Nominations for the January 2011 Book of the month

[neilgee]

There are no restrictions upon choices of book so please feel free to nominate anything that you would be likely to like to read in January.

The voting will take place in the first or second week in December to give anybody who would like to contribute a chance to know the winner and have a chance to maybe hint to a relative that you wouldn't mind finding the winner in your X-mas stocking.

Good luck everybody with your choices and happy reading, or at least reasonably absorbing reading (

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To Margaine and Winifred I have offered to open this thread last week and no mods said no but they didn't say yes either so I though that it's December tomorrow and I'd have to take a chance if we were to have any hope of having a January Book of the Month then nominations should start now. Hope you agree.

[Moony]

Horse Goddess, by Morgan Llywelyn

[Star_Anise]

**

To Margaine and Winifred I have offered to open this thread last week and no mods said no but they didn't say yes either so I though that it's December tomorrow and I'd have to take a chance if we were to have any hope of having a January Book of the Month then nominations should start now. Hope you agree.

We have often had members responsible for running the book club and moving it along in the past, Neil - so as long as the guidelines are being followed and everyone is getting along, no problems here.

[Winifred]

I am going to go with a non-fiction suggestion to start the new year: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. Review of internet history and the author's background, but the meat of the book is a review of brain science and a history of media intersecting with man's culture and the brain itself. What modifications did our brain make when we became a culture of readers with the invention of the printing press? What further modifications are taking place as we all spend more and more time "connected" online, on cell phones, etc. Very interesting possibilities for discussion.

PS Neilgee: are you continuing your suggestion from the evaporated month, or leaving the field open for another one?

[Frith]

So, I thought I would join the January book club and googled "books everyone should read before they die" for ideas.

I found a few interesting ones that I had never read before.

Suggestions from the list I found:

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

Ulysses by James Joyce

[Winifred]

Frith, glad you will be joining us, but please narrow your suggestions to one choice for this month (you could pocket the others for future choices). Each person suggests one, then we vote, and all who suggest are honor - bound to read (and contribute to a discussion on) the victorious suggestion!

Neilgee, I don't think we can change it, but it's January 2011....

[Frith]

Okay, sorry for suggesting more than one. =] I should have read the rule page first.

In that case, The Trial by Franz Kafka is my choice.

[Star_Anise]

Neilgee, I don't think we can change it, but it's January 2011....

Fixed:)

[thelastmelon]

I'd like to start the year off by reading some African literature. So my nomination will be Burma Boy by Biyi Bandele (whom I met at the Book Fair this fall, and who signed my copy of the book!).

"A few months ago, fourteen-year-old Ali Banana was apprenticed to a whip-wielding blacksmith in his rural hometown. Now, its winter 1944, the war is entering its most crucial stage and Ali is a private in Thunder Brigade. His unit has been given orders to go behind enemy lines and wreak havoc".

[neilgee]

Thanx for the responses, guys and gals. I'm going to stick with my nomination from the end of the last book of the month thread which is The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson, Booker Prize Winner 2010, simply because I already have a copy and I'm going to be reading it anyway so it would be nice to share thoughts.

[Winifred]

So, are we ready to vote???

[Moony]

I suppose as ready as we'll ever be.

[Frith]

Let's do it! I'm excited for my first book club.

[neilgee]

There's some great choices in there. The internet one is interesting, but I also love African lit, and The Trail of course is a classic that's always worth rereading (I have a huge volume of Kafka's works packed in a box that I can dig out without too much trouble), but then everyone wants to read the Booker Prize winner, don't they?

Let's go for it!

[Winifred]

:good::)

[margaine]

Neil, you are welcome to make the voting thread if you would like. Just follow the same model as the previous ones - it is pretty self-explanatory. :)

[neilgee]

Neil, you are welcome to make the voting thread if you would like. Just follow the same model as the previous ones - it is pretty self-explanatory. :)

Finally managed it. Phew! I've set the poll to run for two weeks so that there's a few days grace before new year so a winner can be announced and we can have chance to get hold of a copy.