• In total there are 8 users online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 8 guests (based on users active over the past 60 minutes)
    Most users ever online was 789 on Tue Mar 19, 2024 5:08 am

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book Suggestions

Assist us in selecting our upcoming FICTION book for group discussion in this forum. A minimum of 5 posts is required to participate here!
User avatar
Chris OConnor

1A - OWNER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 17016
Joined: Sun May 05, 2002 2:43 pm
21
Location: Florida
Has thanked: 3509 times
Been thanked: 1309 times
Gender:
Contact:
United States of America

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book Suggestions

Unread post

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book SuggestionsThis thread is for suggesting fiction books for our February & March 2006 book discussion. Starting in 2nd quarter of 2006 we will read and discuss a new fiction book every quarter, concurrently with our nonfiction book selections.Please ONLY suggest fiction books that are popular or highly rated. Using the Amazon.com Bestsellers list is an excellent method of insuring that our fiction books will be appealing to a broad audience.Another method would be to find Pulitzer Prize winners from recent years in the "Fiction" category. Note at the top of the page there is a time line. Click on any year to see all the Pulitzer Prize winners. Scroll down in each year to find the Fiction winner. We might also consider the nominated "finalists."UPDATE:We will be reading and discussing The March by E.L. Doctorow as our very first fiction book. This discussion period will be December and January. Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 1/9/06 9:53 pm
MadArchitect

1E - BANNED
The Pope of Literature
Posts: 2553
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2004 4:24 am
19
Location: decentralized

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book Suggestions

Unread post

Memories of My Melancholy Whores, by Gabriel Garcia MarquezI think this might make a good first pick for our foray into fiction. For one thing, it's a very manageable size, only 128 pages in hardback. For another, it's by one of the most highly lauded literary figures of the last 100 or so years. Gabriel Garcia Marquez helped popularize Latin American fiction and also kick-started the "magical realism" genre with his book "100 Years of Solitude". He's in his late seventies now, and this is his first work of fiction in more than a decade. He's an excellent stylist and has real literary merit -- he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. One potential problem is the subject matter of the book, which is fairly adult and may scare off some readers, but it is on the bestsellers list, so it's clearly got some popular draw.I'm pretty sure the NYTimes frowns on reprints of their material, so I'll just provide the link to their largely positive review: www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/books/review ... rty.htmlIn the meantime, here's a review from the Amazon pageFrom Booklist*Starred Review* The Colombian master storyteller's latest novel is grounded in the steamy atmosphere and gamey politics of his native country; at the same time, in the universality of its theme, it transcends the peculiar traits of his bougainvillea-filled homeland. Composed with the metaphorical lyricism of a parable but without that narrative form's usual moralizing intent, Garcia Marquez's novel briefly but piquantly captures a single year toward the end of a long string of years in the life of a nonagenarian who, ironically, given the length of his tenure on the planet, proves himself still capable of undergoing a significant life alteration. The unnamed protagonist, an unmarried man, is a columnist for the local newspaper, but until this point in time, he has never written anything of lasting value. This memoir, this recollection of the past year, is to be his literary legacy. "The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin," he boldly--and, perhaps, in a delusion of potency--declares. It is soon revealed--sadly--that he has never loved, that his sexual gratification has always been bought and paid for. What his brazen plan to celebrate this milestone birthday comes to entail is a confrontation with a heretofore unrealized aspect of his "inner self"--namely, that sex without love is an empty house in which to dwell. Garcia Marquez's beautiful, poignant story both avoids sentimentality and escapes salaciousness. -- Brad Hooper Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 11/14/05 6:27 pm
MadArchitect

1E - BANNED
The Pope of Literature
Posts: 2553
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2004 4:24 am
19
Location: decentralized

