BwB Book Club

[Inigima]

You too can be put on an FBI watch list as a result of your book purchases. Don't stop believing! :P

[Guest Raidne]

Why stop there? Let's nominate the Apocrypha, the Kama Sutra, and, hell, my copy of Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary.

[Sheep the Evicted]

Well why not ? Its actually a surprisingly fast read so far, funny in parts (especially as regards to marriage and divorce) and often more than a little disturbing. Also it is one of the influential books in human history and there are few books better to discuss.

Why stop there? Let's nominate the Kama Sutra.

I could live with that.

[Guest Raidne]

If we're going for disturbing, I'll stack Dorland's up against the Qu'ran any day. ;)

[Bellis]

The Quran is long. Willing to go research selections if anyone's seriously interested though. I've mostly only read the Abdullah Yusuf Ali all the way through, though I've read selections of several others.

Buying a Quran will put you on the watchlist?

[Datepalm]

I disapprove of the Koran. I don't think theres enough incest for a good religeous text.

I admit, I suck. I haven't managed to find a copy of the book (because, I, er, looked in just one shop) and the machine swallowed my card last week, (turns out, you have to, like, remember the code correctly) so I couldn't order it. However, I will go look tommorow some more.

[Guest Raidne]

Buying a Quran will put you on the watchlist?

Probably not, but definitely don't buy one at a bookstore near Ground Zero or you'll offend survivors of the 9/11 attacks.

[Bellis]

Probably not, but definitely don't buy one at a bookstore near Ground Zero or you'll offend survivors of the 9/11 attacks.

<drumroll>

[Inigima]

Buying a Quran will put you on the watchlist?

I was joking. I hope.

[Sheep the Evicted]

The Quran is long. Willing to go research selections if anyone's seriously interested though. I've mostly only read the Abdullah Yusuf Ali all the way through, though I've read selections of several others.

The Yusuf Ali is popular but written in nigh-unreadable Shakespearean english. Also my version is about 400 pages.

I disapprove of the Koran. I don't think theres enough incest for a good religeous text.

I just got to the section on rules for people you can and can't 'marry' and well...there are loopholes.

[Inigima]

There are very few nominations. I have received none via PM.

[Alexia]

I have a nomination that hopefully may sit better than my previous War and Peace nomination (loving that book so far, btw) or the Holy Quran. The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I picked it up a couple months ago to read since I've been hearing how good it is and while I sat down to read the introduction, which was great, I've not yet gone past that.

[delete this account pls]

There are very few nominations. I have received none via PM.

Heh, I had a fairly long list of books I wanted to nominate but I went with the one that seemed the most different from the two books we've covered so far.

[RedEyedGhost]

With the dearth of nominations I'll put forth David Mitchell's brilliant Cloud Atlas. Here are my thoughts from the June reading thread:

David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas was simply amazing. I feel like anything that I write about it won't measure up to the quality of the book itself, so I'll keep this short. The book has six stories that have subtle interconnections/reincarnations. Each story is masterfully written in a different style and voice. It begins in the mid 19th century and advances forward in time with the final two stories being in possible futures. As subtle as the interconnections are, this book will undoubtedly only get better on rereading it.

Great book, highly recommended. As I was finishing the book kept evoking memories of Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale, and I think fans of Cloud Atlas should check it out.

And rereading what I wrote is going to make me want to nominate Winter's Tale in December or January, it's been five years since I read it and would love to do a reread.

[Eyelesbarrow]

Now that my work situation has become more or less stable, I'd like to join this book club.

I've never read a Pelecanos book, I guess I'm alright w/ it. If I think of something later, I'll add it here.

[palin99999]

Of note to the people considering Pelecanos - he wrote extensively for The Wire. I've read The Night Gardener and thought it was a decent enough read.

I haven't participated in the Book Club yet, but I'd like to nominate Savages by Don Winslow.

[Inigima]

One more day to nominate, less than 24 hours. Nominations will close at 9pm tomorrow and voting will commence.

[Maester Joergensen]

I would like to nominate "Kafka on the shore" by Haruki Murakami

A really hot girl at the book store made me buy, so I guess i will have to read it.

Also I am really intrigued by what I have heard about this author.

[Inigima]

I'm starting to round up data for the nominees. Is there anything I'm not supposed to write about the Quran for religious reasons?

