[TTLG Book Club] November's selection: Ender's Game (discuss!)

Stitch on 6/9/2006 at 21:50

11/2/06 update:
(http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1521396#post1521396) Discussion has begun of Ender's Game.

10/02/06 Update:
The floor is open for submitting candidates for December's book of the month. Discussion of Ender's Game will begin on November 1st.

9/14/06 Update:

Voting is now closed, with Ender's Game emerging as the victor. Participants now have until Novermber 1st to find and read the book.

Original post text:

Below are the nine fantastic candidates for November's TTLG Book Club selection. Please vote for the book you would like to read for discussion in November. The poll is public and will be closed in a week.

(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375724834/sr=8-4/qid=1153423485/ref=pd_bbs_4/103-0986735-4367055?redirect=true&ie=UTF8) Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

The short and shady life of Frank Minna ends in murder, shocking the four young men employed by his dysfunctional Brooklyn detective agency/limo service. The "Minna Men" have centered their lives around Frank, ever since he selected them as errand boys from the orphaned teen population at St. Vincent's Home. Most grateful is narrator Lionel. While not exactly well treatedAhis nickname is "Freakshow"ATourette's-afflicted Lionel has found security as a Minna Man and is shattered by Frank's death. Lionel determines to become a genuine sleuth and find the killer. The ensuing plot twists are marked by clever wordplay, fast-paced dialog, and nonstop irony. The novel pays amusing homage to, and plays with the conventions of, classic hard-boiled detective tales and movies while standing on its own as a convincing whole. The author has applied his trademark genre-bending style to fine effect. Already well known among critics for his literary gifts, Lethem should gain a wider readership with this appealing book's debut.

Resubmitted by Stitch

(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312282990/sr=1-1/qid=1154990717/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-0986735-4367055?ie=UTF8&s=books) Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Virtuoso Chabon takes intense delight in the practice of his art, and never has his joy been more palpable than in this funny and profound tale of exile, love, and magic. In his last novel, The Wonder Boys (1995), Chabon explored the shadow side of literary aspirations. Here he revels in the crass yet inventive and comforting world of comic-book superheroes, those masked men with mysterious powers who were born in the wake of the Great Depression and who carried their fans through the horrors of war with the guarantee that good always triumphs over evil. In a luxuriant narrative that is jubilant and purposeful, graceful and complex, hilarious and enrapturing, Chabon chronicles the fantastic adventures oftwo Jewish cousins, one American, one Czech. It's 1939 and Brooklynite Sammy Klayman dreams of making it big in the nascent world of comic books. Joseph Kavalier has never seen a comic book, but he is an accomplished artist versed in the "autoliberation" techniques of his hero, Harry Houdini. He effects a great (and surreal) escape from the Nazis, arrives in New York, and joins forces with Sammy. They rapidly create the Escapist, the first of many superheroes emblematic of their temperaments and predicaments, and attain phenomenal success. But Joe, tormented by guilt and grief for his lost family, abruptly joins the navy, abandoning Sammy, their work, and his lover, the marvelous artist and free spirit Rosa, who, unbeknownst to him, is carrying his child. As Chabon--equally adept at atmosphere, action, dialogue, and cultural commentary--whips up wildly imaginative escapades punctuated by schtick that rivals the best of Jewish comedians, he plumbs the depths of the human heart and celebrates the healing properties of escapism and the "genuine magic of art" with exuberance and wisdom.

Resubmitted by Jonesy

(http://www.amazon.com/House-Leaves-Full-Color-Mark-Danielewski/dp/0375703764/sr=8-1/qid=1157561035/ref=pd_bbs_1/0

02-1149120-3728037?ie=UTF8&s=books) House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Danielewski's eccentric and sometimes brilliant debut novel is really two novels, hooked together by the Nabokovian trick of running one narrative in footnotes to the other. One-the horror story-is a tour-de-force. Zampano, a blind Angelino recluse, dies, leaving behind the notes to a manuscript that's an account of a film called The Navidson Report. In the Report, Pulitzer Prize-winning news photographer Will Navidson and his girlfriend move with their two children to a house in an unnamed Virginia town in an attempt to save their relationship. One day, Will discovers that the interior of the house measures more than its exterior. More ominously, a closet appears, then a hallway. Out of this intellectual paradox, Danielewski constructs a viscerally frightening experience. Will contacts a number of people, including explorer Holloway Roberts, who mounts an expedition with his two-man crew. The story of the house is stitched together from disparate accounts, until the experience becomes somewhat like stumbling into Borges's Library of Babel. This potentially cumbersome device actually enhances the horror of the tale, rather than distracting from it. Less successful, however, is the second story unfolding in footnotes, that of the manuscript's editor, (and the novel's narrator), Johnny Truant. Johnny, who discovered Zampano's body and took his papers, works in a tattoo parlor. He tracks down and beds most of the women who assisted Zampano in preparing his manuscript. But soon Johnny is crippled by panic attacks, bringing him close to psychosis. In the Truant sections, Danielewski attempts an Infinite Jest-like feat of ventriloquism, but where Wallace is a master of voices, Danielewski is not. His strength is parodying a certain academic tone and harnessing that to pop culture tropes. Nevertheless, the novel is a surreal palimpsest of terror and erudition, surely destined for cult status.