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book Suggestions

Unread post

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark HaddonI'm not terribly convinced that this is the sort of book that I would choose to read on my own, but I'll trust the recommendation of a friend who read it, and besides, this book is fairly easy to relate to our current non-fiction selection, "The Ethical Brain". The connection is this: the protagonist of "Curious Incident" lacks the "theory of the mind" that Gazzaniga talks about -- in fact, he seems a likely candidate to serve as the subject of one of Gazzaniga's studies. It might be interesting to discuss the way in which the portrayal of "Curious Incident" agrees or departs from Gazzaniga's discussions of neuroethics.From Publishers WeeklyChristopher Boone, the autistic 15-year-old narrator of this revelatory novel, relaxes by groaning and doing math problems in his head, eats red-but not yellow or brown-foods and screams when he is touched. Strange as he may seem, other people are far more of a conundrum to him, for he lacks the intuitive "theory of mind" by which most of us sense what's going on in other people's heads. When his neighbor's poodle is killed and Christopher is falsely accused of the crime, he decides that he will take a page from Sherlock Holmes (one of his favorite characters) and track down the killer. As the mystery leads him to the secrets of his parents' broken marriage and then into an odyssey to find his place in the world, he must fall back on deductive logic to navigate the emotional complexities of a social world that remains a closed book to him. In the hands of first-time novelist Haddon, Christopher is a fascinating case study and, above all, a sympathetic boy: not closed off, as the stereotype would have it, but too open-overwhelmed by sensations, bereft of the filters through which normal people screen their surroundings. Christopher can only make sense of the chaos of stimuli by imposing arbitrary patterns ("4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I don't speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don't eat my lunch and Take No Risks&quot . His literal-minded observations make for a kind of poetic sensibility and a poignant evocation of character. Though Christopher insists, "This will not be a funny book. I cannot tell jokes because I do not understand them," the novel brims with touching, ironic humor. The result is an eye-opening work in a unique and compelling literary voice.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 11/14/05 6:28 pm
MadArchitect

1E - BANNED
The Pope of Literature
Posts: 2553
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2004 4:24 am
19
Location: decentralized

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book Suggestions

Unread post

I hope I'm not overwhelming by posting too many suggestions all at once, but I really am seeing a handful of books that I'd be interested to read and discuss. Here's another:Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo IshiguroHere's another suggestion by a contemporary hard-hitter. Ishiguro is best known for "The Remains of the Day", which earned him the Booker Prize. The movie was subsequently adapted as a highly praised film of the same name, starring Anthony Hopkins. This one looks to be a bit of a mystery, almost in the Gothic style of something like "Jane Eyre". The last paragraph of the review I've partially quoted below even suggests that there may be a connection to a topic we're presently discussing with "The Ethical Brain".Excerpts from The Washington Post's Book review on Amazon.com:. . . Never Let Me Go is set in an undisclosed time -- not in the future, though the novel pays more than a slight bow to science fiction, perhaps between the 1950s and the 1970s -- at a place in the British countryside called Hailsham. It is a school, but a school unlike any other. It was intended to be "a shining beacon, an example of how we might move to a more humane and better way of doing things." The teachers are called "guardians" and the students, though that is what they are called, are neither ordinary students nor ordinary children . . .The narrator of the novel is Kathy, or Kath, and the two other principal characters are her close friends and occasional rivals, Ruth and Tommy. She is "thirty-one years old, and . . . a carer now for over eleven years." What is a carer? One of the novel's mysteries, not really to be solved until two-thirds of the way through; suffice it to say that it's a difficult, emotionally and physically wearing job. Ruth and Tommy, approximately her own age, are "donors," but that mystery, too, must be left to Ishiguro to solve. In any event, for most of the novel Ishiguro is primarily concerned with the three as children and with the odd world they inhabit at Hailsham. The school, or institution, or whatever one cares to call it, is located on a large parcel of beautiful land, isolated from the outer world. Its students are made to understand that "we were all very special," that "we were different from our guardians, and also from the normal people outside." Their futures are hinted at but not faced head-on: "We hated the way our guardians, usually so on top of everything, became so awkward whenever we came near this territory. It unnerved us to see them change like that." They have a "special chance," but they have only the vaguest idea what that might be. They are so caught up in the rituals and routines of Hailsham, though, that they have little time for speculation about the distant time of adulthood . . .The very best products of their creative labors go to "the Gallery." None of them has ever seen it or even knows where it is, but the pieces for it are regularly chosen by a woman whose name they do not know -- "we called her 'Madame' because she was French or Belgian -- there was a dispute as to which -- and that was what the guardians always called her" -- and having one's work selected is regarded as a great honor. They also know that Miss Emily, the head of Hailsham, told one student "that things like pictures, poetry, all that kind of stuff, she said they revealed what you were like inside. She said they revealed your soul." . . .What Madame thinks she sees will not be revealed for many pages, but it gets right to the essence of this quite wonderful novel, the best Ishiguro has written since the sublime The Remains of the Day. It is almost literally a novel about humanity: what constitutes it, what it means, how it can be honored or denied . . .Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved. Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 11/14/05 6:28 pm
MadArchitect

