Official Poll - June & July Fiction selection

We accidently deleted the thread where we were discussing what we want to read as our next fiction selection, but we had narrowed it down to a few good choices. I'm going to create a poll right now so we can select a winner from these two choices. Both were short stories collections. This will be a first for BookTalk, but it sounds like a wonderful idea.

They were...

The Best American Short Stories 2007 (The Best American Series) (Paperback) by Stephen King (Editor)

http://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Sho ... 269&sr=8-1

Book Description
Wonderfully eclectic, The Best American Short Stories 2007 collects stories by undeniable talents, both newcomers and favorites. These stories examine the turning points in life when we, as children or parents, siblings or friends or colleagues, must break certain rules in order to remain true to ourselves. In T.C. Boyle's heartbreaking "Balto," a 13-year-old girl provides devastating courtroom testimony in her alcoholic father's trial. Aryn Kyle's charming story "Allegiance" shows a young girl caught between her despairing British mother and motherly American father. In "The Bris," Eileen Pollack brilliantly writes of a son struggling to fulfill his filial obligations, even if this requires a breach of morality and religion. Kate Walbert's stunning "Do Something" portrays one mother's impassioned and revolutionary refusal to accept her son's death. And in Richard Russo's graceful "Horseman," an English professor comes to understand that plagiarism can reveal more about a student than original work.

From Publishers Weekly
King admits in his introduction that he prefers all-out emotionally assaultive stories to those that might appeal to his critical nose. Yet King's selections are right at home among those of recent BASS editors Lorrie Moore, Michael Chabon and Walter Mosley: John Barth's darkly comic take on aging and mortality; a child's unforgiving view of her alcoholic parent from T.C. Boyle; an exploration of the grief of a crystal meth addict by William Gay (a writer King notes is a relatively obscure American talent); Lauren Groff's piece about a polio survivor learning to swim during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic (based loosely on real-life Olympian Ethelda Bleibtrey); Roy Kesey's imagining of an airport terminal as microcosm of global politics; and Karen Russell's halfway house for the human children of werewolves (their condition skips a generation). Stories drawing on horror and on Maine add a personal King touch to this year's cull of 20, taken from among the 4,000 that series editor Pitlor read last year in periodicals. The book reflects the variety of substance and style and the consistent quality that readers have come to expect from the series, now in its 30th year.

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Exile and the Kingdom (Paperback)
by Albert Camus

http://www.amazon.com/Exile-Kingdom-Alb ... 067973385X

Review
"Thoroughly engrossing"

3 votes for Exile and the Kingdom by Albert Camus

Saffron

2 votes for The Best American Short Stories 2007
1 vote for Exile and the Kingdom

My reasoning is as follows. The Best American Short Stories 2007 contains short stories by many different authors so it seems a safer bet. All our eggs are not in one basket. If we don't like the writing style of one author we can move to the next short story. Everyone is bound to find a story or two that they enjoy, whereas with Exile and the Kingdom we're stuck with one author throughout the entire book.

NOTE:

I am well aware that we take this same risk every time we read any book. Most books are authored by a single author. I just think this short story concept is a good one and we maximize the probability that more people will find something worth reading and discussing if we do a book that has multiple authors.

2 points for Exile and the Kingdom
1 point for The Best American Short Stories 2007

while both books sound good, my vote is pure for what sounded appealing to me from the descriptions.

3 points for Exile and the Kingdom

2 points for Exile and the Kingdom
1 point for The Best American Short Stories 2007

Hello Michela, Welcome to Booktalk!

You need to have written 10 posts to be able to vote in a book selection thread.

I will continue answering this in the "Introduce Yourself" thread-- see you there I hope.

You can read all 6 stories from "EXILE AND THE KINGDOM", by Camus, on this site:

http://www.truly-free.org/


Naturally, as we are a little pressed by time, I would not expect you to finish the reading before you cast your vote.

Ophelia, thanks for the link. I downloaded a few other books from the site.

Ophelia wrote: You need to have written 10 posts to be able to vote in a book selection thread.

I hope you will reconsider this requirement. In scanning the forums I've seen a few posts along the lines of "we have lots of members, but few posters ... I wonder why". Well, whether you realize it or not, you've set up the rules to be uncomfortable for newcomers.

There's a nice contest to get people to fill in their profiles. Perfect for newcomers -- get started right. But newcomers can't participate since you must have 25 posts.

I'm not thrilled by any of the currently active or recently active books. I see the poll for June/July, like both books but have a definite preference for one of them. I'm excited that this looks like the chance to really get started being involved in BookTalk, and I'm pleased to be able to push the vote in the direction of my preference. Then it turns out I can't because I have to have ten posts. This really turns me off, and reinforces the impression I'm already gathering that BookTalk is a tight little community and newcomers can either fit in as is or go find something else to do.

Note that I realize I could go find some places to throw in meaningless posts to get my count up. I know that's not what you want, and it's not what I want either.

So, let me submit my three ... um ... suggestions for Camus.

Three votes for "Best American Short Stories of 2007."

For the same reason as Chris; I'd rather read twenty stories by twenty different authors than six stories by one author.