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please vote This poll is closed. |
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| End of the World News by Anthony Burgess |
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4 | 9.76% |
| Passages from the Life of a Philosopher by Charles Babbage |
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6 | 14.63% |
| Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers |
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9 | 21.95% |
| Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride |
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16 | 39.02% |
| Towing Jehovah by James Morrow |
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6 | 14.63% |
| Total: | 27 votes | ||
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September BOTM POLL -- vote early vote often (you can vote for more than one) 1. End of the World News by Anthony Burgess quote:Presented without chapter breaks, the plot weaves together three storylines. One follows Leon Trotsky on a journey to New York City shortly before the Russian Revolution of 1917. This story is written as the libretto of an Off-Broadway musical. A second tale covers the life and career of Sigmund Freud and includes portrayals of Havelock Ellis and Krafft-Ebing. The third part is set in the future, shortly before the impact of a rogue, extrasolar planet with the Earth. Because of the latter story line, it is considered a work of fantastic fiction. quote:Reviewing the book for The New York Times, Anatole Broyard concluded that "Mr. Burgess might have written a very good science-fiction novel if he had been more interested in entertaining the reader rather than himself."[1] 2. Passages from the Life of a Philosopher by Charles Babbage Charles Babbage's autobiography. quote:Charles Babbage KH FRS (/ˈbæbɪdʒ/; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath.[1] A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer.[2] quote:In his old age he became crotchety, and infamous for his obsessive campaign against street organists, which might be why he is now remembered as a cantankerous, antisocial fellow. Quite the contrary, he was a thoroughgoing extrovert famous for his parties and charming eccentricity. There are many, many contemporary descriptions of Babbage (far more than there are of Lovelace)—everyone remarked on his “great energy,” gregarious nature, and peculiar personality. “In my interview with him,” writes Francis Lister Hawks, “he was by turns playful, profound, practical, always enthusiastic, and always eloquent.” His rambling autobiography, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, is highly entertaining, and you should read it as soon as you’re finished reading this comic. " <- Sydney Padua, author of The Amazing Adventures of Babbage and Lovelace. 3. Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers There was a big push in the Discord to read a "Cozy" mystery, and this is a pinnacle of the genre. Sayers was a friend of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien and attended meetings of the Inklings, and her work tries to straddle the line between entertaining detective fiction and "serious" literary work. quote:Even as Sayers grew prosperous from Lord Peter’s exploits, she nursed a level of disdain for her chosen profession. “Make no mistake about it, the detective-story is part of the literature of escape, and not of expression,” she writes in the introduction to “The Omnibus of Crime,” an anthology of stories that she edited in 1929. She argued that the question of how to unite intricate plots with characters who read like “real human beings” was itself a mystery that writers had yet to solve, adding, “At some point or other, either [the characters’] emotions make hay of the detective interest, or the detective interest gets hold of them and makes their emotions look like pasteboard.” https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/an-overlooked-novel-from-1935-by-the-godmother-of-feminist-detective-fiction 4. Strange Hotel by Elmear McBride quote:Eimear McBride, considered one of the best, most innovative Irish authors writing at the moment has a string of hits behind her, from her first, difficult novel A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, to her excitement of young love in The Lesser Bohemians, Strange Hotel is, again, a new style for her. Set over the years, it’s a departure for McBride as she deals with a middle-aged woman only on the various (of many) nights she spends away from home in hotel rooms. Written from the in-depth perspective of a woman dealing with the anonymity of corporate-styled bare hotels, it confronts, with all pretenses removed, the hollowing of life that may often be a reality for the average woman, one rarely dealt with in the many stories aimed at such a market. Literary, but accessible, Strange Hotel is precisely written with sentences to be read over-and-over, as the workings of the prose reveal the depths entered by a mind, alone (or not), isolated and away, having to (or refusing to) address itself as it finds itself at-home far-from-home. 5. Towing Jehovah by James Morrow coyo7e posted:Towing Jehovah is good enough that I've had two copies get stolen after loaning them out. And I keep buying it again because poo poo, how can I not want to read it again?! So much poo poo going down.. I mean even the opening with the dude's father "sinking" a butane lighter in the gravy bowl to poo poo on him for wrecking his oil tanker.. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Aug 25, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 17:28
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| # ? May 8, 2024 08:46 |
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briefly ending my exile to say vote for McBride you fucks
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Aug 25, 2020 18:53
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Mel Mudkiper posted:briefly ending my exile to say vote for McBride you fucks McBride was my close second choice that I didn't vote for before learning on Discord that you can vote for multiple  I still checked it out of the library and will be reading it regardless
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Aug 25, 2020 19:04
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I voted for Strange Hotel because it's a really good book, which I done did write the blurb for in the op, and I only forgot to mention it's fairly short and you can get through it in a night but end up talking about it for hours.
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Aug 25, 2020 21:07
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I voted for McBride. But my library seems to be frozen since they extended all the return dates, so who knows if I'll get a copy before September is done.
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Aug 28, 2020 01:54
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| # ? May 8, 2024 08:46 |
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Unless there's a last minute surge, next months' BOTM will be Strange Hotel. I'll keep the Robin Hood thing going on the side.
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Aug 31, 2020 02:30
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