April & May 2008 Fiction Book Suggestions

Chris OConnor

April & May 2008 Fiction Book Suggestions

Please use this thread to make fiction book suggestions for April & May 2008. Smile

Chris OConnor · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 2:49 am Post subject:

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

From Publishers Weekly
With a husky voice and a gentle, dramatic manner that will call to mind the image of a patient grandfather reading to an excited gaggle of children, McDonough leisurely narrates this fantastical tale of good and evil, of choice and responsibility. In Maguire's Oz, Elphaba, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West, is not wicked; nor is she a formally schooled witch. Instead, she's an insecure, unfortunately green Munchkinlander who's willing to take radical steps to unseat the tyrannical Wizard of Oz. Using an appropriately brusque voice for the always blunt Elphaba, McDonough relates her tumultuous childhood (spent with an alcoholic mother and a minister father) and eye-opening school years (when she befriends her roommate, Glinda). McDonough's pacing remains frustratingly slow even after the plot picks up, and Elphaba's protracted ruminations on the nature of evil will have some listeners longing for an abridgement. Still, McDonough's excellent portrayals of Elphaba's outspoken, gravel-voiced nanny, Glinda's snobbish friends and the wide-eyed, soft-spoken Dorothy make this excursion to Oz worthwhile.

--USA Today
"An outstanding work of imagination."

From AudioFile
Did you ever wonder how Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, got that way? Maguire tells all in this imaginative, satiric biography of the one character in THE WIZARD OF OZ destined to give children nightmares. John McDonough's narration is smooth and soothing, unfazed by the greenness of Elphaba's skin, the viciousness of her personality or the strangeness of the societies of Oz.

The Times-Picayune
"Children - children of all ages, as Maguire reminds us in this splendid novel - need witches. Gregory Maguire has taken this figure of childhood fantasy and given her a sensual and powerful nature that will stir adult hearts with fear and longing all over again. It's a brilliant trick - and a remarkable treat."

Newsday
"Listen up, Munchkins. Stop your singing, stop the dancing. The Wicked Witch is no longer dead. But not to worry. Gregory Maguire's shrewdly imagined and beautifully written first novel, "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West," not only revives her but re-envisions and redeems her for our times."

Kirkus Reviews
"... [a] magical telling of the land of Oz before and up to the arrival of Dorothy and company.... A captivating, funny, and perceptive look at destiny, personal responsibility, and the not-always-clashing beliefs of faith and magic. Save a place on the shelf between Alice and The Hobbit that spot is well deserved."

Los Angeles Times
"It's a staggering feat of wordcraft, made no less so by the fact that its boundaries were set decades ago by somebody else. Maguire's larger triumph here is twofold: First, in Elphaba, he has created (re-created? renovated?) one of the great heroines in fantasy literature: a fiery, passionate, unforgettable and ultimately tragic figure. Second, Wicked is the best fantasy novel of ideas I've read since Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast or Frank Herbert's Dune. Would that all books with this much innate consumer appeal were also this good. And vice versa."

Book Description
When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

About the Author
Gregory Maguire is the bestselling author of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, Mirror Mirror, and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, the basis for the Tony Award–winning Broadway musical. Maguire has lectured on art and culture at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the DeCordova Museum as well as at conferences around the world. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts, and in Vermont.[/url]

Chris OConnor · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 2:53 am Post subject:

The Magicians' Guild by Trudi Canavan

Book Description

"We should expect this young woman to be more powerful than our average novice, possibly even more powerful than the average magician."

This year, like every other, the magicians of Imardin gather to purge the city of undesirables. Cloaked in the protection of their sorcery, they move with no fear of the vagrants and miscreants who despise them and their work—until one enraged girl, barely more than a child, hurls a stone at the hated invaders . . . and effortlessly penetrates their magical shield.

What the Magicians' Guild has long dreaded has finally come to pass. There is someone outside their ranks who possesses a raw power beyond imagining, an untrained mage who must be found and schooled before she destroys herself and her city with a force she cannot yet control.

A readers review from Amazon.com
I've read so many fantasy novels lately that I'm on the run for new authors...I'm so glad I found Trudi Canavan! This book just flew, and left me panting for the next.

Sonea is a slum girl who, accidentaly during the yearly 'purge' of unwanted poor folk from her city, throws a rock at a magician and breaks through the barrier. This sends both the slums and the Magicians into chaos as Sonea seeks to control her new found powers and hide from the magicians and the magicians squabble amoung themselves about what to do about this. They never test people from the slums for magic. A good half of the book is this cat and mouse chase between Sonea and her allies and the magicians...and the rest...well I won't give the plot away.

Canavan is excellant at creating characters. Sonea is vivid in her terror and her stuborness and the loyalty of her friend Cery is touching. The Thief she hides with for a while is an intriuginig character as is the head of the Magicians, Akkarin. There are good magicians and not so good ones, but they are all so colourfully created that I know them well in my mind. Her two most central magicians, Rothen and Dannyl, so remind me of excentric proffessors at a universit...they certainly made me smile.