[Inigima]

Okay, I hope not. Nominations for September are now closed.

Haha. After all that, we now have more recommendations than ever before. Awesome :D

Here are the contenders for September:

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - Aimee Bender, 2010 - On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake. She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother—her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother—tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose. --Goodreads

First line: "It happened for the first time on a Tuesday afternoon, a warm spring day in the flatlands near Hollywood, a light breezze moving east from the ocean and stirring the black-eyed pansy petals newly planted in our flower boxes."

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole, 1994 - Meet Ignatius J. Reilly, the hero of John Kennedy Toole's tragicomic tale, A Confederacy of Dunces. This 30-year-old medievalist lives at home with his mother in New Orleans, pens his magnum opus on Big Chief writing pads he keeps hidden under his bed, and relays to anyone who will listen the traumatic experience he once had on a Greyhound Scenicruiser bound for Baton Rouge. ("Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss.") But Ignatius's quiet life of tyrannizing his mother and writing his endless comparative history screeches to a halt when he is almost arrested by the overeager Patrolman Mancuso--who mistakes him for a vagrant--and then involved in a car accident with his tipsy mother behind the wheel. One thing leads to another, and before he knows it, Ignatius is out pounding the pavement in search of a job. --Amazon

First line: "A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head."

The Night Gardener - George Pelecanos, 2006 - When the body of a local teenager is found in a community garden, homicide detective Gus Ramone relives intense memories of a case he worked twenty years earlier. When he was still a rookie, Ramone and his partner Dan "Doc" Holiday assisted legendary detective T.C. Cook as he investigated a series of killings involving young victims left overnight in neighborhood parks. The killer, dubbed, "the Night Gardener," was never caught. Since then, Holiday has left the force under a cloud of morals charges; he now works as a bodyguard and driver, taunted by his dreams of what he might have been. --Goodreads

First line: "The crime scene was in the low 30s around E, ont he edge of Fort Dupont Park, in a neighborhood known as Greenway, in the 6th District section of Southeast D.C."

The Quran - Haleem translation, trans. pub. 1998 - The Qur'an, believed by Muslims to be the word of God, was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad 1400 years ago. It is the supreme authority in Islam and the living source of all Islamic teaching; it is a sacred text and a book of guidance, that sets out the creed, rituals, ethics, and laws of the Islamic religion. --Goodreads

First line: The previews I can find only show the preface portion of the book.

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon, 2001 - Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes one day to find that he can no longer remember his mother’s face. To console his only child, Daniel’s widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona’s guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. --Goodreads

First line: "I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time."

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell, 2004 - Mitchell's virtuosic novel presents six narratives that evoke an array of genres, from Melvillean high-seas drama to California noir and dystopian fantasy. There is a naïve clerk on a nineteenth-century Polynesian voyage; an aspiring composer who insinuates himself into the home of a syphilitic genius; a journalist investigating a nuclear plant; a publisher with a dangerous best-seller on his hands; and a cloned human being created for slave labor. These five stories are bisected and arranged around a sixth, the oral history of a post-apocalyptic island, which forms the heart of the novel. Only after this do the second halves of the stories fall into place, pulling the novel's themes into focus: the ease with which one group enslaves another, and the constant rewriting of the past by those who control the present. --Amazon

First line: "Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints."

Savages - Don Winslow, 2010 - Part-time environmentalist and philanthropist Ben and his ex-mercenary buddy Chon run a Laguna Beach–based marijuana operation, reaping significant profits from their loyal clientele. In the past when their turf was challenged, Chon took care of eliminating the threat. But now they may have come up against something that they can’t handle—the Mexican Baja Cartel wants in, and sends them the message that a "no" is unacceptable. When they refuse to back down, the cartel escalates its threat, kidnapping Ophelia, the boys’ playmate and confidante. O’s abduction sets off a dizzying array of ingenious negotiations and gripping plot twists that will captivate readers eager to learn the costs of freedom and the price of one amazing high. --Goodreads

First line: "Fuck you."

Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami, 2001 - Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from ...more Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. --Goodreads

First line: "'So you're all set for money, then?' the boy named Crow asks in his typical sluggish voice."

Voting will be through 9pm on the the last day of the month.