April '10 Reading Poll

[Scheherazade]

In 2010, we are going back to "random" book nominations for our readings.

Please nominate the novel you would like to read in April in this thread by February 28th.

Please remember that:

- Only those members with 50+ posts can nominate.

- One nomination per member.

- Only the first 10 nominations will be included in the poll.


The Book Club readings are for those who would like to read and discuss books together with other members.

If you are not able to take part or unwilling to (re)read your own nominations, please refrain from taking part in the process.

[The Comedian]

I'll nominate American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang.

[Satan]

I, Satan, hereby nominate The Recognitions by William Gaddis.

[Dark Muse]

I'll nominate American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang.

I had to read that for my Children's Lit. Class, it was acutally pretty good, I rather enjoyed it.

I nominate:

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

[Jozanny]

I, Satan, hereby nominate The Recognitions by William Gaddis.

Groan...:p As I have mentioned elsewhere, I started rereading this novel post-relocation, and I am still only in the opening 20 pages, but they remain distinct.

If it actually wins, maybe I will join in, but I'd lay money on the read becoming one of the most protracted readings the book club has ever done.

I will keep an eye on things here.:D

[Virgil]

Can I nominate J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories collection or will we have a memorial book forum read for the deceased author?

[The Comedian]

I had to read that for my Children's Lit. Class, it was acutally pretty good, I rather enjoyed it.

Glad to hear it. I've been wanting to read it for a while now and thought that this might be a good forum to motivate me.

[dfloyd]

Wolfgang Goethe.

[Satan]

Groan...:p As I have mentioned elsewhere, I started rereading this novel post-relocation, and I am still only in the opening 20 pages, but they remain distinct.

If it actually wins, maybe I will join in, but I'd lay money on the read becoming one of the most protracted readings the book club has ever done.

I will keep an eye on things here.:D

It is a long novel indeed, and one of the few neglected postmodern masterpieces that deserve to be read. Allow me to play the Devil's advocate (!) and present the case for Gaddis' behemoth.


This was Gaddis’s first novel published when he was 32 and more than 40 years on it is at the very heart of his enviable literary reputation. It has now come to be seen as a Janus-faced text that looks back in its complexity to the great Modernists of the inter-war years such as Joyce and Faulkner and forward to the post-war American writers such as Barth, Coover, Pynchon, De Lillo and Gass in its taste for black humor, literary play and absurdity. It has established itself as a unique and influential novel, a pivotal work that makes connections between Modernism and what has come to be called Postmodernism, both as a literary style and as a philosophical position.

Gaddis’s first novel takes the form of a quest. In a carefully wrought and densely-woven series of plots involving upwards of fifty characters across three continents, we follow the adventures of Wyatt Gwyon, son of a clergyman who rejects the ministry in favor of the call of the artist. His quest is to make sense of contemporary reality, to find significance and some form of order in the world. Through the pursuit of art he hopes to find truth. His initial “failure” as an artist leads him not to copy but to paint in the style of the past masters, those who had found in their own time and in their own style the kind of order and beauty for which Wyatt is looking. His talent for forgery is exploited by a group of unscrupulous art critics and businessmen who hope to profit by passing his works off as original old masters. As the novel develops, these art forgeries become a profound metaphor for all kinds of other frauds, counterfeits and fakery: the aesthetic, scientific, religious, sexual and personal. Towards the end, Wyatt wrenches something authentic from what Eliot called “the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.” The nature of his revelation, however is highly ambiguous and is hedged about by images of madness and hallucination, which disturbs simple distinctions between real and authentic, between faiths and fakes.