Submitted by Tonamel

(http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Cities-A-Harvest-Hbj-Book/dp/0156453800/sr=1-1/qid=1157561376/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-11

49120-3728037?ie=UTF8&s=books) Invisible Cities by wacky funster Italo Calvino

Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his." So begins Italo Calvino's compilation of fragmentary urban images. As Marco tells the khan about Armilla, which "has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should

be," the spider-web city of Octavia, and other marvelous burgs, it may be that he is creating them all out of his imagination, or perhaps he is recreating details of his native Venice over and over again, or perhaps he is simply recounting some of the myriad possible forms a city might take.

Submitted by Paz

(http://www.amazon.com/Only-Begotten-Daughter-Harvest-Book/dp/0156002434/sr=1-1/qid=1157561449/ref=sr_1_1/002-1149120-3728037?ie=UTF8&s=books) Only Begotten Daughter by James Morrow

Murray Katz, the celibate keeper of an abandoned lighthouse near Atlantic City, has been blessed with a daughter conceived of his own seed and a holy ovum. Like her half brother Jesus, Julie Katz can walk on water, heal the blind, and raise the dead. But being the Messiah isn't easy, and Julie, bewildered by her role in the divine scheme of things, is tempted by the Devil and challenged by neo- Christian zealots in this lively odyssey through Hell and New Jersey. Winner of the World Fantasy Award.

Submitted by Aerothorn

(http://www.amazon.com/Perfume-Story-Murderer-Vintage-International/dp/0375725849/sr=8-1/qid=1157278752/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-5898350-8534316?ie=UTF8&s=books) Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

Upon its publication last year in Germany Susskind's first novel Perfume immediately became an international best seller. Set in 18th-century France, Perfume relates the fascinating and horrifying tale of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a person as gifted as he was abominable. Born without a smell of his own but endowed with an extraordinary sense of smell, Grenouille becomes obsessed with procuring the perfect scent that will make him fully human. With brilliant narrative skill Susskind exposes the dark underside of the society through which Grenouille moves and

explores the disquieting inner universe of this singularly possessed man. The translation is superb. Essential for literature collections.

Submitted by kyloe

(http://www.amazon.com/Ghostwritten-Vintage-Contemporaries-David-Mitchell/dp/0375724508/sr=1-1/qid=1157561900/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1149120-3728037?ie=UTF8&s=books) Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

Nine disparate but interconnected tales (and a short coda) in Mitchell's impressive debut examine 21st-century notions of community, coincidence, causality, catastrophe and fate. Each episode in this mammoth sociocultural tapestry is related in the first person, and set in a different international locale. The gripping first story introduces Keisuke Tanaka, aka Quasar, a fanatical Japanese doomsday cultist who's on the lam in Okinawa after completing a successful gas attack in a Tokyo subway. The links between Quasar and the novel's next narrator, Satoru

Sonada, a teenage jazz aficionado, are tenuous at first. Both are denizens of Tokyo; both tend toward nearly monomaniacal obsessiveness; both went to the same school (albeit at different times) and shared a common teacher, the crass Mr. Ikeda. As the plot progresses, however, the connections between narrators become more complex, richly imaginative and thematically suggestive. Key symbols and metaphors repeat, mutating provocatively in new contexts. Innocuous descriptions accrue a subtle but probing irony through repetition; images of wild birds taking flight, luminous night skies and even bloody head wounds implicate and involve Mitchell's characters in an exquisitely choreographed dance of coincidence, connection and fluid, intuitive meanings. Other performers include a corrupt but (literally) haunted Hong Kong lawyer; an unnamed, time-battered Chinese tea-shop proprietress; a nomadic, disembodied intelligence on a voyage of self-discovery through Mongolia; a seductive and wily Russian art thief; a London-based musician, ghostwriter and ne'er-do-well; a brilliant but imperiled Irish physicist; and a loud-mouthed late-night radio-show host who unwittingly brushes with a global cyber-catastrophe. Already a sensation on its publication in England, Mitchell's wildly variegated story can be abstruse and elusive in its larger themes, but the gorgeous prose and vibrant, original construction make this an accomplishment not to be missed.

