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Fiction suggestions needed for Nov. and Dec. discussion

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

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Fiction suggestions needed for Nov. and Dec. discussion

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It's time to start thinking about what book of fiction we would like to discuss during the months of November and December.

Please add your fiction book suggestions here and remember to add a link to the book you are recommending. Feel free to add whether or not you have already read the book you are suggesting, and why you feel it would make for a good discussion. Comments on the books suggested are crucial to deciding which books will go into the official poll. Please leave feedback on the suggested novels, without feedback, it is impossible to determine which books will generate the best discussions.

Members who are eligible to nominate books are those members who have made a minimum of 25 posts. The goal for our fiction discussion is to attract active members who will participate in the discussion of the book of fiction that is ultimately selected.

The novels which recieve the most positive feedback will be placed in a poll open to all members with 25 or more posts. Personal taste in books of fiction varies greatly. Please keep this in mind and be respectful when making any negative comments.

I'm looking forward to seeing the suggestions.
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reader2121
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Re: Fiction suggestions needed for Nov.,Dec. discussion

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I suggest T.C. Boyle's "The Tortilla Curtain."

-Gated community meets illegal immigrants. A mash up written in 1995, but still a heated debate in this 2010 political climate.
-No, I haven't read it, yet, but it's on my nightstand.

link:
http://www.amazon.com/Tortilla-Curtain- ... 735&sr=1-1
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wilde
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Re: Fiction suggestions needed for Nov.,Dec. discussion

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This time I'll nominate The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Amazon link!

Well, this book is one of my favorites, and it is one the few books that has actually made me cry - and not just little teary eyes either; I wept when I finished it. :idea: Also, it was recently adapted into a movie starring Viggo Mortensen, which I haven't seen, but I think it'll give readers another way of interpreting the story.

I don't have time today to write a summary (in short, it is a beautiful post-apocalyptic novel, and you guys know how much I love those :lol: ), so I copied & pasted Dennis Lehane (author of Shutter Island, one of my other favorites) from amazon:
Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith. --Dennis Lehane
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stahrwe

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Re: Fiction suggestions needed for Nov.,Dec. discussion

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How about something more seasonally oriented?
n=Infinity
Sum n = -1/12
n=1

where n are natural numbers.
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Chris OConnor

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Re: Fiction suggestions needed for Nov.,Dec. discussion

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Stahrwe, what do you mean by seasonally oriented? Do you have any specific book ideas that would capture the season?
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stahrwe

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Re: Fiction suggestions needed for Nov.,Dec. discussion

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Chris OConnor wrote:Stahrwe, what do you mean by seasonally oriented? Do you have any specific book ideas that would capture the season?
I do, it is an historical fiction about the Nativity. It was conceived by its author as an investigation of the perceived unfairness of the death of the innocents in Bethlehem while Jesus and his family escaped.
n=Infinity
Sum n = -1/12
n=1

where n are natural numbers.
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Suzanne

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Re: Fiction suggestions needed for Nov. and Dec. discussion

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Hey Stah, if you have a suggestion, please make a post that includes the title of the novel and provide a link to it.
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stahrwe

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Re: Fiction suggestions needed for Nov. and Dec. discussion

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n=Infinity
Sum n = -1/12
n=1

where n are natural numbers.
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Re: Fiction suggestions needed for Nov. and Dec. discussion

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The Tortilla Curtain is one of Boyle's best. It is an extraordinary look at American (Californian) life through Boyle's unique eyes. Given the current discussions about illegal immigrants it's also topical. I would definitely re-read this.
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Suzanne

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Re: Fiction suggestions needed for Nov. and Dec. discussion

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I actually read The Tortilla Curtain for a book discussion group. The discussion got pretty heated, and it was never boring. The topic is very relevant to today's society. Boyle does not take sides in this novel, he gives the reader the opportunity to come to conclusions on their own and to recognize biases they may have on the subject.
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