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NON-FICTION POLL: Help us select our April, May & June NON-FICTION book!

Collaborate in choosing our next NON-FICTION book for group discussion within this forum. A minimum of 5 posts is necessary to participate here!

Which NON-FICTION book(s) would you like to read and discuss in April, May & June 2016?

BOOK 1: Up From Slavery - By Booker T. Washington
6

38%
BOOK 2: When I Was a Slave - Edited by Norman R. Yetman
5

31%
BOOK 3: 12 Years a Slave - By Solomon Northup
4

25%
BOOK 4: The Road to Serfdom - By F. A. Hayek
1

6%
 
Total votes: 16
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NON-FICTION POLL: Help us select our April, May & June NON-FICTION book!

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* * * NON-FICTION POLL * * *
Please help us select our next NON-FICTION book for group discussion by voting in this poll. The discussion period will last for 2 or 3 months and stretch from April through June of 2016. :-)

Here are the simple rules...

Please do NOT vote if you have less than 10 posts on the BookTalk.org forums or if you don't intend to actively participate in the discussion.

Vote for 1, 2, 3, or all 4 of the books. Vote for as many books as you like and as you see as good choices for our discussion. The book with the most votes will win the poll. So please read all 4 book descriptions and select ALL of the books you would discuss with us in the event the book wins and is selected.

And here are the 4 book choices...


BOOK 1
Up From Slavery
by Booker T. Washington
Up from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his personal experiences in working to rise from the position of a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama—to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills and work to pull themselves, as a race, up by the bootstraps. He reflects on the generosity of both teachers and philanthropists who helped in educating blacks and native Americans. He describes his efforts to instill manners, breeding, health and a feeling of dignity to students. His educational philosophy stresses combining academic subjects with learning a trade (something which is reminiscent of the educational theories of John Ruskin). Washington explained that the integration of practical subjects is partly designed to reassure the white community as to the usefulness of educating black people. This book was first released as a serialized work in 1900 through The Outlook, a Christian newspaper of New York. This work was serialized because this meant that during the writing process, Washington was able to hear critiques and requests from his audience and could more easily adapt his paper to his diverse audience.

BOOK 2
When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection
Edited by Norman R. Yetman
More than 2,000 interviews with former slaves, who, in blunt, simple language, provide often-startling first-person accounts of their lives in bondage. Includes some of the most detailed, compelling, and engrossing life histories in the Slave Narrative Collection, a project funded by the U.S. Government. An illuminating source of information.

BOOK 3
12 Years a Slave
By Solomon Northup
This unforgettable memoir was the basis for the Academy Award-winning film 12 Years a Slave. This is the true story of Solomon Northup, who was born and raised as a freeman in New York. He lived the American dream, with a house and a loving family - a wife and two kids. Then one day he was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in the deep south. These are the true accounts of his twelve hard years as a slave - many believe this memoir is even more graphic and disturbing than the film. His extraordinary journey proves the resiliency of hope and the human spirit despite the most grueling and formidable of circumstances.

BOOK 4
The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents--The Definitive Edition
F. A. Hayek
An unimpeachable classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in 1944—when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program—The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, The Road to Serfdom garnered immediate, widespread attention. The first printing of 2,000 copies was exhausted instantly, and within six months more than 30,000 books were sold. In April 1945, Reader’s Digest published a condensed version of the book, and soon thereafter the Book-of-the-Month Club distributed this edition to more than 600,000 readers. A perennial best seller, the book has sold 400,000 copies in the United States alone and has been translated into more than twenty languages, along the way becoming one of the most important and influential books of the century.
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Chris OConnor

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Re: NON-FICTION POLL: Help us select our April, May & June NON-FICTION book!

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We need some more votes.
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Chris OConnor

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Re: NON-FICTION POLL: Help us select our April, May & June NON-FICTION book!

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OK, "Up From Slavery" it is. :-)

I'm creating the forum right now...
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