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Suggest fiction books for October & November
Suggest fiction books for October & November
What would you like to read and discuss for our next fiction book? Please make quality suggestions here in this thread AND give feedback on the suggestions other people make. Feedback is essential and extremely valuable. If nobody other than the person that suggests a book seems interested in it we won't put it on a poll. So please review ALL suggestions and leave comments on books you would probably enjoy or not enjoy. Thank you!
Last edited by Chris OConnor on Mon Aug 31, 2009 8:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
Amazon.com Review
Any talk of The Namesake--Jhumpa Lahiri's follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning debut, Interpreter of Maladies--must begin with a name: Gogol Ganguli. Born to an Indian academic and his wife, Gogol is afflicted from birth with a name that is neither Indian nor American nor even really a first name at all. He is given the name by his father who, before he came to America to study at MIT, was almost killed in a train wreck in India. Rescuers caught sight of the volume of Nikolai Gogol's short stories that he held, and hauled him from the train. Ashoke gives his American-born son the name as a kind of placeholder, and the awkward thing sticks.
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"Tender Morsels" sounds really good, if not for the faint of heart. I think it's something I would be interested in reading though the fact that it seems only available in hardback puts me off a little bit. However, overall, I think it's a sound suggestion.
On the otherhad, "The Namesake" doesn't really do anything for me. I'm just not really that interested in it.
This book is a fun, fast read with a lot of meaning behind it. It comes off like a fairytale, but there are many questions about language and its usage left to be answered by the characters of the book.
Publishers Weekly
Following the unprecedented controversy generated by The Satanic Verses , Rushdie offers as eloquent a defense of art as any Renaissance treatise. Supposedly begun as a bedtime story for Rushdie's son, Haroun concerns a supremely talented storyteller named Rashid whose wife is lured away by the same saturnine neighbor who poisons Rashid's son Haroun's thoughts. ``What's the use of stories that aren't even true?'' Haroun demands, parroting the neighbor and thus unintentionally paralyzing Rashid's imagination. The clocks freeze: time literally stops when the ability to narrate its passing is lost. Repentant, Haroun quests through a fantastic realm in order to restore his father's gift for storytelling. Saturated with the hyperreal color of such classic fantasies as the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland , Rushdie's fabulous landscape operates by P2C2Es (Processes Too Complicated To Explain), features a court where all the attendant Pages are numbered, and unfurls a riotous display of verbal pranks (one defiant character chants ``You can chop suey, but / You can't chop me!''; elsewhere, from another character: `` `Gogogol,' he gurgled. `` `Kafkafka,' he coughed''). But although the pyrotechnics here are entertaining in and of themselves, the irresistible force of the novel rests in Rushdie's wholehearted embrace of the fable--its form as well as its significance. It's almost as if Rushdie has invented a new form, the meta-fable. Rather than retreating under the famous death threats, Rushdie reiterates the importance of literature, stressing not just the good of stories ``that aren't even true'' but persuading us that these stories convey the truth. As Haroun realizes, ``He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.'' (Jan.)
_________________ "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never say a common place thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." ~ Jack Kerouac
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I agree with Kysondra. Tender Morsels sounds interesting but The Namesake doesn't seem that interesting to me. Haroun and the Sea of Stories also sounds interesting.
During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. Mattie spends her days avoiding chores and making plans to turn the family business into the finest Philadelphia has ever seen. But then the fever breaks out.
Disease sweeps the streets, destroying everything in its path and turning Mattie's world upside down. At her feverish mother's insistence, Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in a city turned frantic with disease. (http://books.simonandschuster.com/9780689848919)
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Thank you for helping with picking our next fiction book. I'm not sure how we can get more people involved in this process. I guess it's summer and people are busy, but we sure need more suggestions and participation in the book selection process.
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Just a thought... There's been a lot of discussion going on in the short stories section lately. Maybe we should pick a collection, and then people could discuss the ones that interested them... That might get us more voters and entries for the book for next period.
_________________ "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never say a common place thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." ~ Jack Kerouac
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Haroun and the sea of stories looks interesting. I very much enjoyed the 1001 Arabian Nights as a child and this story seems reminiscent of that. I would certainly participate in a book discussion about it.
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I too like the short story idea so let's quickly select a book of short stories. A poll isn't necessary if we can all have an open discussion right here.
Please provide the title of the book of short stories you suggest and also give us a link to where we can read more about the book on Amazon.com. Ideally we should pick our next fiction book in the next week, but this doesn't have to happen.
I just bought this on Amazon, but I don't know if I'll participate in a discussion so my input should be ignored!
The book I mentioned on another thread is Haunted Women: The Best Supernatural Tales by American Women, edited by Alfred Bendixen. It would be cool to discuss this book. The book is out of print, but can be found on abebooks.com for a couple of bucks. Probably many of these stories can be found online as well and we can just select a few and discuss any time.
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fiction suggestion
"The Best Supernatural Tales by American Women"
Love this one. Thanks Geo!
I just checked Amazon, there are many for sale. I just bought one for $6.39 including shipping. My kinda deal! I'm going to read it no matter what.
I think this is a great idea. We've been having a lot of fun discussing creepers on another thread. We could set the thread up story by story. People can pop in where ever they happen to be in the book.
I like this one because of the diversity of the authors. A book of short stories by one author can get tiresome. I also like the supernatural genre, perfect for the fall.
Only problem, it is an out of print book. Chris will have to chime in with his comments on this one.
Last edited by Suzanne on Sat Aug 22, 2009 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I found this book to be amazing and wide-ranging. However, I'm also interested in geo's suggestion if everyone can get a copy. I looked up Wild Nights, and it seemed like it might be a long read. Is it?
_________________ "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never say a common place thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." ~ Jack Kerouac
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I vote for "Smoke and Mirrors", but then I'm partial to Gaiman. I haven't read that anthology yet and it looks like a good read from the reviews. I wasn't able to find the out of print book through my library so I will go with the one I can order for free.
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