Vote for the next book club book
 

I'm retracting my nomination, as I don't think most people here would enjoy it. Now vote!

Meanwhile, I just keep reading and reading...........



I'm having anarchist tendencies.

Ok, screwed it up again. Here are the nominations:

Time and Again - Jack Finney
On Beauty - Jadie Smith
The Heavenly City of Eighteenth Century Philosophers - Carl L. Becker
Polio: An American Story - David M. Oshinski
Big Cats - Holiday Reinhorn

Can a kind mod please fix it?

Here is a link to a summary of Big Cats. Looks fabulous.

I want to read On Beauty since Chris is readin it at the moment and lovin it.

I'm not sure what needs fixin' except everything seems backwards to me

I am really enjoying On Beauty though

Um, a poll. We need a poll created.

I read it a few months ago and loved, loved, loved it. Holiday is married to Dwight from The Office. Saw them at some Hollywood party and they were so friggin' cute.

I'd be interested in Big Cats as well. There's so much I want to read! I need a vacation.

Can someone please add a friggin poll to this?

Absolutely not.

With <finger quotes> lasers! </finger quotes>

I'm going for the Becker. The thing about book clubs is that I prefer to read material that would be more difficult to read on my own. I loved Big Cats, but it may be hard to have a book club discussion about so many different short stories. And that besides, that is the kind of writing where I'm immersed in the writing and the storytelling, but don't necessarily want to discuss them in depth, nor do I need help understanding them.

Oh look. a poll - I know nothing of the choices, so I picked 18th Century Phlosophers for 300 Alex

Not to be a pain but can we get a short synopis of each? I haven't heard of any of these. Big Cats is sounding kinda different tho.

I want Charlotte's Web.

Amazon has synopses. I've read Time and Again years ago. Good book.

Whatever you guys pick, I'll give a shot, if my library has it...

Looks like we're at a standstill...

Alright, I'm going with Big Cats since it just sounded cool and I'm ultra lazy about looking up the other ones.

I went for the Celestial City of Guys Who Can't Find a Real Job.


:D

I'm voting for the Polio book because I already have it and haven't read it yet. Plus the issues of public health campaigns, human testing, and scientific competition interest me.

Well, i just read On Beauty, which was my vote for the book club. I guess the good thing is that, the suggestions get me reading the books. Maybe not in a book club timeline, but, hey, what more can we ask? ;)

I know my schedule is a bit easier and freere than it was over the Holidays. I'd be willing to re-look/think doing this again.

(And Chris is reading Cloud Atlas at the moment. I'm about to jump into The Professor and the Madman.)

It's a page turner! I don't know how many copies I've bought over the years. I lend out a copy and somehow it just never returns, that's how fun a read it is.

So that you can all be jealous of my grade school opportunities - Time and Again was assigned reading in either my 5th or 6th grade class. (Same teacher both years - best. teacher. ever.)

I voted for On Beauty because I've read it. I used to read, before Sudoku.

I'm already reading Big Cats and it's honestly the best short story collection I've ever read.

I'm not sure I'd call it the best, but I'm with you in thinking it's really friggin' fantastic. I love her writing style, distinct but varied. She's awesome. There are some seriously kickass women writers publishing short stories right now. Thrills me.

I kind of like the anarchy book club thing - we post a list, read the one's we're interested in and post about it elsewhere

I should probably add the disclaimer that I haven't read that many short stories. I still love love love Big Cats though. I've been meaning to post a Random Book Musings thread but haven't gotten around to it.

I recently read Gob's Grief. Seriously one of the best books I've ever read. So fantastic. Our Murakami lovers here should especially read it. It isn't what you would expect. Best book I read in the past year.

I realize now how condescending that sounded, but I really didn't mean it to come across like that. Big Cats is certainly worthy of someone's "best" list. And there were certainly a couple of stories within that top my favorite short story list. And, seriously, how GREAT is the name 'Holiday'. If I ever have a kid, that names on the list.

The book you recommended sounds interesting!

Since that seems to be the method we've gravitated toward, I agree. :D


I'm still looking at Heavenly City but first I have to track it down. I'm thinking I'll have to order it from Amazon, as none of the bookstores carry it around here.

In other words, a "Random Book Musings" thread.

Perhaps, but my preference has been to start a thread for each book I finish, or add to an existing thread about the work - but random works too.

I didn't think it sounded condescending. After you posted that I realized that I've only read like three short story collections ever. So this being my favorite doesn't mean much. It is fantastic though. I'm excited to read something else from her. Holiday is a super name.

