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1) accessibility -- either easy to read or easy to download a free copy of, ideally both

2) novelty -- something a significant fraction of the forum hasn't already read

3) discussability -- intellectual merit, controversiality, insight -- a book people will be able to talk about.

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also for the next botm can everyone please suggest spinal catastrophism by thomas moynihan cos i think it would be really funny and literally no one would enjoy it

poisonpill posted:

I'll put the following out, and I think each one would drive some good discussion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHAOS:_Charles_Manson,_the_CIA,_and_the_Secret_History_of_the_Sixties
The best crackping CSPAM brain-breaking book of the last decade. Just incredible in scope and scale. This is both the story of Manson, and also the story of journalism, unravelling the established story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Country

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Man
More fun and readable than you'd think; one of the more enjoyable selects of important Black American Lit.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31451077-autumn-of-the-black-snake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell%27s_Angels:_The_Strange_and_Terrible_Saga_of_the_Outlaw_Motorcycle_Gangs
Just a classic for anyone who hasn't read HST yet, or only read FaLiLV

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
In case you're looking for something RU/Ukraine - tangential

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Carmilla is an 1872 Gothic novella by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu and one of the early works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) by 26 years.

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First published as a serial in The Dark Blue (1871–72),[1][2] the story is narrated by a young woman preyed upon by a female vampire named Carmilla, later revealed to be Mircalla, Countess Karnstein (Carmilla is an anagram of Mircalla). The character is a prototypical example of the lesbian vampire, expressing romantic desires toward the protagonist. The novella notably never acknowledges homosexuality as an antagonistic trait, leaving it subtle and morally ambiguous. The story is often anthologised, and has been adapted many times in film and other media.

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Le Fanu worked in many genres but remains best known for his horror fiction. He was a meticulous craftsman and frequently reworked plots and ideas from his earlier writing in subsequent pieces. Many of his novels, for example, are expansions and refinements of earlier short stories. He specialised in tone and effect rather than "shock horror" and liked to leave important details unexplained and mysterious. He avoided overt supernatural effects: in most of his major works, the supernatural is strongly implied but a "natural" explanation is also possible. The demonic monkey in "Green Tea" could be a delusion of the story's protagonist, who is the only person to see it; in "The Familiar", Captain Barton's death seems to be supernatural but is not actually witnessed, and the ghostly owl may be a real bird. This technique influenced later horror artists, both in print and on film (see, for example, the film producer Val Lewton's principle of "indirect horror").[3] Though other writers have since chosen less subtle techniques, Le Fanu's finest tales, such as the vampire novella Carmilla and the short story "Schalken the Painter", remain some of the most powerful in the genre. He had enormous influence on one of the 20th century's most important ghost story writers, M. R. James, and although his work fell out of favour in the early part of the 20th century, towards the end of the century interest in his work increased and remains comparatively strong.[7]

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As with Dracula, critics have looked for the sources used in the writing of Carmilla. One source used was from a dissertation on magic, vampires, and the apparitions of spirits written by Dom Augustin Calmet entitled Traité sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires ou les revenants de Hongrie, de Moravie, &c. (1751). This is evidenced by a report analysed by Calmet, from a priest who learned information of a town being tormented by a vampiric entity three years earlier. Having travelled to the town to investigate and collecting information of the various inhabitants there, the priest learned that a vampire had tormented many of the inhabitants at night by coming from the nearby cemetery and would haunt many of the residents on their beds. An unknown Hungarian traveller came to the town during this period and helped the town by setting a trap at the cemetery and decapitating the vampire that resided there, curing the town of their torment. This story was retold by Le Fanu and adapted into the thirteenth chapter of Carmilla [19][20][21][22]

According to Matthew Gibson, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Were-wolves (1863) and his account of Elizabeth Báthory, Coleridge's Christabel (Part 1, 1797 and Part 2, 1800), and Captain Basil Hall's Schloss Hainfeld; or a Winter in Lower Styria (London and Edinburgh, 1836) are other sources for Le Fanu's Carmilla. Hall's account provides much of the Styrian background and, in particular, a model for both Carmilla and Laura in the figure of Jane Anne Cranstoun, Countess Purgstall.[23][24]

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Audible Originals brings you a brand new audiobook adaptation of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic gothic novella, Carmilla - starring Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey), David Tennant (Doctor Who and Broadchurch) and Phoebe Fox (Life in Squares and The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death)

One of the very first vampire thrillers, this audio adaptation follows 18-year-old Laura as she recounts the story of her mysterious, intriguing and beautiful house guest Carmilla, who is stranded in the forest after a carriage accident and taken in by Laura’s widowed father. The girls develop a friendship which turns into a passionate meeting of souls. A relationship of vampire and prey, the story is told through Laura’s eyes as she is drawn further into Carmilla’s terrifying world of pleasure and pain.

