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Official Poll - Nov/Dec 2004 Book of the Month(s)The time has come to vote on our November & December 2004 book selection! Please read this entire post BEFORE you cast your vote. Please refer to our Community Guidelines page for rules pertaining to our polls and community. Pay special attention to Rule 2 and 4, as they concern the polling process.1. Please do NOT vote if you have not made at least 10 posts to our forums, as per Rule 4.2. Please do NOT ask friends, family, or ANYONE to come to BookTalk and cast a vote in this poll. The poll is for active BookTalk members that have made at least 10 quality contributions to our forums.Those people you drag in to influence the vote in your favor will probably never join and will screw up the polling process. This is cheating. You're welcome to tell people about BookTalk, and get them interested enough to join. But they MUST make at least 10 quality posts in order for their vote to be counted.3. And please do NOT cast a vote yourself if you don't plan on reading and discussing the book. We have message boards and a chat room. Please participate!4. The moment you have cast your vote you MUST post your book selection in this thread. Your vote will NOT be counted if you have not told everyone the name of the book you picked....no exceptions.We no longer allow members to send an email telling what book they picked. There is too much room for cheating with this technique. We all deserve to know the names of each BookTalk member that casts a vote, and the book they selected. Thank you!We have 3 choices in this poll. Please think hard about what book will be the most educational, entertaining, and worthy of discussion. No matter which book wins we will be asking either the author, or a representative of the author, to be our guest in the BookTalk chat room.NOTE:We will need 2 discussion leaders that are willing to be very active in the reading and discussion of the winning book. Please don't nominate yourself if you will not be active. Being active means checking the forum just about every day and making posts regularly.It does not entail being an authority on the subject matter or defending the author's position. You simply need to stimulate discussion. Interested? Let me know!And here are our 3 choices for November and December 2004drum roll please...Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees - by Roger Fouts, Stephen Tukel MillsAmazon.comFor three decades, primatologist Roger Fouts has been involved in language studies of the chimpanzee, the animal most closely related to human beings. Among his subjects was the renowned Washoe, who was "endowed with a powerful need to learn and communicate," and who developed an extraordinary vocabulary in American sign language. Another chimpanzee, Fouts writes, "never made a grammatical error," which turned a whole school of linguistic theory upside down. While reporting these successes, Fouts also notes that chimpanzees are regularly abused in laboratory settings and that in the wild their number has fallen from 5,000,000 to fewer than 175,000 in the last century.The Future of Life by Edward O. WilsonAmazon.comThe eminent Harvard naturalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Wilson marshals all the prodigious powers of his intellect and imagination in this impassioned call to ensure the future of life. Opening with an imagined conversation with Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond, he writes that he has come "to explain to you, and in reality to others and not least to myself, what has happened to the world we both have loved." Based on a love affair with the natural world that spans 70 years, Wilson combines lyrical descriptions with dire warnings and remarkable stories of flora and fauna on the edge of extinction with hard economics. How many species are we really losing? Is environmentalism truly contrary to economic development? And how can we save the planet? Wilson has penned an eloquent plea for the need for a global land ethic and offers the strategies necessary to ensure life on earth based on foresight, moral courage, and the best tools that science and technology can provide.Book DescriptionFrom one of the world's most influential scientists (and two-time Pulitzer Prize

I voted for The Future of Life - by Edward O. Wilson Chris "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." - Nelson Mandella

I voted for Next of Kin - by Roger Fouts, Stephen Tukel MillsI will be happy to be a discussion leader for this book.amdPS: I am glad that you have chosen reasonably priced books.

So Many BooksI get anxiety because of all the books I want to read and have no time to read. The length of this book is attractive for the end of year bustle!Mr. P. The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of PainHEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P

I voted for Next of Kin.

Future of Life for me.Julie

I voted for So Many Books.

Whats going on folks? Only 5 people other than myself have cast votes and today is the last day of the poll. Am I expected to set up an author chat when only 2 out of 265 registered members voted on the winiing book? This situation is a prime example of why I am always arguing for fewer books on the polls. We have 6 total votes, spread out evenly over 3 different books. Do we really want the next voter to determine the next book? ArgghhhChris "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." - Nelson Mandella

The Future of LifeNearly missed the poll completely (head too buried in work at the moment). Thanks for sending out the notice, Chris.Have been hoping this book would evenutally make it to the top of the list.

Quote:This situation is a prime example of why I am always arguing for fewer books on the polls.Fewer books? You mean like 2 instead of 3? Because that doesn't seem like very much of a selection.The reason I'm not voting is that none of these books really seem appealing to me. Also because I'm in the middle of a book right now... (called Atheism: The Case Against God)...