BookTalk.org

OFFICIAL POLL: Help select our FICTION book for Oct., Nov. & Dec. 2021

The simple rules...

Only vote if you will participate.
Please only vote if you actually plan to participate in the next FICTION book discussion. We're not looking for your opinion of which book looks the most interesting. We're wondering which book or books you will actually read and talk about with us.

Vote for as many books as you like.
There are a total of 9 great choices in this poll. Please vote for ALL books in this poll you are interested in reading and discussing with us as a group. We'll read the one or possibly two books with the most votes so please don't vote for just 1 book if there is more than 1 book that you would enjoy reading and discussing.

Share your thoughts on why you voted the way you voted.
After casting your vote please feel free to make a post explaining why you voted the way you did. You just might influence other members to change their votes so please sell us on your choice. This is an optional step but quite helpful so please consider it.

Now here are your 9 choices...

BOOK 1: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

BOOK 2: Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

BOOK 3: The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr.

BOOK 4: The Plot Against America: A Novel by Philip Roth

BOOK 5: Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy

BOOK 6: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

BOOK 7: Neuromancer by William Gibson

BOOK 8: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achibe

BOOK 9: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's OK to advocate here... I voted for two that I've read before, looong ago...4 books total.
Neuromancer was written during the early "cyber" hacking days and speculates far into the future, beyond the singularity. I understood 12.3% of it at the time, perhaps that will increase to 16.4% now....
I read Crime & Punishment in high school, must have been a serious young feller. I think it would be interesting now because it seems there are a lot more sociopaths who have zero empathy in American than I ever imagined.

Also voted for the Roth book. I watched some of the TV series a while back and it was good, although I didn't finish the series. I remember a teenager under the covers with a flashlight reading fascist propaganda. Uh-oh... Another one that could ring very true in the near future.

Last vote for Blood Meridian. I don't know anything about that author.

Cormac McCarthy is highly regarded. No Country for Old Men was based on his story, as was The Road. This one stood out to me. I have not read him yet.

I listened to this conversation about Crime and Punishment last week, and found it intriguing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment says the novel "focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who formulates a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money. Before the killing, Raskolnikov believes that with the money he could liberate himself from poverty and go on to perform great deeds. However, once it is done he finds himself racked with confusion, paranoia, and disgust for his actions. His justifications disintegrate completely as he struggles with guilt and horror and confronts the real-world consequences of his deed."

This novel had profound impact on existential philosophy and literature in the twentieth century, looking at how Raskolnikov confronts major psychological questions of freedom and values.

Let's aim to close this poll during the last week of this month. Hopefully we will have a clear winner at that point.

Bumping up for those that use the 'most recent' view.

I'm locking this poll and creating the Crime and Punishment forum.