BookTalk.org

[align=center]Official Poll - Feb. & Mar. 2009 Fiction Book[/align]

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This poll starts on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 and ends sometime during the evening of Sunday, January 25, 2009. So the poll will be up for a little longer than usual. Hopefully lots of members get involved in helping us pick our next books.

RULES:

You must have at least 25 total posts on our forums to vote so please don't cast a vote if you're not yet qualified. It doesn't take much time or energy to get up to 25 total posts.

Everyone is entitled to cast a total of 3 votes and these 3 votes can be distributed however the voter deems appropriate. Assign all 3 votes to just one of the book choice or break up the 3 votes based on your interest level in each book. If you don't assign all 3 votes we will assume you meant to assign all 3 of your votes to whatever book you picked. Actually, I will assume you didn't read these instructions.

There are 3 total choices on this poll. All were suggested by members. Your choices are as follows:

Drum roll please...

BOOK 1
The Keep
by Jennifer Egan

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/140007 ... 1400079748

Amazon.com Review
In Jennifer Egan's deliciously creepy new novel, two cousins reunite twenty years after a childhood prank gone wrong changed their lives and sent them on their separate ways. "Cousin Howie," the formerly uncool, strange, and pasty ("he looked like a guy the sun wouldn't touch") cousin has become a blond, tan, and married millionaire with a generous spirit. He invites his cousin Danny (who as an insecure teenager left him hurt and helpless in a cave for three days) to help him renovate an old castle in Germany. To reveal too much would ruin the story, just know that The Keep is a wonderfully weird read--a touch experimental in terms of narrative, with a hefty dose of gothic tension and mystery--balanced by an intimate and mesmerizing look at how the past haunts us in different ways.

From Publishers Weekly
Claustrophobic paranoia, intentionally mediocre writing and a transparent gimmick dominate Egan's follow-up to Look at Me, centered on estranged cousins who reunite in Eastern Europe. Danny, a 36-year-old New York hipster who wears brown lipstick (and whose body can detect Wi-Fi availability), accepts his wealthy cousin Howard's invitation to come to Eastern Europe and help fix up the castle Howard plans on turning into a luxury Luddite hotel (check your cell at the door). In doing so, Danny can't help recalling the childhood prank he played on a young Howie that left the awkward adolescent nearly dead

BOOK 2
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
by Charles Dickens

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014043 ... 0140439269

Review
Who killed Edwin Drood? Was he, in fact, murdered at all? And who is the very white-haired (and black-eyebrowed) Datchery? Those were the major questions left in mystery when Dickens died after writing only about half of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. And Garfield's attempt at completing the book - hardly the first such - wisely chooses to solve the murder mystery in the most generally accepted manner, the manner clearly indicated by Dickens' notes and conversations: opium addict Jasper is the killer, and he deposited his nephew's body in the quicklime beneath the Cathedral. On other counts, however, the plot turns here are somewhat disappointing. Datchery is not the lawyer Grewgious in disguise nor Helena Landless . . . but an actor-turned-detective working for Grewgious: an awfully mundane explanation. A second murder - of Neville Landless - seems arbitrary, And Jasper's death-cell confession - though based (perhaps too literally) on Dickens' own stated intentions - seems rather more akin to Tony Perkins' schizoid Psycho revelation than to anything that Dickens would have written. As for Garfield's style in the concluding 100 pages - it's an agreeable enough compromise: a modern equivalent of a Dickensian style instead of an imitation. But it must be said that Dickens' other-worldly aura collapses almost immediately in Garfield's chapters: the dark themes are not picked up on; the pace is too hurried (Dickens' own finale would probably have been at least half-again as long); the shifts between past and present tense become noticeably jarring (with Dickens, they're invisible); there's a contemporary flatness to the similes and digressions. All in all, then, this is a tasteful, talented, cautious job of work - good enough to give lucky readers an excuse to read (or re-read) the original, but not (how could it be?) the much-missed second half of a minor masterpiece. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description
Edwin Drood is contracted to marry Orphan Rosa, but they break the engagement off-and soon afterwards Edwin disappears. Is it murder? And is his jealous uncle-a sinister choirmaster with a double life and designs on Rosa-the killer? Dickens died before completing the story, leaving the mystery unsolved and encouraging successive generations of readers to turn detective. In addition to its tantalizing crime, the novel also offers a characteristically Dickensian mix of the fantastical world of the imagination and a vibrantly journalistic depiction of gritty reality.

BOOK 3
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/030726 ... 0307264890

Product Description
A spectacular best seller and now a classic, The Name of the Rose catapulted Umberto Eco, an Italian professor of semiotics turned novelist, to international prominence. An erudite murder mystery set in a fourteenth-century monastery, it is not only a gripping story but also a brilliant exploration of medieval philosophy, history, theology, and logic.

In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville is sent to investigate a wealthy Italian abbey whose monks are suspected of heresy. When his mission is overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths patterned on the book of Revelation, Brother William turns detective, following the trail of a conspiracy that brings him face-to-face with the abbey's labyrinthine secrets, the subversive effects of laughter, and the medieval Inquisition. Caught in a power struggle between the emperor he serves and the pope who rules the Church, Brother William comes to see that what is at stake is larger than any mere political dispute

3 for Name of the Rose

Put me down for 3 for Name of the Rose.

2 Votes Edwin Drood
1 Vote Name of the Rose

2 Votes Edwin Drood
1 Vote Name of the Rose

(I know, I copied Trish)

3 for The Name of the Rose.

This took some pondering as I have already read The Name of the Rose, but the other two don't appeal to me and it has probably been six or seven years, and the Name of the Rose looks popular...so..

3 votes for Name of the Rose