[TTLG Book Club KICK] Submissions are now being accepted for March's book!

Gorgonseye on 21/11/2006 at 17:41

Hmmm...might as well put in my order for "The Amazing adventure of Kavalier and Whoever"

Stitch on 4/12/2006 at 22:53

I'm late again but the floor is open for submissions for February's book.

Do your worst, Paz!

Stitch on 11/12/2006 at 16:11

Yikes.

So do we want to take a bit of time off, then?

Paz on 11/12/2006 at 17:09

Curses, have I missed my chance to put forward an unopposed choice?

Anything read in January/February needs to be suitably cheerful. So I'll nominate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Solzhenitsyn's first book, this economical, relentless novel is one of the most forceful artistic indictments of political oppression in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. The simply told story of a typical, grueling day of the titular character's life in a labor camp in Siberia, is a modern classic of Russian literature and quickly cemented Solzhenitsyn's international reputation upon publication in 1962.

(ps still finishing Motherless Brooklyn)

Rug Burn Junky on 11/12/2006 at 17:19

Just to keep Paz from getting all uppity by running without a contender, I'd actually like to throw up (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Noise_%28novel%29) White Noise by Don DeLillo:

Better than any book I can think of, White Noise captures the particular strangeness of life in a time where humankind has finally learned enough to kill itself. Naturally, it's a terribly funny book, and the prose is as beautiful as a sunset through a particulate-filled sky. Nice-guy narrator Jack Gladney teaches Hitler Studies at a small college. His wife may be taking a drug that removes fear, and one day a nearby chemical plant accidentally releases a cloud of gas that may be poisonous. Writing before Bhopal and Prozac entered the popular lexicon, DeLillo produced a work so closely tuned into its time that it tells the future.

Kyloe on 11/12/2006 at 17:35

I haven't started Kavalier & Clay yet, though I already have a copy. This one is at least twice the size of Motherless Brooklyn and I doubt I can finish it this year.

It doesn't really matter, I know, because I never have anything worth reading to say about the books.

ignatios on 11/12/2006 at 18:02

Resubmitting Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.

Mr.Duck on 11/12/2006 at 18:27

Quote Posted by Paz

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

A mysterious and haunting tale of romance and murder, that begins with the marriage of a man and a woman in love. But when he inexplicably mistreats his beloved on the night of the wedding, he is in turn murdered by her brothers, and we are left with a strange sense of inevitability and passions gone terribly awry.

Setting out to reconstruct a murder that took place 27 years earlier, this chronicle moves backwards and forwards in time, through the contradictions of memory and moments lost in time. Its irony gives the book the nuances of a political fable.

A most excellent book from a most excellent writer, Paz, m'boy. But, I would -humbly- reccomend rechecking some crucial details about the sinopsis (i.e. the guy in question was -not- married to the woman in question, amongst others). That's basically my nitpick, so as to not have anyone missled :)

Though if you're going to reccomend a book from Gabo (as Gabriel's popularly known around Latin America) may I suggest an entry to this month (or next one, plz): A Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien Años de Soledad).

Mind you, any of you that can read Spanish well enough should go for the original version then.

Dammit...I gotta get down with this club soon...

Jan on 11/12/2006 at 18:28

"The narrator in “Oryx and Crake” is Jimmy, hungry and up a tree, to avoid the wolvogs—genetically spliced creatures, as waggy as dogs and vicious as wolves. The landscape is hot and littered with detritus from the city that now stands some way out to sea: “Things happened, I had no idea, it was out of my control...listen to me please!” Once there were the “pleeblands” where “neurotypicals” lived. “Genius gene” people lived in fortified genetic-science compounds named HelthWyzer, RejoovenEsence or AnooYoo, all developing immortality products."

--Excerpt from the Economist's review of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

A science fiction novel with dystopian elements, with ingredients of genetic engineering, climatic catastrophe, and a global pandemic. Some say it can be seen as a sequel to "A Handmaid's Tale". If you liked Margaret Atwood in, say, The Blind Assassin :) you should give this one a try. Very different subject of course, but Atwood is brilliantly inventive and thought-provoking as usual.

(http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1748439) (aforementiond economist article)
(http://www.randomhouse.com/features/atwood/index.html) (official website)

Vigil on 11/12/2006 at 19:12

I'd like to chip in my February nomination for Confusion by James Champagne.

<i>Hamilton once rode through life on the high road, but now is a disgraced plumber. He's about to get a second chance, thanks to Mike Whitaker, his best friend and a successful businessman. Whitaker just purchased the Miami Fireballs basketball franchise, and he believes Hamilton will be a perfect coach for his new team. Hamilton takes him up on his offer and soon meets many interesting characters, including Sypha Nadon, <a href="http://i10.tinypic.com/4gg99jt.jpg">the openly gay pop star</a>. Nadon is one of the flashiest celebrities in America, but behind his glamorous façade lurks a troubled soul. He's haunted by his past, which could consume him when he least expects it. But Hamilton and Nadon, two polar opposites, might have more in common than they think. Will these two men find enlightenment in a decade where outside layers mean everything, and introspection no longer matters?

<a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-40823-0">Confusion will take you on an unforgettable adventure through the lives of a multigenerational group of characters who live life to the fullest.</a></i>

I don't know much about it but it sounds like a winner!