A strikingly original novel, it gains a number of its effects from the dense web of literary allusions it employs, drawing upon the religious texts of American Calvinism and European Catholicism and to a wide range of literary and philosophical writings in the western tradition from Aristotle to Goethe and TS Eliot. Ostensibly, the novel charts Wyatt’s career as he negotiates the snares of the fallen modern world, but on a further level we see how he is identified with a whole series of literary figures, from Orpheus to Faust. While the novel is an immensely rewarding read at the level of realism, it gains in depth and resonance when the reader can see the allusions at work and the parallels being drawn.
Courtesy: http://www.williamgaddis.org/recognitions/index.shtml (a reader's guide)


Why in the world should anyone trouble to read so difficult a novel? A novel, for pete's sake, not even a work of non-fiction with useful information. Don't we read novels for entertaining? But it turns out that hard work has its rewards. If you are one of the lucky ones, the book is enthralling. For the unlucky majority it will be just boring.

Gaddis's obscurity does not come from an inability to write clearly: "it is the bliss of childhood that we are being warped most when we know it least" (p. 26);
"She's still sick of trench mouth. She got it kissing the pope's ring" (p. 192); "90 percent of the advertisements he read had no possible application in his life" (p. 283); "Busy as those monks in the Middle Ages were keeping a-kindle the light of knowledge which they had helped to extinguish everywhere else" (p. 495); and so forth. So if Gaddis can be witty, entertaining, and clear at the same time, why is The Recognitions, and all of Gaddis's work for that matter, so hard to follow?

A central theme in all the works of Gaddis is about the gap between what we know (through recognition) and what we are told. A priest-confessor sums up the problem: "We live in a world where first-hand experience is daily more difficult to reach, and if yo reach it through your work, perhaps, you are not fortunate in the way most people would be fortunate. But these are things I shall not try to tell you. You will learn these things for yourself if you go on, and I may help you there" (p. 952). For a writer, this problem of learning by first-hand experience is doubly challenging for story-telling is a second-hand way of knowing. So how can a story teller honestly urge first-hand experience through a second-hand medium? Gaddis's method is to turn novel reading into a first hand experience. He tames the famous recommendation to young writers--show; don't tell--three steps further. He provides shadows which the readers, if they can, transform into shapes. ("Scarcely more steady than the shadows themselves, a figure took form and emerged," p. 920.)

A businessman who specializes in selling art forgeries says of most people, "They don't want to know. They want to be told" (p. 313), and he holds those people in contempt. The solution in art isto turn passive lookers into knowing creators: "Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it's right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of ... recognition, as though they were creating it themselves while they look at it or listen to it" (p. 535)

Three hundred plus pages later we see the idea spelled out again: "He studied with Titian... Titian's paintings in the Escorial, he saw then when he went to paint for the king, and who whole style changed. He learned from Titian. That's the way we learn, you understand" (p. 870). And the reader learns by reading Gaddis.

The result of this kind of creative participation in the work is a kind of enchantment that moves readers more deeply, when it moves them at all. An old woman is described as the "nightmare of the girly she had been two generations ago" (p. 561). To understand that image the reader has to see the old woman's body and the young girl's thoughts simultaneously. They have to work, not just read. And in this book they have to such work, line by line, page by page, for a thousand pages.

Gaddis does not think this kind of active engagement is easy: "They were enjoying the discussion very much, each finding the other intelligent, witty, in all a good companion, for neither was listening to what the other was saying" (p. 696), but Gaddis does believe intent participation in the other is essential. The price of not being able to listen and know is death--metaphorically in the death of the sou, literally, in the story, I count two people in the last 15 pages killed by ignoring messages in languages they didn't understand.

Every reader will find a different book. The more they bring, the more they can get. The harder they are willing to work, the easier their story will be to follow.
Source: Amazon

Book Club Rules do not explicitly forbid lobbying for nominations. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen! ;)

[Scheherazade]

Nominations so far:

1. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

2. The Recognitions by William Gaddis

3. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

4. Nine Stories by Salinger

5. Elective Affinities by Wolfgang Goethe


I would like to nominate Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, the 2009 Pulitzer winner.

[neilgee]

I'll nominate The Spire by William Golding

[Nikhar]

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.

[applepie]

It's been years, but I wouldn't mind reading Someplace to be Flying by Charles De Lint.

