
Richard Wiseman’s latest book exposes self-help myths, and presents scientifically proven techniques that help you achieve your aims and ambitions in less than a minute. From mood to memory, persuasion to procrastination, and resilience to relationships, 59 Seconds presents the new science of rapid change.

(2) Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland
.....Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (popularly known as Fanny Hill) is an erotic novel by John Cleland first published in England in 1748. Written while the author was in debtor's prison in London, it is considered "the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel." One of the most prosecuted and banned books in history, it has become a synonym for obscenity.

(3) The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
From Booklist:
Gladwell, a New Yorker staff writer, offers an incisive and piquant theory of social dynamics that is bound to provoke a paradigm shift in our understanding of mass behavioral change. Defining such dramatic turnarounds as the abrupt drop in crime on New York's subways, or the unexpected popularity of a novel, as epidemics, Gladwell searches for catalysts that precipitate the "tipping point," or critical mass, that generates those events. What he finds, after analyzing a number of fascinating psychological studies, is that tipping points are attributable to minor alterations in the environment, such as the eradication of graffiti, and the actions of a surprisingly small number of people, who fit the profiles of personality types that he terms connectors, mavens, and salesmen. As he applies his strikingly counterintuitive hypotheses to everything from the "stickiness," or popularity, of certain children's television shows to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, Gladwell reveals that our cherished belief in the autonomy of the self is based in great part on wishful thinking. Donna Seaman

(1) City Of Thieves by David Benioff


BOb

[glowhappy]

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland

OoOoO porn! I'll third this

[pilotbob]

NOMINATIONS CLOSED....



I will put up the poll a bit later...

BOb

[glowhappy]

Yay! lots of good choices this round. I'm torn what to vote for

[kennyc]

Whoop! Whoop! Here we go....

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Ea

Weeell.... I liked the comic book The book itself is a little... 18th century

BTW, are you nominating it?


But does that mean the book is any good?

The comic? I didn't know there was one. I would have preferred an edition illustrated with photos.

Yes, that was a nomination for Fanny Hill.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It means the book might be good.

I don't know if Fanny Hill is good or not, as I've never read it; but plan to do so for this year's Banned Book tribute.

Does it contain "a"s, "e"s, and "o"s that stretch across the page? That's how you can judge whether a work of porn is good or not. Another good indicator is how many times the words "harder," "faster," and "Oh, God!" appear. Their occurrence is usually in direct proportion to the book's value.

Or so I've heard...