Literary With Heart • December 2018

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Help select what we'll read next!


The topic is With Heart

There are so many associations with the word 'heart' from the literal heart to the emotional to the shape, from heartbeats and life to love and romance, as well as many adjectives such as heartwarming, heartbreaking, heartless, halfhearted, lionhearted, etc., and idioms such as heart to heart, heart of gold, change of heart, wear your heart on your sleeve, etc. This topic includes all of those and is open to interpretation so it will be interesting to see what we come up with.


Detailed nominating and voting guidelines can be found here. Basically, nominations are open for about four days and each person may nominate up to three literary selections which will go automatically to the vote. Voting by post then opens for four days, and a voter may give each nomination either one or two votes but only has a limited number of votes to use which is equal to the number of nominations minus one. Any questions, feel free to ask.

We hope that you will read the selection with us and join in the discussion.

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Nominations are complete. Voting is complete! Final results-

• The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
  Post . Goodreads . 368 Pages . Votes 2 . 1938 . Ireland & England
  
  
• The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
  Post . Goodreads . 256 Pages . Votes 5 . 2012 . Japan
  
  
• And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
  Post . Goodreads . 421 Pages . Votes 2 . 2012 . Afghanistan & The U.S.
  
  
• Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou
  Post . Goodreads . 166 Pages . Votes 1 . 2008 . The U.S.
  
  
• Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
  Post . Goodreads . 515 Pages . Votes 4 . 1988 . Australia
  
  
• The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
  Post . Goodreads . 582 Pages . Votes 4 . 2017 . Ireland
  
  
• Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
  Post . Goodreads . 304 Pages . Votes 0 . 2010 . The U.S.
  
  
• Endless Love by Scott Spencer
  Post . Goodreads . 425 Pages . Votes 1 . 1979 . The U.S.

[AnotherCat]

I'll put up a purely selfish nomination. This book is often regarded as one of the best modern novels. However, it does not seem to be my type of reading, so while it has been on my reading list due to its heritage, it has never made it to the top. If I am forced to read it all to the good .

The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen

Wikipedia

Goodreads

[AnotherCat]

After never nominating books previous to this thread, I'll go crazy and nominate another. This one came to mind today when I answered a question about this book in another part of these forums.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa

It is a short novel, approx. 160 ADE pages, and has no direct connection to hearts, but The Guardian review's:

The structure of The Travelling Cat Chronicles is deceptively simple. With alternating sections of third-person and Nana-the-cat narration, it consists of three journeys to friends, followed by a pilgrimage across a beautifully evoked landscape. There is then a heart-breaking last journey that left me in bits.

perhaps makes the connection. I don't think animal lovers, especially cat ones, would find it too soppy - it is very Japanese.

Again, this is a selfish nomination because we have kept cats all of our lives .

[Bookworm_Girl]

Interesting nominations, AnotherCat!

[sun surfer]

I agree. I’m still mulling over mine.

A little over half a day left for nominations!

[Bookworm_Girl]

I’ll post my nominations tonight before I go to sleep. I have to narrow down my ideas and check international availability.

[sun surfer]

You have a little longer than usual because I started the thread a little later than usual, and I’ll wait until at least then to start voting but it will probably even be some hours later than that before I’m able to.

I’ve narrowed my choices down to around six and am trying to decide which to nominate and how many.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I’m working on my list right now! I have wine and Christmas lights for motivation and inspiration.

[sun surfer]

Sounds nice and cosy!

[Bookworm_Girl]

My first nomination is And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini.

From Goodreads:

So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one...Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and stepmother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle together through poverty and brutal winters. To Abdullah, Pari - as beautiful and sweet-natured as the fairy for which she was named - is everything. More like a parent than a brother, Abdullah will do anything for her, even trading his only pair of shoes for a feather for her treasured collection. Each night they sleep together in their cot, their heads touching, their limbs tangled. One day the siblings journey across the desert to Kabul with their father. Pari and Abdullah have no sense of the fate that awaits them there, for the event which unfolds will tear their lives apart; sometimes a finger must be cut to save the hand. Crossing generations and continents, moving from Kabul, to Paris, to San Francisco, to the Greek island of Tinos, with profound wisdom, depth, insight and compassion, Khaled Hosseini writes about the bonds that define us and shape our lives, the ways in which we help our loved ones in need, how the choices we make resonate through history and how we are often surprised by the people closest to us.

[Bookworm_Girl]

My second nomination is stories told from the heart to impart life’s wisdom and is supposed to be a heart-warming collection. I nominate Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou.

From Goodreads:

For a world of devoted readers, a much-awaited new volume of absorbing stories and inspirational wisdom from one of our best-loved writers.

Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou’s path to living well and living a life with meaning. Told in her own inimitable style, this book transcends genres and categories: guidebook, memoir, poetry, and pure delight.

Here in short spellbinding essays are glimpses of the tumultuous life that led Angelou to an exalted place in American letters and taught her lessons in compassion and fortitude: how she was brought up by her indomitable grandmother in segregated Arkansas, taken in at thirteen by her more worldly and less religious mother, and grew to be an awkward, six-foot-tall teenager whose first experience of loveless sex paradoxically left her with her greatest gift, a son.