[Veho]

I nominate Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Rather selfishly I'd like to nominate Wilde's second collection of short stories: The House of Pomegranates which features the stories:

1 The Young King
2 The Birthday of the Infanta
3 The Fisherman and his Soul
4 The Star-Child

(Available to read on-line for free)

It's been awhile since I've read these, and as I've got to go through Wilde's published works this month anyway, I'd thought I'd nominate these and hope that they get included for selfish reasons - because I would love to hear other peoples' thoughts on them. Wilde said that these were for children 8-80 so I think that includes most people here! As with all dear Oscar's works they are of course delightfully beautiful and simplistically demanding - what more could one ask for?

[Scheherazade]

10 nominations for April are:

1. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

2. The Recognitions by William Gaddis

3. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

4. Nine Stories by Salinger

5. Elective Affinities by Wolfgang Goethe

6. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

7. The Spire by William Golding

8. Someplace to be Flying by Charles De Lint

9. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore.

10. The House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde

[Nikhar]

I wonder why my nomination isn't considered....

I have 50+ posts.... I did not make muiltiple nominations...hmmmm

[neilgee]

Maybe it was just human error, Nikhar, unless it's been a book of the month already.

[Scheherazade]

I wonder why my nomination isn't considered....

I have 50+ posts.... I did not make muiltiple nominations...hmmmm
Maybe it was just human error, Nikhar, unless it's been a book of the month already.It was just that... A Scheherazadish error:

10 nominations for April are:

1. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

2. The Recognitions by William Gaddis

3. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

4. Nine Stories by Salinger

5. Elective Affinities by Wolfgang Goethe

6. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

7. The Spire by William Golding

8. Someplace to be Flying by Charles De Lint

9. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore.

10. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Neely> Since we had already got our 10 nominations by the time you nominated your book, we will not be able to include that, I am afraid. Maybe next month?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Neely> Since we had already got our 10 nominations by the time you nominated your book, we will not be able to include that, I am afraid. Maybe next month?

Oh OK, no worries, no problem...maybe next time...

Actually anyway, I think Agatha Christie is under-represented here, and in the past I have been a great fan, (I have read about 70 of her books) so she would most likely get my vote anyway, of the ones left, good choice.
.................................................


Incidentally, I might post a few thoughts on House of Pomegranates anyway, in the Wilde sub-forum, in a couple of weeks time, so if anybody is interested in the books and would like to contribute then I would be very glad to converse.

Thank you, Neely.

[Nikhar]

Yayee....Yayee...Yayee.....http://smiles.kolobok.us/standart/dance2.gif

I love Agatha Christie! :party:

@Neely.

I couldn't agree with you more. Agatha Christie is indeed underrated here seeing that she is one of the greatest empress of detective fiction.

And 70...whoa! Awesome. I think I must have made a half century. :)

[Scheherazade]

Some information on the books:

1. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang: This is a tour-de-force new work by rising indie comics star Gene Yang. "American Born Chinese" maps the adolescent Chinese-American experience through three separate but interwoven stories. One story centres on Jin Wang, a Chinese-American student at an all-white California high school. Jin is plagued by jocks and bullies, so when another Chinese student transfers to the school, Jin wants nothing to do with him. Next is a comic update of the legendary story of the Monkey King, an ancient Chinese morality tale. Finally, there's the gross and surreal stereotype of Chin-Kee, the ultimate negative Chinese cliche, complete with a sitcom-style "laugh track". These three apparently unrelated tales come together in an astonishing climax - all with a mighty blast of humour, surprising poignancy and skilled artistry.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/American-Born-Chinese-Gene-Luen/dp/1596431520/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267689678&sr=8-1

2. The Recognitions by William Gaddis : Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate 'originals' - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize. Contemporary life collapses the distinction between the 'real' and the 'virtual' world, and Gaddis' novel pre-empts our common obsessions by almost half a century. This novel tackles the blurring of perceptual boundaries, The Matrix and Bladerunner pale in comparison to this epic novel.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Recognitions-William-Gaddis/dp/1843541661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267689740&sr=1-1

3. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks: Readers who are entranced by sweeping historical sagas will devour Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks' drama set during the first world war. There's even a little high-toned erotica thrown into the mix to convince the doubtful. The book's hero, a 20-year-old Englishman named Stephen Wraysford, finds his true love on a trip to Amiens in 1910. Unfortunately, she's already married, the wife of a wealthy textile baron. Wrayford convinces her to leave a life of passionless comfort to be at his side, but things do not turn out according to plan. Wraysford is haunted by this doomed affair and carries it with him into the trenches of the war. Birdsong derives most of its power from its descriptions of mud and blood, and Wraysford's attempt to retain a scrap of humanity while surrounded by it. There is a simultaneous description of his present-day granddaughter's quest to read his diaries, which is designed to give some sense of perspective; this device is only somewhat successful. Nevertheless, Birdsong is a rewarding read, an unflinching war story and a touching romance.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Birdsong-Sebastian-Faulks/dp/0099387913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267689835&sr=1-1

4. Nine Stories by Salinger: "DeDaumier-Smith's Blue Period," "Teddy," and "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" are among the nine works in a collection of Salinger's perceptive and realistic short stories.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nine-Stories-J-D-Salinger/dp/0316769509/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267689946&sr=8-1

5. Elective Affinities by Wolfgang Goethe: In Elective Affinities Goethe conducts an experiment with the lives of people who are living badly. Charlotte and Eduard, aristocracts with little to occupy them, invite Ottilie and the Captain into their lives; against morality, good sense, and conscious volition all four are drawn into relationships as inexorably as if they were substances in a chemical equation. The novel asks whether we have free will or not; more disturbingly, it confronts its characters with the monstrous consequences of their repression of any real life in themselves. Goethe wrote Elective Affinities when he was sixty and long established as Germany's literary giant. He remained an uneasy and scandalous figure, none the less, and readers of Elective Affinities were profoundly disturbed by its penetrating study of marriage and passion.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elective-Affinities-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/0199555362/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267690017&sr=1-1

6. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout: Olive Kitteridge might be described by some as a battle axe or as brilliantly pushy, by others as the kindest person they had ever met. Olive herself has always been certain that she is 100% correct about everything - although, lately, her certitude has been shaken. This indomitable character appears at the centre of these narratives that comprise Olive Kitteridge. In each of them, we watch Olive, a retired schoolteacher, as she struggles to make sense of the changes in her life and the lives of those around her - always with brutal honesty, if sometimes painfully. Olive will make you laugh, nod in recognition, as well as wince in pain or shed a tear or two. We meet her stoic husband, bound to her in a marriage both broken and strong, and her own son, tyrannised by Olive's overbearing sensitivities. The reader comes away, amazed by this author's ability to conjure this formidable heroine and her deep humanity that infiltrates every page.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Olive-Kitteridge-Stories-Elizabeth-Strout/dp/0743467728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267690075&sr=1-1

7. The Spire by William Golding: Dean Jocelin has a vision: that God has chosen him to erect a great spire on his cathedral. His mason anxiously advises against it, for the old cathedral was built without foundations. Nevertheless, the spire rises octagon upon octagon, pinnacle by pinnacle, until the stone pillars shriek and the ground beneath it swims. Its shadow falls ever darker on the world below, and on Dean Jocelin in particular.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spire-William-Golding/dp/0571225462/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267690128&sr=1-1

8. Someplace to be Flying by Charles De Lint: Originally published by Macmillan in 1998. Hank Walker sees photographer Lily Carson being brutally attacked. Lily confesses that she came out "looking for animal people" that exist in the city. Kerry Madan arrives in the city and becomes the catalyst in a drama for the prize of the Raven's pot, which could affect the animal people and humankind.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Someplace-be-Flying-Charles-Lint/dp/0330368702/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267690188&sr=8-1

9. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore: Lorna Doone, a Romance of Exmoor is an historical novel of high adventure set in the South West of England during the turbulent time of Monmouth's rebellion (1685). It is also a moving love story told through the life of the young farmer John Ridd, as he grows to manhood determined to right the wrongs in his land, and to win the heart and hand of the beautiful Lorna Doone.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lorna-Doone-Wordsworth-Classics-Blackmore/dp/1853260762/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267690240&sr=1-1

10. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie: 'Agatha Christie's masterpiece.' Spectator 'One of the very best, most genuinely bewildering Christies.' Observer 'The most astonishingly impudent, ingenious and altogether successful mystery story since The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.' Daily Herald 'One of the most ingenious thrillers in many a day.' Time Magazine 'There is no doubt that this is a highly ingenious jigsaw by a master of puzzling.' Books 'There is no cheating; the reader is just bamboozled in a straightforward way from first to last! The most colossal achievement of a colossal career. The book must rank with Mrs Christie's previous best -- on the top notch of detection.' New Statesman 'The whole thing is utterly impossible and utterly fascinating. It is the most baffling mystery Agatha Christie has ever written.' New York Times
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Then-There-Agatha-Christie-Collection/dp/0007136838/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267690299&sr=1-1

[TurquoiseSunset]

Actually anyway, I think Agatha Christie is under-represented here, and in the past I have been a great fan, (I have read about 70 of her books) so she would most likely get my vote anyway, of the ones left, good choice.

I agree, she is under-represented here. By a mile.


Yayee....Yayee...Yayee.....http://smiles.kolobok.us/standart/dance2.gif

I love Agatha Christie! :party:

@Neely.

I couldn't agree with you more. Agatha Christie is indeed underrated here seeing that she is one of the greatest empress of detective fiction.

And 70...whoa! Awesome. I think I must have made a half century. :)

Ah, I'm so glad you nominated this book Nikhar!!! I absolutely love Agatha Christie!!!!!

[Nikhar]

Yayee...thanks. Turquoise.
Have you already read this book?

Where have you been all these days?




10. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie: 'Agatha Christie's masterpiece.' Spectator 'One of the very best, most genuinely bewildering Christies.' Observer 'The most astonishingly impudent, ingenious and altogether successful mystery story since The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.' Daily Herald 'One of the most ingenious thrillers in many a day.' Time Magazine 'There is no doubt that this is a highly ingenious jigsaw by a master of puzzling.' Books 'There is no cheating; the reader is just bamboozled in a straightforward way from first to last! The most colossal achievement of a colossal career. The book must rank with Mrs Christie's previous best -- on the top notch of detection.' New Statesman 'The whole thing is utterly impossible and utterly fascinating. It is the most baffling mystery Agatha Christie has ever written.' New York Times
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Then-There-Agatha-Christie-Collection/dp/0007136838/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267690299&sr=1-1

And thanks Scher for posting this. Now, people should vote for it after reading this. :p

[TurquoiseSunset]

Yes I have, I own it :D But I'd love to read it again for the book club.
Agatha Christie is the best...I'm not sure why people don't read her books more...

[Scheherazade]

I read Birdsong couple of years ago. Even though it started off promisingly, later on the story line failed, in my opinion, miserably:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34988&highlight=birdsong

[Michael T]

:nod: I have to agree with you regarding 'Birdsong' Scher; it put me off reading anything else by Faulks. What I found most annoying was that so many people recommended it!

[Scheherazade]

:nod: I have to agree with you regarding 'Birdsong' Scher; it put me off reading anything else by Faulks. What I found most annoying was that so many people recommended it!I read it because it is one of the books that are listed in BBC's Big Read and I am not sure why it was included in the list at all.

I also read Faulks' Engleby, which, again, led to a disappointing end after a promising start.

Have to admit, though, that his books titles in general are rather intriguing. :)

[Michael T]

I read it because it is one of the books that are listed in BBC's Big Read and I am not sure why it was included in the list at all.

I also read Faulks' Engleby, which, again, led to a disappointing end after a promising start.

Have to admit, though, that his books titles in general are rather intriguing. :)

Perhaps the author begins to run short of money because he's taking too long writing his books and consequently has to rush the endings! :D

[Nightshade]

Oh such difficuult choices ( Ive actually started reading steppenwolf yay me and my return to the book club!) i already have a copy of 3 of them and Goethe is in the public domain isnt it? so I would also be able to access that oh dear I think I will have to go for the book have but havent read, though we have done it once before I think.