A masterpiece of erotic Gothic horror, Carmilla encompasses mystery, suspense, forbidden lust, violence...and lots of blood....

Carmilla has been dramatised by Robin Brooks, an actor, dramatist and author who has been working as a playwright for over 25 years. Carmilla was directed by Fiona McAlpine of Allegra Productions for Audible Originals.

Key cast:

Carmilla -Phoebe Fox
Laura - Rose Leslie
Dr Hesselius - David Tennant
Father - James Wilby
©2015 Audible Ltd. (P)2015 Audible Ltd.

AngusPodgorny posted:

I wouldn’t have guessed based on the writing that Carmilla pre-dated Dracula, because it’s much more readable. Although based on having also read Lair of the White Worm, maybe Bram Stoker just wasn’t a good writer.

McSpankWich posted:

About half way done, good so far! I didn't realize there was a vampire story prior to Dracula so I'm excited to finish up

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"The Vampyre" is a short work of prose fiction written in 1819 by John William Polidori taken from the story Lord Byron told as part of a contest among Polidori, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley. The same contest produced the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.[1]

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Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood is a Victorian-era serialized gothic horror story variously attributed to James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest. It first appeared in 1845–1847 as a series of weekly cheap pamphlets of the kind then known as "penny dreadfuls". The author was paid by the typeset line,[1] so when the story was published in book form in 1847, it was of epic length: the original edition ran to 876 double-columned pages[2] and 232 chapters.[3] Altogether it totals nearly 667,000 words.[4]

Bonaventure posted:

^e;fb

AngusPodgorny posted:

Carmilla, which you could've told me was written this year and I'd almost believe. Especially with how blatantly lesbian the story is for 1871, and I'm normally pretty resistant toward projecting sexuality into works (like say, Frozen).

Ben Nevis posted:

Specifically spelling names backward. Alucard has quite a pop culture history of being a hidden vampire. Pratchett also commented on it "Do they really think that spelling their name backwards fools anyone?" There's enough out there that the portait was a dead giveaway. I'm curious as to whether it was for contemporary readers too.

AngusPodgorny posted:

As to Carmilla, I wonder if it was ultimately less successful than Dracula because of how passive everyone is. Dracula had Harker, Van Helsing, and various side characters that were at least trying to do things, so it was more of a traditional story. Carmilla had Laura, who never suspected anything, much less tried to do anything. And then in the last 10% of the book, other characters showed up and took care of everything while she watched.

Mercury Hat posted:

I'm about 2/3 of the way through and I'm loving this vampire con artist. "Oh please, my preternaturally beautiful daughter simply must stay with you while I attend a matter of the utmost secrecy and importance. No, don't ask anything about it. Yes, she must be allowed alone around your daughter. Farewell."

poisonpill posted:

For BotM, now that it's being remixed: do they have to be novels, or can we throw in suggestions for nonfiction, essays, plays?

poisonpill posted:

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The King Must Die is a 1958 bildungsroman and historical novel by Mary Renault that traces the early life and adventures of Theseus, a hero in Greek mythology. It is set in locations throughout Ancient Greece: Troizen, Corinth, Eleusis, Athens, Knossos in Crete, and Naxos. Renault wrote a sequel, The Bull from the Sea, in 1962.
. . .
The book was lauded by critics, with Renault's believable historical setting being particularly well-received.[1] Removing the fantastical elements of monsters and the appearances of gods, Renault constructed an archaeologically and anthropologically plausible story that might have developed into the myth. However, other critics have viewed Renault's depiction of ancient Crete as based on flawed theories and taking significant imaginative liberties.[2][3]

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The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950) is a science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt. An example of space opera subgenre, the novel is a "fix-up" compilation of four previously published stories:

. . .

A sentient panther-like species named Coeurl (or Zorl in French editions), with psi capabilities and tentacles coming out of its shoulders, was adapted as the character Mughi (or Mugi) in the anime Dirty Pair. It also appears in several versions of the Final Fantasy video games, and as the Displacer beast in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The Coeurl suck phosphorus ("id")[7] from their victims; the "salt vampire" in the Star Trek episode "The Man Trap" removes sodium.

