Booooook! CHOOSE! This poll is closed. |
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Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice | 8 | 25.00% | |
Mary Renault, The Last of the Wine | 10 | 31.25% | |
Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless | 2 | 6.25% | |
Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child | 3 | 9.38% | |
Donna Tartt, The Secret History | 9 | 28.13% | |
Total: | 32 votes |
Ok, here are the poll options for next month's book of the month. Someone pointed out that we barely ever select female authors, so that's this month. 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). Mary Renault, The Last of the Wine Mary Renault is probably the best writer of historical fiction set in the classical era (yes, I'm saying she's better than Robert Graves) and this is one of her best books. It's the story of two young Athenian men who fall in love during the time of the Pelopponesian Wars. It's perfect. Revolutionary and controversial when it first came out in 1975 for its frank and unashamed presentation of homosexual love -- the characters are Athenians and in their society such things are perfectly normal -- it's also just a drat good book, backed with strong classical scholarship and poingnant prose. Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless quote:Twentieth-century Russian history provides a background for Valente's lush reimagining of folkloric villain Koschei the Deathless and his dalliance with Marya Morevna, a clever but troubled young woman. After Koschei sweeps Marya away from her family's home in St. Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad, Baba Yaga assigns her three tasks that will make her worthy of marrying Koschei. As she spends more time in Koschei's Country of Life, Marya starts to become too much like her unearthly lover, until naïve Ivan Nikolayevich helps her regain her humanity (as well as the sympathy of the reader). Valente's lush language and imagery add to the magic and fundamentally Russian nature of the story, drawing pointed parallels between the Soviet Union's turmoil and the endless war between Koschei and his brother, Viy. Readers used to the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault will find this tale peculiar but enchanting. (Apr.) Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/01/10/specials/lessing-child.html 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
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# ? Jun 28, 2014 05:25 |
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# ? May 19, 2024 14:46 |
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Are you watching me? First you do 100 years of solitude right after I finish it, now The Secret History is an option and I just started it this week. Spooky.
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# ? Jun 29, 2014 20:18 |
blue squares posted:Are you watching me? First you do 100 years of solitude right after I finish it, now The Secret History is an option and I just started it this week. Spooky. Yes. More seriously, when I'm putting this together I do try to scan the various recommendation threads and see what people are suggesting, so that's probably the reason for the coincidence.
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# ? Jun 29, 2014 22:33 |
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Well if Secret History gets picked I'll do my damnedest to actually contribute to this month's thread.
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# ? Jun 30, 2014 00:53 |
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yes. It's a great selection this month - I was really debating between the Renault and the Doris Lessing which is also on my to-read list.
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# ? Jun 30, 2014 03:07 |
Whoops, re-opened the poll. Sorry about that!
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# ? Jun 30, 2014 16:13 |
And it's neck and neck heading into the home stretch!!!!
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# ? Jul 1, 2014 03:43 |
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Runoff voting? I'm on page 140 of Secret History and there's some hints of it getting really good. I love the philosophical stuff, and as a college student myself I can identify with a lot of things Richard talks about.
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# ? Jul 1, 2014 04:26 |
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# ? May 19, 2024 14:46 |
My fear with a runoff is that a lot of folks would just wander off -- it's hard enough getting people to vote *once*. Clearly what we need is an IRV mod for the forum polls. It's Last of the Wine this month. Thanks to everyone who voted, and please consider giving Wine a go even if it wasn't your first choice, it's a really great book. I'll definitely put Secret History in the running next month as well. We could probably do a second month of just female writers, considering how neglected they've been here till now.
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# ? Jul 1, 2014 12:48 |