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TheSite.org Book Club: Nominations for December's book.

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
edited January 2023 in General Chat
Reminder of the rules:

1. Anybody can nominate a book.
2. Books nominated have to be fiction, but there are no other restrictions. You can go for whatever genre you like, whatever time period, whichever author.
3. Try not to pick anything too hefty. While some of us could probably get through War and Peace in a month, others aren't so fast.
4. Nominations in the below example format, please:

Book: Snuff by Terry Pratchett|Kindle Edition

Synopsis: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse.

And Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is on holiday in the pleasant and innocent countryside, but not for him a mere body in the wardrobe. There are many, many bodies and an ancient crime more terrible than murder.

He is out of his jurisdiction, out of his depth, out of bacon sandwiches, occasionally snookered and out of his mind, but never out of guile. Where there is a crime there must be a finding, there must be a chase and there must be a punishment.

They say that in the end all sins are forgiven.

But not quite all...
From Amazon

Reason for Nomination: Any reason you like can go here. The above is an example, but feel free to nominate it!

5. As I did above, if there is a Kindle/e-reader edition, put a separate link to that, please (On Amazon, there is a "Start reading [book] on your Kindle..." link under the image).

Commence nominations! Poll will be put up on Wednesday evening with all nominations.

Franki
Post edited by JustV on

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Book: The Green Mile by Steven King|Kindle Edition

    Synopsis: This novel (now complete in one volume) taps into what Stephen King does best: character-driven storytelling. The setting is the small "death house" of a Southern prison in 1932. The charming narrator is an old man looking back on the events, decades later. Maybe it's a little too cute, maybe the pathos is laid on a little thick, but it's hard to resist the colourful personalities and simple wonders of this supernatural tale. As Time magazine put it, "Like the best popular art, The Green Mile has the courage of its cornier convictions ... the palpable sense of King's sheer, unwavering belief in his tale is what makes the novel work as well as it finally does". And it's not a bad choice for giving to someone who doesn't understand the appeal of Stephen King because the one scene that is out-and-out gruesome can be easily skipped by the squeamish. The Green Mile was nominated for a 1997 Bram Stoker Award. --Amazon.com
    From Amazon

    Reason for Nomination: I fucking love Steven King, he's like my idol. I keep meaning to read this and I haven't managed it yet so I am nominating it. Good news: It's short! It's also not really horror, but everything I've ever read about the novel is that it's excellent.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Book: Ring by Koji Suzuki|Kindle Edition

    Synopsis:: Stunning Japanese thriller with a chilling supernatural twist. The novel that inspired the cult Japanese movie and the Hollywood blockbuster of the same name.Asakawa is a hardworking journalist who has climbed his way up from local-news beat reporter to writer for his newspaper?s weekly magazine. A chronic workaholic, he doesn?t take much notice when his seventeen-year-old niece dies suddenly ? until a chance conversation reveals that another healthy teenager died at exactly the same time, in chillingly similar circumstances.Sensing a story, Asakawa begins to investigate, and soon discovers that this strange simultaneous sudden-death syndrome also affected another two teenagers. Exactly one week before their mysterious deaths the four teenagers all spent the night at a leisure resort in the same log cabin.When Asakawa visits the resort, the mystery only deepens. A comment made in the guest book by one of the teenagers leads him to a particular vidoetape with a portentous message at the end:Those who have viewed these images are fated to die at this exact hour one week from now.Asakawa finds himself in a race against time ? he has only seven days to find the cause of the teenagers? deaths before it finds him. The hunt puts him on the trail of an apocalytpic power that will force Asakawa to choose between saving his family and saving civilization.
    From Amazon

    Reason for Nomination: I have kind of gotten really into Japanese writing over the past couple of months, thanks to a recommendation from a friend of mine. This was in my 'Recommended for You' on Amazon and even though I'm a wimp when it comes to scary movies (so I've never seen it), I will read horror novels and thrillers 'til they're coming out of my butt (my imagination is way scarier than the movies, always, but somehow it's better that way...). I started reading this last night and I'm one chapter in and already a bit creeped out. IMO, that's a Good Thing when it comes to books like this.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Book:The Wind Singer by William Nicholson (currently no kindle verison but load available v cheaply secondhand and I know its still available in most bookshops)