About the Author
Trudi Canavan is the author of the bestselling Black Magician trilogy—The Magician's Guild, The Novice, and The High Lord—as well as Priestess of the White and Last of the Wilds, Books One and Two of her Age of the Five trilogy. She lives in a little house on a hillside, near a forest, in the Melbourne suburb of Ferntree Gully in Australia. She has been making up stories about things that don't exist for as long as she can remember, and was amazed when her first published story received an Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story in 1999. A freelance illustrator and designer, she also works as the designer and Art Director of Aurealis, a magazine of Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Ophelia · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:04 am Post subject:

My vote is for:

We need to talk about Kevin, by Lionel Shriver.

http://www.amazon.com/We-Need-Talk-About-Kevin/dp/1582432678/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199709463&sr=1-1

I'll copy what I wrote before about the book:

This novel is nothing like what you usually read about violence, about teenagers, about violent children or boys.
I found it touching, puzzling, shocking --in an unusual way (graphic violence is kept to the bare minimum).

The narrator is the mother of a teenage murderer. What feels very weird at first is that her view seems to be so much AGAINST her son, in a way which is not caricatural-- hence disturbing.

There is no easy explanation, as opposed to movies in which children are clearly born without feelings, and we are told, as in the film "Rosemary's Baby" that the child was fathered by the Devil himself.

What is it about fiction that makes it so memorable when it works?
Art. Sometimes genius. The ability to somehow condense experience in a way that no book written by, say, a journalist or an academic, can equal.
[ As opposed to the novel, I have recently read awork by an academic: " Lost boys: why our sons turn violent and how we can save them."
I have nothing negative to say about this book, but I realize that now, after a few days, I remember nothing].

My first impression was that this was somehow breaking a taboo-- one does not, even in fiction, write a book about a child, least of all one's child, in a negative way. I am not a parent, but I wondered how parents could react to such unusual material -- I was bothered enough to check on the internet what readers and critics had written -- everything was positive.

Theomanic · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:03 pm Post subject:

I've just started reading Wicked, so I am inclined to vote for that book, though I wonder if there wasn't enough interest in it before, will there be now? And I see there is a thread started in the "Additional Fiction Book Discussions" forum. Will that thread suffice for those who were interested in it?

I haven't read a lot of fantasy recently, barring more children's type stuff like Garth Nix and Philip Pullman (excellent trilogies from both writers.) So I'd be fine with The Magicians' Guild, and it certainly seems like it would be a quick read.

As to We Need to Talk About Kevin, I'm not terribly interested in it. But honestly, I'll usually read just about anything for the sake of discussion. Part of the point of having a book club type environment is reading things you wouldn't normally have picked up.

My suggestion, to add another if we need it, would be Time's Arrow by Martin Amis.

http://www.amazon.com/Times-Arrow-Martin-Amis/dp/0679735720/ref=pd_bbs _sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199725150&sr=8-1

My main reasons for this suggestion are that there was a bit of discussion about this book in my introduction thread, but also because I think it has a very interesting premise that could provoke some discussion.

Chris OConnor · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 1:42 pm Post subject:

Theomanic

Part of the reason there was little interest in Wicked is probably because I picked it on my own without consulting other members. I was in a bind trying to bring fiction back to BookTalk and we needed some quality fiction books announced fast. Wicked is known for being an excellent book , but no single book is appealing to all readers. I think it would make a great discussion book and it is definitely qualified for an official fiction selection. Let's see what other people have to say.

Keep in mind this thread is not an actual poll thread. We probably won't do a poll for the April & May 2008 fiction book...but maybe we will. Just discussing the suggestions here should be enough for us all to come to an agreement on what we'd like to read. We don't necessarily have to conduct an actual poll.

The problem with polls sometimes is that one vote holds as much weight as another vote. A vote by an inactive member holds as much weight as a vote by an extremely involved member. It seems for the time being that just discussing book suggestions is the way to go. As we gain more and more members we can go back to the polls.

irishrosem · Doctorate Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 536 Gender:

I’d second Time’s Arrow. I didn’t love Amis on my first try, but would certainly participate in a group reading. Time’s Arrow is a fairly compact book, with a seemingly interesting premise. I also think Amis’s work lends itself to discussion. And the atypical structure of Time's Arrow, whether Amis is successful or not, will surely lead to some interesting dissection.

Ophelia · Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 10:15 am Post subject:

Penelope wrote (in the Heart of Darkness thread)

jales4 · Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:10 am Post subject:

[quote="Ophelia"]

Ophelia · Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 11:43 am Post subject:

Jales4:

Oops, my mistake:

I meant Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray, 1848.

I'm actually glad I made the mistake, as it is a chance to mention

Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities.

I read it many years ago, but somehow never finished it. It's a wealth of information and criticism, and the choice of the title can't be random: it must be a reference to Thackeray's book.


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