BOTM POOOLLLLEEEEEE -- CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER AND BY FIGHTER I MEAN BOOK

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > BOTM POOOLLLLEEEEEE -- CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER AND BY FIGHTER I MEAN BOOK

pick TWO books you would like to read and/or talk about This poll is closed.
The Fate of Rome by Harper, Kyle	7	13.73%
Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exup�ry.	5	9.80%
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry	5	9.80%
he Road Back by Erich Maria Remarque	3	5.88%
Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell	2	3.92%
Clausewitz, On War	7	13.73%
The Fragile Empire by Ben Judah	2	3.92%
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bola�o	5	9.80%
The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz	4	7.84%
Kalpa Imperial by Ang�lica Gorodischer (Trans. Le Guin)	11	21.57%
Total:	21 votes

[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Come one come all and VOTE for your choice for the Book of the Month for the next two months.

You can vote for more than one choice, so pick all the ones you feel you might want to read.

We're doing things a little different this month; the two top vote getters will be the books for the next two months. After this I'll try to start picking books a month out to give people time to get the book before the month starts.

If there's a book not listed you think would be a good pick, make a post at the bottom of the thread!

1) The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire (The Princeton History of the Ancient World)
Harper, Kyle

A Festivus Miracle posted:

I've been reading The Fate of Rome and I have to say, hearing the Fall of Rome narrative from the point of view of climate and disease is quite interesting, even if the author I think does kinda make some weird leaps of logic at times. I do particularly like the Fall of the Western Roman Empire framed more in the context of "The Romans could not have stemmed the tide of humanity fleeing the megadrought on the Eurasian steppe, and also sincerely hosed everything up at the Battle of Adrianople" than the more common context of a Roman system that was completely unresponsive and teetering at the end of the 4th century.

2) Night Flight, published as Vol de Nuit in 1931, was the second novel by French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exup�ry.

quote:

The novel is set in Argentina at the outset of commercial aviation. Rivi�re is the station chief of an airline that is the first to pioneer night flights, disciplining his employees to focus all they do on ensuring that the mail gets through punctually each night. The novel's episodic structure is built about his work at the Buenos Aires office and the final hours of the pilot Fabien on the Patagonia run. Fabien's plane is caught in a cyclone, runs out of fuel and loses radio contact, while Rivi�re tries all he can to locate the aircraft. At stake is the future of the night mail-run to Europe. Once the two other flights from Chile and Paraguay get through, Rivi�re has to allow the trans-Atlantic flight to Paris to depart without the missing mail, resigning himself to Fabien's loss.

The narration is spare and much of the action is presented as a thought or mental perception. . . . . .

A major theme of the novel is whether doing what is necessary to meet a long-term goal is more important than an individual's life. Rivi�re wants to show that airmail is more efficient than other means of transport. �It is a matter of life and death for us; for the lead we gain by day on ships and railways is lost at night.� He therefore puts his pilots at risk to establish its commercial viability, but it is a sacrifice that they too readily accept. Drawing on his own experience and that of his fellow-pilots, Saint-Exup�ry portrays them as renouncing everything in a cause in which they believe. The relationship between themselves and their employers is not that of slave and master but of man to man: a liberty with as single constraint their submission to duty. In submitting oneself to that absolute, to which all other personal considerations are consciously subordinated, greatness is achieved in one's own eyes and in those of others.

3) Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

quote:

Under the Volcano is a novel by English writer Malcolm Lowry (1909�1957) published in 1947. The novel tells the story of Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the small Mexican town of Quauhnahuac, on the Day of the Dead in November 1939. The book takes its name from the two volcanoes, Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl, that overshadow Quauhnahuac and the characters. Under the Volcano was Lowry's second and last complete novel.

The novel was adapted for radio on Studio One in 1947 but had gone out of print by the time Lowry died in 1957. Its popularity restored, in 1984 it served as the basis of a film of the same name. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Under the Volcano at number 11 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

4) The Road Back (German: Der Weg zur�ck) is a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque, commonly regarded as a sequel to his 1929 novel All Quiet on the Western Front.

quote:

It was first serialized in the German newspaper Vossische Zeitung between December 1930 and January 1931, and published in book form in April 1931.

Although the book follows different characters from those in All Quiet on the Western Front, it can be assumed that they were in the same company, as the characters recall other characters from the earlier novel. Tjaden is the only member of the 2nd Company to feature prominently in both books.

Set a few weeks after the end of All Quiet on the Western Front, the novel details the experience of young men in Germany who have returned from the trenches of World War I and are trying to integrate back into civilian life. Its most salient feature is the main characters' pessimism about contemporary society which, they feel, is morally bankrupt because it has allegedly caused the war and apparently does not wish to reform itself.

The book was banned during Nazi rule.