[applepie]

Oh such difficuult choices ( Ive actually started reading steppenwolf yay me and my return to the book club!) i already have a copy of 3 of them and Goethe is in the public domain isnt it? so I would also be able to access that oh dear I think I will have to go for the book have but havent read, though we have done it once before I think.

Glad to see someone else vote for my pick :D We did do this one, years and years ago. I'm thinking it's been 3 or 4 years at least, but then I had a DeLint book out and this one came to mind. Afterall, Someplace to be Flying is the one that introduced me to him in the first place.

Edited to add :

Holy crap I'm old around here. December of 2005 is when we read this.

[Nightshade]

Glad to see someone else vote for my pick :D We did do this one, years and years ago. I'm thinking it's been 3 or 4 years at least, but then I had a DeLint book out and this one came to mind. Afterall, Someplace to be Flying is the one that introduced me to him in the first place.

Edited to add :

Holy crap I'm old around here. December of 2005 is when we read this.

Yeah I know it was before i went to uni, I couldn't get hold of a copy at the tme so didnt read it and was waiting for it ( with no luck ) for years at uni, I finally bought it 3 weeks ago as an ebook so looking forward to reading at loong last!

[applepie]

Yeah I know it was before i went to uni, I couldn't get hold of a copy at the tme so didnt read it and was waiting for it ( with no luck ) for years at uni, I finally bought it 3 weeks ago as an ebook so looking forward to reading at loong last!

I've read some of his other stories, but this is still my favorite. If you can get a copy, I just read The Mystery of Grace, and that was very good as well.

[Satan]

Disappointing that not many want to read a mostly neglected and forgotten classic.

[Maryd.]

I'm with Neil on this one, I go - The Spire.

[TurquoiseSunset]

Disappointing that not many want to read a mostly neglected and forgotten classic.

Neglected and forgotten for a reason? ;)
Just kidding :D

[neilgee]

I'm with Neil on this one, I go - The Spire.

Thanx Mary, I love that book.

[Scheherazade]

A tie and so many other books in second place...

We need more votes!

[Michael T]

I'm keeping mine to the very last second as an anything but 'Birdsong' vote ...sorry!

[Nikhar]

I'm keeping mine to the very last second as an anything but 'Birdsong' vote ...sorry!



Make it 'And then there were none' then. :D ;)

[LitNetIsGreat]

I’ll gone for the Agatha Christie which is always good for a bit of fun. I think Birdsong is overrated too.

[Scheherazade]

All we need is three more votes for Olive. :D

Let's try something new for a change... Let's pick a book that hasn't been a dust generator for years... and years.

:p

[applepie]

Let's try something new for a change... Let's pick a book that hasn't been a dust generator for years... and years.

:p

:lol: I'll offer the same argument, but I really hope you sway more towards Someplace to be Flying. I promise it is well worth the read, and it certainly isn't stodgy and likely to become a dust collector :D

[Nikhar]

Go...Agatha Christie...go!

[laidbackperson]

I think it is really a good read. It is one of the early Agatha Christie novel I read and was just thrilled by the mystery. After reading her 10 something novels, I can now make a fairly good guess, who the culprit is going to be.

[Nikhar]

Whoa...whoa...whoa! Two votes so quickly! I did not think that my cheering Agatha Christie would have such a good effect. lol :lol:

[Scheherazade]

Going once...

[TurquoiseSunset]

Yay!! I hope 'And Then There Were None' stays in the lead! It would be the first time a book that I voted for won :banana:

[Nikhar]

Yay!! I hope 'And Then There Were None' stays in the lead! It would be the first time a book that I voted for won :banana:

And the first time that anything I voted for won. :p

[Scheherazade]

Going twice...

[Nikhar]

Hey Scher, I dug this up...


I think I have read almost all Christie books and I am a Poirot fan too but my favorite is Ten Little Indians.


Too bad you didn't vote for the book. :p

[TurquoiseSunset]

Yay! We won!!!