Submitted by lomondtaffer

(http://www.amazon.com/Inferno-Dante-Alighieri/dp/0451527984/sr=1-1/qid=1157561974/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1149120-3728037?ie=UTF8&s=books) The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Midway on his journey through life, Dante realizes he has taken the wrong path. The ghost of Roman poet Virgil searches for the lost Dante at the request of Beatrice; he finds Dante in the woods on the evening of Good Friday in the year 1300 and serves as a guide as Dante begins his religious pilgrimage to find God.

In Inferno, Dante and Virgil enter the wide gates of Hell and descend through the nine circles. In each circle they see sinners, among them prominent faces of history and fiction (Ovid, Cleopatra, Tristan, etc), being punished for their sins on earth.

Submitted by Schattentanzer

(http://www.amazon.com/Enders-Game-Ender-Book-1/dp/0812550706/sr=1-1/qid=1157562336/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1149120-3728037?ie=UTF8&s=books) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Intense is the word for Ender's Game. Aliens have attacked Earth twice and almost destroyed the human species. To make sure humans win the next encounter, the world government has taken to breeding military geniuses -- and then training them in the arts of war... The early training, not surprisingly, takes the form of 'games'... Ender Wiggin is a genius among geniuses; he wins all the games... He is smart enough to know that time is running out. But is he smart enough to save the planet?

Submitted by tungsten

get ur vote on

Edited to add Schat's Inferno summary.

Scots Taffer on 7/9/2006 at 00:32

Still reading Life of Pi. :(

However, if Inferno gets picked I can join in the discussion as I have read it previously but I won't vote.

Navyhacker006 on 7/9/2006 at 03:03

I voted for Ender's Game, as I've read it a few (hundred) times.

Seems somewhat criminal to me that no-one thought to include Greywalker as October's choice, unless the release dates for Europe don't work out.

Scots Taffer on 7/9/2006 at 03:17

I'm pretty sure there'll be a thread about that book all by itself and no need to involve it in this environment, plus what Stitch said in the other thread.

Tonamel on 7/9/2006 at 05:03

I was going to suggest Greywalker, actually, but the vote went up before I'd realised they'd even been collecting nominees. I later realized that international release dates would likely have caused problems, anyway. We should do it sometime, though.

mol on 7/9/2006 at 07:12

Quote Posted by Navyhacker006

I voted for Ender's Game, as I've read it a few (hundred) times.

I always felt that Ender's Game was merely a prologue for Speaker for the Dead, which in my opinion is a superior novel; more mature and emotionally gripping. In Xenocide, however, Card's attempts at infusing the text with existentialism and philosophical meanings and subtexts didn't carry as they did in Speaker for the Dead, and he never seemed to get the material working as a coherent whole. I've yet to read Children of the Mind, although I've owned a copy for several years.

Not that Ender's Game isn't an entertaining book, but I found it light and easy reading compared to the emotionally loaded and brilliant Speaker for the Dead. Still, it's an absolute must read, if one is to read and understand Speaker.

I voted for Dante Alighieri's 'The Inferno'.

Schattentänzer on 7/9/2006 at 07:35

Just to give a very rough overview of Inferno:

Midway on his journey through life, Dante realizes he has taken the wrong path. The ghost of Roman poet Virgil searches for the lost Dante at the request of Beatrice; he finds Dante in the woods on the evening of Good Friday in the year 1300 and serves as a guide as Dante begins his religious pilgrimage to find God.

In Inferno, Dante and Virgil enter the wide gates of Hell and descend through the nine circles. In each circle they see sinners, among them prominent faces of history and fiction (Ovid, Cleopatra, Tristan, etc), being punished for their sins on earth.

hopper on 7/9/2006 at 08:18

Thought about voting for Perfume, because I've already read it. But then I thought, why would I? As I see it the whole point of a club such as this is to get to know something new, with the guidance of people who already know those books. For me, it was a close draw between Calvino and Lethem, but in the end Lethem won, owing to my predilection for "hard-boiled" literature that the summary claims this novel to be.

Matthew on 7/9/2006 at 09:40

Can you join if you didn't participate in the previous months' readings?

Paz on 7/9/2006 at 12:03

I'm pretty sure you can join whenever you want! This thing has "rules" to keep it vaguely organised and monthly, but that's about it. Likewise, I don't think voting LEGALLY BINDS you to reading November's choice (although obviously it suggests you're probably interested).

We should also consider that if the sci-fi wins this time, Stitch will most likely kill everyone involved. Ho ho!

Quote:

Seems somewhat criminal to me that no-one thought to include Greywalker as October's choice

I believe this was mentioned in another geeky book club thread, but the general feeling was that it could get UNBELIEVABLY MESSY AND DRAMAFIED with alarming ease. Which is something best avoided, obviously.