5) Ring of Bright Water

quote:

Ring of Bright Water is a book by Gavin Maxwell about his life in a remote house in coastal Scotland where he kept several wild otters as pets.[1][2] First published in 1960, it became a best seller and is considered a literary masterpiece,[3] eventually selling over two million copies.[4] A fictionalised film of the same name was made from it[4] and released in 1969.[3]

6) clausewitz on war

quote:

Vom Kriege (German pronunciation: [fɔm ˈkʁiːɡə]) is a book on war and military strategy by Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz (1780�1831), written mostly after the Napoleonic wars, between 1816 and 1830, and published posthumously by his wife Marie von Br�hl in 1832.[1] It has been translated into English several times as On War. On War is an unfinished work. Clausewitz had set about revising his accumulated manuscripts in 1827, but did not live to finish the task. His wife edited his collected works and published them between 1832 and 1835.[2]

His ten-volume collected works contain most of his larger historical and theoretical writings, though not his shorter articles and papers or his extensive correspondence with important political, military, intellectual and cultural leaders in the Prussian state. On War is formed by the first three volumes and represents his theoretical explorations. It is one of the most important treatises on political-military analysis and strategy ever written, and remains both controversial and influential on strategic thinking.[1]

7) the fragile empire by ben judah

quote:

From Kaliningrad on the Baltic to the Russian Far East, journalist Ben Judah has traveled throughout Russia and the former Soviet republics, conducting extensive interviews with President Vladimir Putin�s friends, foes, and colleagues, government officials, business tycoons, mobsters, and ordinary Russian citizens. Fragile Empire is the fruit of Judah�s thorough research: A probing assessment of Putin�s rise to power and what it has meant for Russia and her people.

Despite a propaganda program intent on maintaining the clich� of stability, Putin�s regime was suddenly confronted in December 2011 by a highly public protest movement that told a different side of the story. Judah argues that Putinism has brought economic growth to Russia but also weaker institutions, and this contradiction leads to instability. The author explores both Putin�s successes and his failed promises, taking into account the impact of a new middle class and a new generation, the Internet, social activism, and globalization on the president�s impending leadership crisis. Can Russia avoid the crisis of Putinism? Judah offers original and up-to-the-minute answers.

8) The Savage Detectives

quote:

Amazon Significant Seven, May 2007: The late Chilean writer Roberto Bola�o has been called the Garc�a Marquez of his generation, but his novel The Savage Detectives is a lot closer to Y Tu Mam� Tambi�n than it is to One Hundred Years of Solitude. Hilarious and sexy, meandering and melancholy, full of inside jokes about Latin American literati that you don't have to understand to enjoy, The Savage Detectives is a companionable and complicated road trip through Mexico City, Barcelona, Israel, Liberia, and finally the desert of northern Mexico. It's the first of Bola�o's two giant masterpieces to be translated into English (the second, 2666, is due out next year), and you can see how he's influenced an era. --Tom Nissley

9) Magpie Murders

quote:

Susan Ryeland is the editor of the mystery author Alan Conway, who is known for his well-received series of novels centring upon the detective Atticus P�nd and for being very difficult to work with. Fans are eagerly awaiting Conway's latest novel, rumoured to be the last in the series, but when Susan reads through the manuscript she discovers that it is unfinished. When she travels to Conway's home to retrieve the final chapters, she discovers that he is dead. In order to discover the whereabouts of the final chapters Susan begins an investigation of her own and finds that the novel may have been based on true events, causing someone to murder Conway.

10) Kalpa Imperial

quote:

Ursula K. Le Guin chose to translate this novel which was on the New York Times Summer Reading list and winner of the Prix Imaginales, M�s All�, Poblet and Sigfrido Radaelli awards.

This
is the first of Argentinean writer Ang�lica Gorodischer's award-winning
books to be translated into English. In eleven chapters, Kalpa Imperial's
multiple storytellers relate the story of a fabled nameless empire
which has risen and fallen innumerable times. Fairy tales, oral
histories and political commentaries are all woven tapestry-style into
Kalpa Imperial: beggars become emperors, democracies become
dictatorships, and history becomes legends and stories.

But this
is much more than a simple political allegory or fable. It is also a
celebration of the power of storytelling. Gorodischer and translator
Ursula K. Le Guin are a well-matched, sly and delightful team of
magician-storytellers. Rarely have author and translator been such an
effortless pairing. Kalpa Imperial is a powerful introduction to
the writing of Ang�lica Gorodischer, a novel which will enthrall readers
already familiar with the worlds of Le Guin.

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Mar 24, 2022

# ? Mar 24, 2022 01:57

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# ? May 5, 2024 08:21

Kestral: Nov 24, 2000; Forum Veteran

I've been meaning to read Kalpa Imperial and this is a great excuse to do so. Anything Le Guin thought was worth that much time and effort to translate and promote has to be remarkable.

# ? Mar 25, 2022 01:32

Lex Neville: Apr 15, 2009

Under the Volcano

# ? Mar 26, 2022 21:32

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

It'll be Kalpa Imperial for April. Since nothing else cracked 10 votes I'll do another poll for May.

# ? Apr 1, 2022 07:06

Sarern: Nov 4, 2008; Won't you take me to
Bomertown?
Won't you take me to
BONERTOWN?

Awesome, that gives me an excuse to re-read it! Looking forward to picking up more on the second read.

# ? Apr 1, 2022 13:57

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