After finishing Gob's Grief I specifically thought that you and Euro should read it. There's a female character that is so fan-fvcking-tastic that I'm sure you'll love. The first two pages I wasn't fond of the writing style. I'm not sure if I got used to it, or if he just had a rough first two pages.

I'm starting, The Inheritance of Loss this week.

Oooh! Kiren Desai. I LOVED Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. Inheritance of Loss is on my "short list".

PM me your address and I'll mail you my extra copy of it.

I finally finished Time Traveler's Wife. Now I'm waiting for a hold to become available at the library for Blindness. No idea if I'll like it, I picked it by scanning book jackets in the front displays at my local B&N. I'll report back when I'm done.

After that, next on my radar is Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puff. The index of topics this guy covers definitely strikes a chord with me.

I, too, am intrigued on the topic of Cocoa Puffs.

I'm cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

Crap! I am sorry- I didn't see this before and I just dug up this thread to say that I found a copy at the Elliot Bay Co and ordered it tonight! Thank you for the offer, though- I really do want to read this very much. (One of my favorite periods of history). I think the version I got is the '93 one- do you know if there are any discernable differences between this and the original issue? (I think 1933?) I really am looking forward to this one, and will post my take on it as soon as I read it.

No, I don't know anything about any other versions. I suppose there might be some introductory material or something but there'd be no reason to update the essay itself.

I can't stress enough that the contents were originally delivered as a lecture series and the text has only been modified lightly for the page. If you're willing to look a bit foolish, I recommend reading aloud various passages to really drive home the style.

I hope you enjoy it, I find it ver though provoking and return to it occasionally, particularly the first chapter, for its exploration of how thinking itself changes.

I've read a variety of reviews and synopsis's and I know this is right up my ally. Just the title alone is intriguing. I'll have to post a pic of my 'library' sometime- way back in the pre-kid day we used to collect antique books, which I actually read. I have a hard time with the modern vernacular when reading because I tend toward books from the Neo and Post-Neo-Classical time period. From what I gather, this is a critical look at the Age of Enlightenment, right? If I were a PLR person, I'd have to say this would be an area of interest, as I've always had a strange fascination with this epoch. I'll have to relay my Peter the Great story sometime.

I vote for Hop On Pop!

The Final Confession of Mabel Stark by Robert Hough
 

It's sexually eccentric. It's well-written. It's the fictional autobiography of the greatest female tiger trainer in history. You will love.

So what's the next book? I'm actually in need of a new read.

I'm about halfway through Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland and am loving it.

It is narrative history, and suffers the deficiencies of that genre (notably, it has to gloss over gaps in the record and tends to jump to conclusions on mood and such) but Holland is very up front about it.

If nothing else, the first chapter which goes into great descriptive detail about what life was actually like in Rome is wonderful. Classical history was my least favorite era back in college. As Holland says, imagine writing a history of World War II based on a few of Hitler wartime broadcasts and 40 random pages from a Winston Chruchill biography.

It may dry up in the second half, so far it is a good read.

I just finished The Professor and the Madman as well as the latest collection of short stories by Augenten Burroughs. I'm also looking for something - although I only have to walk to the bedroom, look at the "to read" shelf and make a decision.

Just started Voltaire Almighty. I don't know much about him so this should be illuminating.

I'm trying to get my way through Blindness.

The premise is fascinating, but the writing is getting to me. I'm sure part of it is bad translation, but it's more than that, there are stylistic choices that are just grating on me. Such as the fact that there are no quotation marks, line breaks, or anything to distinguish dialog. Just big paragraph after big paragraph with no distinction between who is talking. The whole book is feeling a bit pretentious. Is that common for Nobel winning authors?

That hasn't been my experience. Mostly Nobel winners novels tend to pacifist political stands - so horrors of war, oppression, torture seem to abound so I guess there might be a tendency to that sort of heavy handedness. Still, the Nobel is usually awarded for a body of works and not a single book - so you may have just picked up one of the authors' sucky books - or maybe just a poor translation.

(I'm partial to Booker prize winners myself)

It could very well be. It seemed like this was one of his more popular at least since I saw it prominently displayed even though it's over a decade old. Of course, popular doesn't always mean good.

I picked it up 'cause the plot sounded like a Steven King plot so I was curious how someone else would handle it. The premise is keeping my attention so far, but it seems to be using that horrors of war, oppression, torture heavy handedness for a Steven King plot.

Or it's a bad translation.