. .. .
"The plot of these two portions of Space Beagle so closely matched the plot of Alien that van Vogt sued the production company for plagiarism. The suit was eventually settled out of court for $50,000.[2]".

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Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs is a book written by Hunter S. Thompson, published in 1967 by Random House.[3] It was widely lauded for its up-close and uncompromising look at the Hells Angels motorcycle club, during a time when the gang was highly feared and accused of numerous criminal activities. The New York Times described Thompson's portrayal as "a world most of us would never dare encounter."[4][5]

It was Thompson's first published book and his first attempt at a nonfiction novel.

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Snow Country (雪国, Yukiguni, IPA: [jɯkiꜜɡɯɲi]) is a novel by the Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. The novel is considered a classic work of Japanese literature[1] and was among the three novels the Nobel Committee cited in 1968, when Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.[2]

poisonpill posted:

It’s really really obvious but a lot of le Fanu’s material is direct or indirect allusion to the absentee landlords of Ireland. It’s probably less interesting to modern audiences than the lesbian vampire reading, but there’s a lot in Carmilla about the English owners of the land sucking it dry and dead, and giving nothing back to the people (who are being literally fed on).

Anyway, good voting options.

McSpankWich posted:

I'm new to this SA book club so I don't know what you've done in the past, or what the goal is for the future, but are more classic novels like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Invisible Man (HG Wells), War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Red Badge of Courage, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1984, Gulliver's Travels what we aim for or just more modern good reads that people have enjoyed? Or does it not matter All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr was good, do we do like cheesy adventure novels like Ted Bell or Clive Cussler? Michael Crichton has some good stuff that isn't Jurassic Park, etc

xcheopis posted:

I've previously suggested Max Beerbohm's A Christmas Garland but never heard back.

AngusPodgorny posted:

I started reading Voyage of the Space Beagle even though it had no chance of winning because I was in the mood to read something light. So far it's been space horror from the perspective of the alien, and by some strange serendipity it lines up with my current non-fiction book - An Immense World by Ed Yong, where I'm reading about the sensory systems of animals like electric eels.

Keetron posted:

Odd, I thought it was going to be "The King Must Die" but I am cool with Snow Country. .

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Snow Country is a stark tale of a love affair between a Tokyo dilettante and a provincial geisha that takes place in the remote hot spring (onsen) town of Yuzawa.[1] (Kawabata did not mention the name of the town in his novel.)

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Kawabata was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature on 16 October 1968, the first Japanese person to receive such a distinction.[10] In awarding the prize "for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind", the Nobel Committee cited three of his novels, Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, and The Old Capital.[11]

Kawabata's Nobel Lecture was titled "Japan, The Beautiful and Myself" (美しい日本の私―その序説). Zen Buddhism was a key focal point of the speech; much was devoted to practitioners and the general practices of Zen Buddhism and how it differed from other types of Buddhism. He presented a severe picture of Zen Buddhism, where disciples can enter salvation only through their efforts, where they are isolated for several hours at a time, and how from this isolation there can come beauty. He noted that Zen practices focus on simplicity and it is this simplicity that proves to be the beauty. "The heart of the ink painting is in space, abbreviation, what is left undrawn." From painting he moved on to talk about ikebana and bonsai as art forms that emphasize the elegance and beauty that arises from the simplicity. "The Japanese garden, too, of course symbolizes the vastness of nature."[12]

In addition to the numerous mentions of Zen and nature, one topic that was briefly mentioned in Kawabata's lecture was that of suicide. Kawabata reminisced of other famous Japanese authors who committed suicide, in particular Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. He contradicted the custom of suicide as being a form of enlightenment, mentioning the priest Ikkyū, who also thought of suicide twice. He quoted Ikkyū, "Among those who give thoughts to things, is there one who does not think of suicide?"[13] There was much speculation about this quote being a clue to Kawabata's suicide in 1972, a year and a half after Mishima had committed suicide.[citation needed]

poisonpill posted:

I’m kind of partial to a few months of second chances. Books that narrowly missed winning their votes from the last few years

McSpankWich posted:

I've always meant to read Agatha Christie but never actually got around to it. So I'd do that. None of the books on that list I wouldn't read though so I'm down for whatever.

Discendo Vox posted:

Yeah we may want a different platform than twitter.

