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Suggestions:November 2008 Book of the Month

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Here are mine in no particular order...

Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Madwoman in the Attic
Wuthering Heights
Pride and Prejudice
Frankenstein
 
In this order:

The Hand Maid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
 
Newby speaks up for "something new"

I have read and enjoyed almost all (actually, I think, all of the suggestions I've seen. Further, over years I have probably discussed a lot of them with a lot of people. How about trying something new? Alice Fulton is a major American poet who has turned her hand, wonderfully, to fiction. Her "connected stories" collection, "The Nightingales Of Troy" came out a couple of months ago and I just read it. I will be reading it again, then setting it aside for regular re-reading, it's that good. My "regular re-reading" shelf includes several of the works on the suggestion list, books by Cather, Denison, Woolf, etc., and Fulton will join them.
A discussion of a new-ish book brings out the originality in the forum, because everyone's ideas are equal and there are no (or few) precedents, no conventional wisdom. Any takers?
 
A sound point Zed and one not to be taken lightly in that the 'classics' do tend to get reviewed/discussed more often however the great concept of this forum is that we take a look at all suggestions and vote for the book that everyone would most enjoy reading and discussing as a group. So perhaps even if a 'classic' is voted for November, based upon your comments I for one would enjoy your thoughts having had considerable time to review and discuss with many others outside this forum. I personally get the most enjoyment from this forum upon hearing other's thoughts on the book besides my own.

I look forward to your input... Have you read Embers? We have a dialog happening for July right now. I'm still only half-way through the book myself however not a book I would have read without having joined this forum.
 
TheOneCalledZed said:
I have read and enjoyed almost all (actually, I think, all of the suggestions I've seen. Further, over years I have probably discussed a lot of them with a lot of people. How about trying something new? Alice Fulton is a major American poet who has turned her hand, wonderfully, to fiction. Her "connected stories" collection, "The Nightingales Of Troy" came out a couple of months ago and I just read it. I will be reading it again, then setting it aside for regular re-reading, it's that good. My "regular re-reading" shelf includes several of the works on the suggestion list, books by Cather, Denison, Woolf, etc., and Fulton will join them.
A discussion of a new-ish book brings out the originality in the forum, because everyone's ideas are equal and there are no (or few) precedents, no conventional wisdom. Any takers?:star2:
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Any suggestions are apreciated. I have read books that I didn't have an idea about because of suggestions and reviews made by members. So, any titles you want to mention would be great.:)

and by the way, is the 2 out 5 stars about you suggestion?:)
 
Mea culpa, ad astra aspera

Sorry, Libra, I am so newbie that I did not actually mean to add any emoticon or star-rating to my post. Somewhere between hunt and peck there was a mouse flub that put up the doodad. I will attempt to edit it out.
I look forward to joining the discussions, as they say, going forward.
 
TheOneCalledZed said:
Sorry, Libra, I am so newbie that I did not actually mean to add any emoticon or star-rating to my post. Somewhere between hunt and peck there was a mouse flub that put up the doodad. I will attempt to edit it out.
I look forward to joining the discussions, as they say, going forward.
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I was just teasing you, that's all.:)
 
bookworm fellow said:
The magic mountain, by Thomas Mann
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That's a great choice if you get enough people to join in. It would probably take the average reader a few weeks to get through it, but it would be worth while because there is much to discuss.

The only problem is that everyone has agreed to have a female author for November, so Thomas Mann will have to wait another month or so.
 
Libra said:
I hope whoever is suggesting is also participating.:D
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Hi, I haven't participated yet in the book discussion but am looking forward to participating. I wasn't familiar with this month's book and did not have a copy of it so decided to wait til the next one. This book group is definately on my "to do" list. I have wanted to find something like this for a long time. :innocent:
 
Robert said:
The only problem is that everyone has agreed to have a female author for November, so Thomas Mann will have to wait another month or so.
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Sorry, I didn't know it was decided to be a female author. I should have read the thread carefuller :lol:

Anyway it's great to know someone else would like to discuss The Magic Mountain :) It may seem a tedious book in the beginning, like a simple narrative of a time spent in a hospital and its repetitive routine. But, in my case, when I finished reading it I had then realized that all the apparently trivial scenes narrated in details have a major meaning, a meaning that is generally not clear, what makes the book fun and interesting and entails a discussion. Yeah, I think it would be really pleasant, there are meanings only a discussion can bring out. I only realized I liked this book when I finished reading its first half because that's when I realized the “hidden” meaning behind the dialogs, scenarios and characters. But all this signification requires a nice discussion to be better understood. Also, different readers may understand it differently. Very interesting.
 
bookworm fellow said:
Sorry, I didn't know it was decided to be a female author. I should have read the thread carefuller :lol:

Anyway it's great to know someone else would like to discuss The Magic Mountain :) It may seem a tedious book in the beginning, like a simple narrative of a time spent in a hospital and its repetitive routine. But, in my case, when I finished reading it I had then realized that all the apparently trivial scenes narrated in details have a major meaning, a meaning that is generally not clear, what makes the book fun and interesting and entails a discussion. Yeah, I think it would be really pleasant, there are meanings only a discussion can bring out. I only realized I liked this book when I finished reading its first half because that's when I realized the “hidden” meaning behind the dialogs, scenarios and characters. But all this signification requires a nice discussion to be better understood. Also, different readers may understand it differently. Very interesting.
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If I remember right, then you were starting that book about the time I was finishing. There were some philosophical discussions that I thought were a little tedious, but that's just me. There is a lot of material for discussion if we had enough interest.
 
Good thinking, Libra. We are closing in on the end of the month.

I'm still hoping for Uncle Tom's Cabin or The Mill on the Floss.

 
Robert said:
Good thinking, Libra. We are closing in on the end of the month.

I'm still hoping for Uncle Tom's Cabin or The Mill on the Floss.
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We had said that we were going to talk about Uncle Tom's Cabin ourselves, maybe it will get picked and we can all discuss it.:D
 
Libra said:
We had said that we were going to talk about Uncle Tom's Cabin ourselves, maybe it will get picked and we can all discuss it.:D
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Yeah, but of course that never materialized. Lets see what everybody else wants to do.
 
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