October '10 Reading Poll

[Scheherazade]

Please nominate the novel you would like to read in October in this thread by August 31st.

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.

[Shakira]

I'd like to nominate In Search of April Raintree

[spookymulder93]

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea

[David Lurie]

I love this book and I hope to read it again here:

Commodore's Perry Minstrel Show by Richard Wiley

from Publishers Weekly
In 1854, when the U.S. Navy's Commodore Perry sailed into Edo (now Tokyo) with the grand goal of opening Japan to trade, he brought major change and minor entertainment—a black-face minstrel show that amazed and perplexed its audience. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Wiley, shifting perspectives with deft ease, follows two fictional white minstrels, Ace Bledsoe and Ned Clark, as they confront Japanese society, while he subversively engages the reader in a deeply allegorical reading of cultural exchange. Ace and Ned come under the wing of interpreter Manjiro Okubo, whose powerful family is locked in an old clan rivalry. The rivals' plot to kidnap musicians sets off a train of events romantic and tragic, with touches of Keystone Kops: with tantalizing authorial discretion, lovers enjoy one another, villains flash lethal swords, beauty balances bawdy, and rivalries and enmities explode. (Readers need not have read Wiley's PEN/Faulkner Award–winning Soldiers in Hiding, for which this novel is a way-back prequel.) This absorbing and immensely pleasurable book achieves momentum through Wiley's fluid style, the lightness with which he bears his learning, and the vitality and wit with which he brings a vanished world to life.

[Tallon]

Revolutionary Road- Richard Yates

[bouquin]

I would like to nominate Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner.

[Scheherazade]

Nominations so far:

1. In Search of April Raintree

2. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea

3. Commodore's Perry Minstrel Show by Richard Wiley

4. Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner.

5. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

And I would like to nominate Empire Falls by Richard Russo.

[Dark Muse]

Yay! I am glad that I did not miss the oppertunity to nomminate something and there is still space open.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

[IceM]

I think The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck deserves a read.

[Scheherazade]

Nominations so far:

1. In Search of April Raintree

2. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea

3. Commodore's Perry Minstrel Show by Richard Wiley

4. Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner.

5. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

6. Empire Falls by Richard Russo

7. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

8. The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck

[TheFifthElement]

C - Tom McCarthy


"C" follows the short, intense life of Serge Carrefax, a man who - as his name suggests - surges into the electric modernity of the early twentieth century, transfixed by the technologies that will obliterate him. Born to the sound of one of the very earliest experimental wireless stations, Serge finds himself steeped in a weird world of transmissions, whose very air seems filled with cryptic and poetic signals of all kinds. When personal loss strikes him in his adolescence, this world takes on a darker and more morbid aspect. What follows is a stunning tour de force in which the eerily idyllic settings of pre-war Europe give way to the exhilarating flight-paths of the frontline aeroplane radio operator, then the prison camps of Germany, the drug-fuelled London of the roaring twenties and, finally, the ancient tombs of Egypt. Reminiscent of Bolano, Beckett and Pynchon, this is a remarkable novel - a compelling, sophisticated and sublimely imaginative book uncovering the hidden codes and dark rhythms that sustain life.

[Scheherazade]

Nominations so far:

1. In Search of April Raintree

2. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea

3. Commodore's Perry Minstrel Show by Richard Wiley

4. Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner.

5. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

6. Empire Falls by Richard Russo

7. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

8. The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck

9. C - Tom McCarthy

Last nomination up for grabs!

[JuniperWoolf]

The Shining.

[spookymulder93]

I've been meaning to read Blood Meridian for a while now, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't support my own nomination.

[Scheherazade]

Nominations for September:

1. In Search of April Raintree

2. The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea

3. Commodore's Perry Minstrel Show by Richard Wiley

4. Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner.

5. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

6. Empire Falls by Richard Russo

7. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

8. The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck

9. C - Tom McCarthy

10. The Shining.


There are 3-4 books in the list that I won't mind reading.

[Scheherazade]

Empire Falls has been nominated so many times that it deserves a win this month!

[plainjane]

I have Blood Meridian in my TBR stack, started it once and put it down. This will make me finish it at last. /I hope/ :)

[Virgil]

I'm definitely in for Blood Meridan. I've been meaning to read that for a while.

[TheFifthElement]

I was disappointed with Blood Meridian. Perhaps it was all the hype. It's beautifully written, no doubt about it, though after a while I found even the lyrical language became repetitive. Maybe someone could do a count on how often he uses the term slant-wise or just [fill in the blank]-wise. It left me wondering if it was just an exercise in style over substance. Or perhaps it is McCarthy's skill to articulate the great emptiness? Still haven't made up my mind.

[katelbach]

This looks nailed on already! Yet to read anything by Cormac McCarthy and definitely want to be involved in the club (main reason i joined the forum) so i'll get me a copy aysap.

[katelbach]

Done. :)

[Scheherazade]

I am having trouble finding this book.

[brokenheart1]

i am also like Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

[Aragorn Elessar]

I haven't even heard of many of these titles, but I voted for The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea.

[Scheherazade]

Going once...

[katelbach]

Ha! I'm past 50 votes now so went for Blood Meridian, seeing as i've already bought it.

Nail in the coffin.

[Virgil]

I can't remember if I bought the book or not? And if I did I can't find it. I could swear I had a copy.