1E - BANNED
The Pope of Literature
Posts: 2553
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2004 4:24 am
19
Location: decentralized

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book Suggestions

Unread post

Incidentally, guys, be careful using the Amazon bestseller's list. I've noticed that some of the books showing up under the "Fiction and Literature" category aren't exactly fiction. For instance, it's currently listing "Monkeyluv", which is, according to the review I read earlier today in the NY Times Book review, a collection of zoological essays -- decidedly not fiction. Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 11/14/05 6:28 pm
User avatar
Chris OConnor

1A - OWNER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 17016
Joined: Sun May 05, 2002 2:43 pm
21
Location: Florida
Has thanked: 3509 times
Been thanked: 1309 times
Gender:
Contact:
United States of America

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book Suggestions

Unread post

I'll buy, read and discuss any of the above books. Since we're only going to be doing one fiction book you might want to stop right there with the suggestions, Mad, although that is your choice. I've found it pretty difficult to narrow it down when we end up with a huge number of choices.Anyone else like Mad's suggestions? How about "not" like them? Be honest. Our book choice is important as the book will be plastered all over the site. We want the average bookworm to see our current book choice and want to join in on the discussion. Scaring them away is not smart.Would the whore book scare them away? Maybe. Should we care about scaring away people that can't deal with such things? Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 11/14/05 6:29 pm
MadArchitect

1E - BANNED
The Pope of Literature
Posts: 2553
Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2004 4:24 am
19
Location: decentralized

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book Suggestions

Unread post

I think I'll stop right there just because I think those are three really good suggestions, and I'd rather see one of those get voted in rather than have none get enough votes to win because their all taking votes away from one another.You're right that the title and subject matter of of "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" might scare off the uninformed. At the same time, Gabriel Garcia Marquez is well-known among bibliophiles, and his new book may tend to draw people who are really intent on discussing a book, rather than just chiming in with an "I liked it!" or "I didn't". But I'd be fine with dropping it from the noms, so long as we're willing to consider the other suggestions I've made. I'd like to see at least one of them make the final five. Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 11/14/05 6:29 pm
User avatar
Chris OConnor

1A - OWNER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 17016
Joined: Sun May 05, 2002 2:43 pm
21
Location: Florida
Has thanked: 3509 times
Been thanked: 1309 times
Gender:
Contact:
United States of America

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book Suggestions

Unread post

Here is how I look at this new fiction deal. I'm not concerned with what we read, as long as it is considered to be a quality and relatively popular book by the masses. This is because I want to get more members. But I love the idea of reading books that I would never have chosen on my own. As we grow we can relax on the "popular" aspect of our book selection process. Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 11/14/05 6:29 pm
User avatar
tarav

1F - BRONZE CONTRIBUTOR
Genuinely Genius
Posts: 806
Joined: Thu Jun 19, 2003 3:25 pm
20
Location: NC

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book Suggestions

Unread post

I have read a book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I enjoyed that book. I read it many years ago, when I primarily read fiction. Mad is right in saying that it might be a good book to start with. Many people read his books and would not be scared off by the title. Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 11/14/05 6:30 pm
User avatar
Chris OConnor

1A - OWNER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 17016
Joined: Sun May 05, 2002 2:43 pm
21
Location: Florida
Has thanked: 3509 times
Been thanked: 1309 times
Gender:
Contact:
United States of America

Feb. & Mar. 2006 FICTION Book Suggestions

Unread post

RECENT CHANGE:Since we'll be reading and discussing our first fiction book for a full two months, December & January, we won't be actually starting our 1st Quarter fiction selection until February 2006. This should work well, seeing as two months is probably the ideal amount of time to spend on a fiction book anyway. Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 11/14/05 6:31 pm
Locked

Return to “What fiction book should we read and discuss next?”