    Synopsis: The Wind Singer is the first novel in a trilogy that holds enormous promise--and looks set to deliver on that promise. Set in a time that could be many years in the future, or perhaps even in the past, in a world that has somehow been lost in time, the people are divided into groups according to how well they perform in The High Examination. If they fail, they are de-classed, if they pass they are promoted and allowed to live in the more attractive spaces of the city of Aramanth. Disloyalty, or indeed any form of behaviour that does not fit into the grand plan of those with the power, is dealt with harshly. Kestrel and Bowman Hath are twins, and we first meet them on the day their baby sister is about to take her first test. She fails, but the family is disgraced further when Kestrel is labelled as a "wild child" and is sent to Special Teaching--a place from which she may never escape--and her father is banished to the Residential Study Course. But Kestrel has met the Emperor, and he told her the history of the Wind Singer--the monument that overlooks the city but no longer has a voice. What follows is an intense adventure following the children as they embark on a dangerous journey beneath the city and through the Underlake--a stinking lake of decomposing matter that is bigger than Aramath itself and is inhabited by the real, and sometimes extremely dangerous, underclasses--as they search for the Wind Singer's voice. The journey leads them to the very heart of the evil that has taken control of the city, and with their new friend, Mumpo, in tow, they endeavour to wade through the darkness in their extraordinary search for truth. The Wind Singer is a truly imaginative, fantastical and distinctive adventure story that grips from the very beginning and absolutely refuses to let go, even at the very end of the book. Cinematic in his approach (the descriptions of the people and places are indeed so large and vivid that you can almost smell them as well as imagine them), William Nicholson taps into the nerve centre of the reader, introducing characters that invoke passion--and compassion--and putting them in situations that are at times so intense that it is almost possible to imagine you are there with them as they wade through the dangerous underbelly of their world in the hunt for light.

    Reason for Nomination: Ok, this is a kids books (supposedly), but its written by the same guy who wrote the script for Gladiator (yes the film with Russel Crow). Its amazingly cinematic, and one of my favourite books. Its one of the few books that I keep re-reading and its captivating! I forget where I am reading this book, and there are a lot of dark undertones in this book (lots of issues to do with class, racism, slavery etc). I don't know why these books haven't been made into films yet, because they're very very good and I think its the kind of book you want to read for escapism.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What happened to November?

    Anyway, re-nomination.
    piccolo wrote: »
    The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell.

    Synopsis: Set in the eighteenth century on a man-made island outside Nagasaki (the Dutch trading post of Dejima), The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet follows the fortunes of a young clerk arriving to serve five years under the Dutch East India Company. The novel follows the people he meets through their lives over twenty years, and is a well-researched insight into early European contact with Japan.

    Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2011.

    (By me)

    Reason for Nomination: The writing is extraordinarily vivid, and the subject-matter unusual.

    Also, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

    Synopsis: (by me) The story of Owen Meany is told by his best friend Johnny Wheelwright, who is now in his forties and living in Canada. Piece by piece, their journey together falls into place with a gorgeous cast of comic characters from Johnny's grandmother's acerbic comments through the 'cowardly mailman' to the teachers and clergy that shape their young lives.

    I can't forget Owen Meany; this book will haunt me for a very long time indeed.

    Reason for Nomination: Because I loved it so much! I would particularly recommend the Audible audiobook, the reader is just fantastic.
  • plugitinplugitin Posts: 2,197 Boards Champion
    Miss_Riot wrote: »
    Book:The Wind Singer by William Nicholson (currently no kindle verison but load available v cheaply secondhand and I know its still available in most bookshops)


    Oh my, I remember that book :heart:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Book: Alicia: My Story by Alicia Appleman-Jurman | Kindle: Link

    Synopsis: After losing her entire family to the Nazis at age 13, Alicia Appleman-Jurman went on to save the lives of thousands of Jews, offering them her own courage and hope in a time of upheaval and tragedy. Not since The Diary of Anne Frank has a young voice so vividly expressed the capacity for humanity and heroism in the face of Nazi brutality.

    Reason for Nomination: I have read that this is an emotionally difficult book to read, and I wanted to challenge myself as I tend to read a lot of books as I enjoy (basically science fiction and fantasy). I wanted something that would have me not wanting to turn the pages but felt compelled to anyway, something that would affect me.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Keep the nominations coming, boys and girls :D.

    I am pleased with our nomination count this month :heart:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Any more for any more?

    Or can I put the poll up tonight?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Is ShyBoy allowed to nominate his book? Because, you know, it's not fiction and all. And rules are rules. Right?

    :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Is ShyBoy allowed to nominate his book? Because, you know, it's not fiction and all. And rules are rules. Right?

    :p

    Oh, shut up.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I smell a double standard! :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Or can I put the poll up tonight?

    :naughty:
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