Booooook! CHOOSE! There can be only one! This poll is closed. |
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Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice | 5 | 10.87% | |
Donna Tartt, The Secret History | 9 | 19.57% | |
Barbara Tuchmann, The Guns of August | 27 | 58.70% | |
Joyce Carol Oates, The Accursed | 4 | 8.70% | |
Nadine Gordimer, July's People | 1 | 2.17% | |
Total: | 46 votes |
Ok, here are the poll options for next month's book of the month. We're doing a second month of female authors because we hardly ever do female authors. Vote early, vote often! As always, though, please only vote if you plan on actually reading that book and posting something about it afterwards in the thread.. Doesn't have to be a witty or brilliant comment or anything, "this book was too loving long" or whatever is fine, just please if you vote for a book think of it as making some minimal commitment to actually participate in next month's thread if that book is selected. Thanks! Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice Why the hell not? Despite all the acclaim, this is probably the most challenging book on this list, but it'll be worth it if we can hack at it. A lot of people have a big problem reading Austen She seems boring, etc. Thing is, she was probably the greatest prose stylist before the 20th century and her stuff is brilliant, But there's a huge but to her work: she was writing exclusively for 18th & 19th-century upper class British aristocrats and spends absolutely zero time explaining setting or context. As a result, if you don't have a detailed knowledge of everything an 18th century British aristocrat would know, if you don't have (for example) a detailed knowledge of exactly what the differences are between a gig, a phaeton, a curricle, a barouche, and a landau, you'll miss three-quarters of her jokes. Think of it like reading Tolkien if Tolkien never explained what an elf or an orc or a wizard or a hobbit was because all his readers already knew -- you'd have to go read some horrible nerd website to figure all that stuff out before you could enjoy the story. You gotta do the research to get the context of what's going on. If you put in the work, though, she really does reward you; her prose is sharper and more layered with more separate blades than Gillette's most modern razor, and her plots and characters have become the framework for whole genres. Plus, it's available online for free (such as in this annoted edition). Donna Tartt, The Secret History quote:Set in New England, The Secret History tells the story of a closely knit group of six classics students at a small, elite Vermont college, Hampden College, similar in many respects to Bennington College (in Bennington, Vermont) where Tartt was a student from 1982 to 1986. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_History Barbara Tuchmann, The Guns of August quote:Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time Picking this one because we're hitting the World War I centenary and it seemed like a good idea to have a nonfiction book on the list. I've had this recommended to me fifty times but I've never sat down and read it. http://www.amazon.com/The-Guns-August-Outbreak-Nonfiction-ebook/dp/B002TXZS8A Joyce Carol Oates, The Accursed quote:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Accursed-Joyce-Carol-Oates/dp/0062234358 Nadine Gordimer, July's People quote:For years, it had been what is called a “deteriorating situation.” Now all over South Africa the cities are battlegrounds. The members of the Smales family—liberal whites—are rescued from the terror by their servant, July, who leads them to refuge in his village. What happens to the Smaleses and to July—the shifts in character and relationships—gives us an unforgettable look into the terrifying, tacit understandings and misunderstandings between blacks and whites. Author just died, won the Nobel Prize, seems like she probably wrote good stuff? idk http://www.amazon.com/Julys-People-Nadine-Gordimer/dp/0140061401
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# ? Jul 27, 2014 22:00 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 18:48 |
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Tuchmann's narrative of the war's first month is fantastic but the analysis she gives of why the war broke out is absolutely dreadful. Read Jane Austen instead.
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# ? Jul 29, 2014 17:34 |
cloudchamber posted:Tuchmann's narrative of the war's first month is fantastic but the analysis she gives of why the war broke out is absolutely dreadful. Read Jane Austen instead. I'm really surprised at how few votes Secret History is getting this time, I was expecting it to sail to a win.
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# ? Jul 29, 2014 18:19 |
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cloudchamber posted:Tuchmann's narrative of the war's first month is fantastic but the analysis she gives of why the war broke out is absolutely dreadful. Read Jane Austen instead. Yeah, it sounds good but I don't think many historians today would describe the war as inevitable.
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# ? Jul 29, 2014 21:26 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I'm really surprised at how few votes Secret History is getting this time, I was expecting it to sail to a win. I felt obligated to pick The Accursed because I suggested it (although I didn't actually expect you to add it) - otherwise I'd probably have picked The Secret History because it's been about 15 years and I'm due for a reread.
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# ? Jul 31, 2014 18:20 |
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I voted for The Accursed because I just picked it up a few weeks ago, but I can't argue with Guns of August. It's an excellent book.
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# ? Jul 31, 2014 18:33 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 18:48 |
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Been looking for a hardcover of Guns in Australia but no luck. $5 bucks for Kindle though...
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# ? Aug 1, 2014 03:16 |