Whether she is recalling such lost friends as Coretta Scott King and Ossie Davis, extolling honesty, decrying vulgarity, explaining why becoming a Christian is a “lifelong endeavor,” or simply singing the praises of a meal of red rice–Maya Angelou writes from the heart to millions of women she considers her extended family.

Like the rest of her remarkable work, Letter to My Daughter entertains and teaches; it is a book to cherish, savor, re-read, and share.

[Bookworm_Girl]

My last nomination is the 1988 Man Booker Prize winner, Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey.

From Goodreads:

Peter Carey's Booker Prize winning novel imagines Australia's youth, before its dynamic passions became dangerous habits. It is also a startling and unusual love story.

Oscar is a young English clergyman who has broken with his past and developed a disturbing talent for gambling. A country girl of singular ambition, Lucinda moves to Sydney, driven by dreams of self-reliance and the building of an industrial Utopia. Together this unlikely pair create and are created by the spectacle of mid-nineteenth century Australia.

Peter Carey's visionary brilliance, and his capacity to delight and surprise, propel this story to its stunning conclusion.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

After never nominating books previous to this thread, I'll go crazy and nominate another. This one came to mind today when I answered a question about this book in another part of these forums.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa

It is a short novel, approx. 160 ADE pages, and has no direct connection to hearts, but The Guardian review's:

The structure of The Travelling Cat Chronicles is deceptively simple. With alternating sections of third-person and Nana-the-cat narration, it consists of three journeys to friends, followed by a pilgrimage across a beautifully evoked landscape. There is then a heart-breaking last journey that left me in bits.

perhaps makes the connection. I don't think animal lovers, especially cat ones, would find it too soppy - it is very Japanese.

Again, this is a selfish nomination because we have kept cats all of our lives .

You had me at "very Japanese." I speak the language on a rudimentary level and adore the literature. I will definitely second this one

[sun surfer]

Here are my three nominations:


-The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

This is a recent novel (2017) about a boy in Ireland born to a rural teen girl out of wedlock and adopted by an eccentric Dublin couple, who grows up and spends decades coming to know himself and his country, taking place from the 1940's to now. It has an astounding 4.47 rating on Goodreads out of over 30,000 reviews, which is an extremely high rating especially for a novel with a lot of reviews. In fact, I think this is the highest rated book I've ever seen of those I've been interested in. Goodreads, 582 pages, Ireland

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.

-Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon

This is a novel about 'the dusty, dark, and beautiful world of small-time horse racing' at a 'run-down West Virginia track', that also has to do with love and romance. It won the National Book Award for Fiction and was a nominee for both the Orange Prize for Fiction longlist and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Goodreads, 2010, 304 pages, United States

A brilliant novel that captures the dusty, dark, and beautiful world of small-time horse racing, where trainers, jockeys, grooms and grifters vie for what little luck is offered at a run-down West Virginia track .

Tommy Hansel has a plan: run four horses, all better than they look on paper, at long odds at Indian Mound Downs, then grab the purse -- or cash a bet -- and run before anyone’s the wiser. At his side is Maggie Koderer, who finds herself powerfully drawn to the gorgeous, used up animals of the cheap track. She also lands in the cross-hairs of leading trainer Joe Dale Bigg. But as news of Tommy’s plan spreads, from veteran groom Medicine Ed, to loan shark Two-Tie, to Kidstuff the blacksmith, it’s Maggie, not Tommy or the handlers of legendary stakes horse Lord of Misrule, who will find what's valuable in a world where everything has a price.

-Endless Love by Scott Spencer

This book has a(n in)famous film adaptation, which I remember watching as a pre-teen child and not having a clue what the fuss and passion were all about. It is a National Book Award Finalist and 'remains perhaps the most powerful novel ever written about young love'. The book concerns an intense romance and obsession between David and Jade that becomes forbidden and then dangerous. The New York Times called it 'one of the best books of the year'. One of the top Goodreads reviews advises, 'Don't knock it 'til you've read it--the movie doesn't hold a candle to the book. Scott Spencer blew me away.' Another top Goodreads review states, 'Absolutely a literary masterpiece, written with precision and pure talent by an author who defies description, a writer who can create character, thought, situation, depth, and who has a true sense of time and place. And above all, he can create passion.' Goodreads, 425 pages, 1979, United States

One of the most celebrated novels of its time, Endless Love remains perhaps the most powerful novel ever written about young love. Riveting, compulsively readable, and ferociously sexual, Endless Love tells the story of David Axelrod and his overwhelming love for Jade Butterfield.

David's and Jade's lives are consumed with each other; their rapport, their desire, their sexuality take them further than they understand. And when Jade's father suddenly banishes David from the house, he fantasizes the forgiveness his rescue of the family will bring and he sets a "perfectly safe" fire to their house. What unfolds is a nightmare, a dark world in which David's love is a crime and a disease, a world of anonymous phone calls, crazy letters, and new fears — and the inevitable and punishing pursuit of the one thing that remains most real to him: his endless love for Jade and her family.

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