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The book is loosely based on the life of Edward L. Doheny (and the company he co-founded, Pan American Petroleum & Transport Company, the California assets of which became Pan American Western Petroleum Company), and also the strategic alliance Union-Independent Producers Agency, a consortium created in 1910 to bring oil via pipeline from Kern County to the Pacific Coast facilities of Union Oil Company at Port Harford (now called Port San Luis just west of Avila Beach).

Numerous parallels exist between the opening setting of the novel, Beach City, and the city of Huntington Beach. Huntington Beach was originally called "Pacific City", for which Beach City is a play off of both names. The novel states that the area had street names like "Telegraph" and "Beach City Blvd". Telegraph Road would be the last street crossed before getting off the highway onto Beach Blvd in the town of Buena Park to travel south to Huntington Beach. James Arnold Ross and Bunny stay in a hotel at the intersection of Beach City Blvd and Coast Drive, similar to Beach Blvd and what would later develop into Pacific Coast Highway, where a hotel and water resort once resided in the early 1900s. In the novel, Beach City is covered in beet and cabbage fields. Huntington Beach historically was covered in beet and celery fields. In the novel, the primary oil field found is on "Prospect Hill". The first confirmed oil wells in Huntington Beach were located on a series of bluffs.

The character of Eli Watkins is loosely based on the famous evangelist Aimee McPherson.[1]


Oil! was banned in Boston[2] for its motel sex scene. Sinclair's publisher printed 150 copies of a "fig-leaf edition" with the offending nine pages blacked out. Sinclair protested the banning and hoped to bring an obscenity case to trial. He did not do so, but the controversy helped make the book a bestseller.[3]

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Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well known and popular in the first half of the 20th century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.

In 1906, Sinclair acquired particular fame for his classic muck-raking novel, The Jungle, which exposed labor and sanitary conditions in the U.S. meatpacking industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act.[1] In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muck-raking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the "free press" in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created.[2] Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence".[3] He is also well remembered for the quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."[4] He used this line in speeches and the book about his campaign for governor as a way to explain why the editors and publishers of the major newspapers in California would not treat seriously his proposals for old age pensions and other progressive reforms.[4]

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Anglophone Atlantis has been an independent nation since an April day in 1822, when a well-aimed shot from their depluralizing cannon reduced the British colonizing fleet to one ship.

Since then, Atlantis has been the world's greatest center for linguistic manipulation, designing letter inserters, word synthesizers, the diminutive affixer, and a host of other tools for converting one thing to another. Inventors worldwide pay heavily for that technology, which is where a smuggler and industrial espionage agent such as yourself can really clean up.

Unfortunately, the Bureau of Orthography has taken a serious interest in your activities lately. Your face has been recorded and your cover is blown.

Your remaining assets: about eight more hours of a national holiday that's spreading the police thin; the most inconvenient drat disguise you've ever worn in your life; and one full-alphabet letter remover.

Good luck getting off the island.

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You're neither an adventurer nor a professional thrill-seeker. You're simply an American tourist in London, enjoying a relaxing stroll through the famous Kensington Gardens. When World War III starts and the city is vaporized moments after the story begins, you have no hope of survival.

Unless you enter another time, another place, another dimension.

Escaping the destruction of London is not the end of your problems, but rather the beginning of new, more bizarre riddles. You'll find yourself in an exotic world teeming with giant fly traps, strange creatures, and other inconveniences. Time and space will behave with their own intricate and mischievous logic. You'll visit fantastic places and acquire curious objects as you seek to discover the logic behind your newfound universe.

And if you can figure out the patter of events, you'll wind up in the New Mexico desert, minutes before the culmination of the greatest scientific experiment of all time: the world's first atomic explosion, code-named Trinity.

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For over 20 years, I dreamed about an alternate universe I called the Higher World. For three of those years, I poured almost all of my creative energy into a novel-length story set in that universe. Worlds Apart is the result. But it is not a novel in the traditional sense of the word. It is an interactive tale in which you play the leading part, solving problems and learning about yourself along the way.

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HORSE MASTER The Game of Horse Mastery is a horse management sim crossed with body horror. Do you have what it takes to raise a massive, muscular, dripping mega-horse in a dark, dystopian future? Are you a Furioso-Hellfist kind of person, or do you lean towards Carolina Coffinbreath?

HORSE MASTER The Game of Horse Mastery is 100 percent for real. This is no joke. This is ultimate mastery and it has a dexobrimadine fist down your throat, wrapped around your heart, squeezing out every drop of weakness until nothing remains but smoking shards of raw saddle-wisdom. Do you know how many horses die in the larval stage? That ain’t masterful, that’s poo poo.