September & October 2006 FICTION suggestions!This suggestion thread is going up rather late. I sincerely apologize. I've had plenty of difficult things happening in my personal life over the past few weeks so I have been necessarily distant from BookTalk.I am suggesting we approach this next fiction reading more casually. Past fiction suggestions were supposed to be bestsellers of some sort, but that rule doesn't seem to be having the desired effect of bringing in a flood of new members. So we ought to simply try to satisfy ourselves and suggest and read whatever we want.So no real rules this time. Suggest whatever fiction books you like and we'll discuss those suggestions as a community. Bestsellers aren't always the best choices anyway. The only thing I ask is that you include a link to where the book can be purchased or reviewed. Simply suggesting a book and not including a description or link means we all have to research it ourselves. So help us and do the footwork for us. Again, sorry about this thread being created so late. The past few weeks have been the most stressful and difficult I've had in years and years. Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 8/9/06 2:54 am

Herb's First 100 Years by Randy PerkinsI love this story. Uplifitng,emotional,and it left me feeling great about the world and potential we all have for making the world a better place.Check it out. It's a wonderful story.Lori

[Oh, another Lori! Hi...and you spell it 'correctly' too!] The Brothers K by David James DuncanQuote:From Publishers WeeklyDuncan took almost 10 years to follow up the publication of his much-praised first novel, The River Why, but this massive second effort is well worth the wait. It is a stunning work: a complex tapestry of family tensions, baseball, politics and religion, by turns hilariously funny and agonizingly sad. Highly inventive formally, the novel is mainly narrated by Kincaid Chance, the youngest son in a family of four boys and identical twin girls, the children of Hugh Chance, a discouraged minor-league ballplayer whose once-promising career was curtained by an industrial accident, and his wife Laura, an increasingly fanatical Seventh-Day Adventist. The plot traces the working-out of the family's fate from the beginning of the Eisenhower years through the traumas of Vietnam. One son becomes an atheist and draft resister; another immerses himself in Eastern religions, while the third, the most genuinely Christian of the children, ends up in Southeast Asia. In spite of the author's obvious affection for the sport, this is not a baseball novel; it is, as Kincaid says, "the story of an eight-way tangle of human beings, only one-eighth of which was a pro ballpayer." The book portrays the extraordinary differences that can exist among siblings--much like the Dostoyevski novel to which The Brothers K alludes in more than just title--and how family members can redeem one another in the face of adversity. Long and incident-filled, the narrative appears rather ramshackle in structure until the final pages, when Duncan brings together all of the themes and plot elements in a series of moving climaxes. The book ends with a quiet grace note--a reprise of its first images--to satisfyingly close the narrative circle. Here's a discussion guide, with a couple of short excepts: An extra advantage: it's from 1992, so good possibility of library & 2ndhand availability. "All beings are the owners of their deeds, the heirs to their deeds." Loricat's Book NookCelebrating the AbsurdEdited by: Loricat at: 7/24/06 3:31 pm

Thanks for those two suggestions. Please try to put links in your posts to where other members can read about your suggestion. Thank you.

Sorry for being such a pest about getting the suggestion thread up, Chris. I hope things are going better on your end.As for extending the reading and discussion time, I'd say don't commit until you've seen two things: a) how many pages are in the chosen book, and b) how many people participate in the voting and actually vote on the winner. If it's a long book and/or a lot of people are showing interest, then we probably should extend the reading period to include October. But if it's a relatively short book, or there aren't a lot of people involved in the voting process, then we can probably squeeze it in without running over schedule.I'll have some suggestions up in a little while.

A few suggestions for consideration:Mother Night, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.A few months ago we discussed the possibility of reading a Kurt Vonnegut book as a group, but nothing came of it at the time. I think this, among his collection, makes for a good nomination because a) it's one of his lesser known works, and b) it isn't overtly science fiction, and we've done two sci-fi novels in a row.Book DescriptionKurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as a "true artist"* with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, "one of the best living American writers."Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.The Woman in the Dunes, by Kobo AbeI've read one other novel by Kobo Abe, and for sheer oddity, I don't think I've read anything to surpass it. This is his most famous novel, and I believe it's likely to be a little more restrained than that other book. Might do us some good to read something a little less... American.From Amazon: This beautiful novel by one of Japan's most important writers is also one of the most strangely terrifying and memorable books you'll ever read. The Woman in the Dunes is the story of an amateur entomologist who wanders alone into a remote seaside village in pursuit of a rare beetle he wants to add to his collection. But the townspeople take him prisoner. They lower him into the sand-pit home of a young widow, a pariah in the poor community, who the villagers have condemned to a life of shoveling back the ever-encroaching dunes that threaten to bury the town. An amazing book.

Despite having been a pest about getting the fiction suggestion thread going, I'm now starting to think that maybe we should give the currect selection an extra month. The reason for my second thoughts is simply that it's the peak vacation season, and BookTalk seems to be going through a slow period as a result. So maybe we should take a full month to do the suggestion and selection process for the next book, and start reading and discussing in September, by which time people should be wrapping up their summer activities and have more time to put towards reading. Does that sound reasonable?

Going with Mad's or Chris' suggestion seems to be a good idea. Either prolong the reading period for the next selection, or prolong the current one by drawing out the selection process. Diving right into the next book just doesn't seem to be necessary. Does anyone else have an opinion on this?

Well...the current book discussion was basically stillborn...so chosing something now and extending that reading might be best.I am all for a Vonnegut book...but I suggest "Galapagos" or maybe "Player Piano"Mr. P. Mr. P's place. I warned you!!!The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

"Player Piano" doesn't interest me as much, but I'd be up for either "Mother Night" or "Galapagos". But I don't think we should run the risk of having two Vonnegut books dividing the vote on the final poll. We should probably have a separate discussion to determine which Vonnegut book would garner more interest, and suggest that as a possible fiction selection.While we're at it, I think we might also consider "Bluebeard", and I've always been interested in reading "Hocus Pocus".