November Nominations

[Michelle]

I guess we should get this up and running! This month doesn't have a theme, so go ahead and nominate anything.. discussions have been a little quiet recently, so we need to look for books that will be easy to get hold of, and capable of provoking discussion. So, get you thinking caps on! :D

[Kell]

With it being November, during which month we hav remembrance Sunday, I'd like to nominate The Secret Purposes by David Baddiel:
THE SECRET PURPOSES, David Baddiel's third novel, takes us into a little-known and still somewhat submerged area of British history: the internment of German Jewish refugees on the Isle of Man during the Second World War. Isaac Fabian, on the run with his young family from Nazism in East Prussia, comes to Britain assuming he has found asylum, but instead finds himself drowning in the morass of ignorance, half-truth, prejudice, and suspicion that makes up government attitudes to German Jews in 1940. One woman, June Murray, a translator from the Ministry of Information, stands out - and when she comes to the island on a personal mission to uncover solid evidence of Nazi atrocities, her meeting with Isaac will have far-reaching consequences for both of them. A haunting and beautifully written tale of love, displacement and survival, THE SECRET PURPOSES profoundly questions the way that truth - both personal and political - emerges from the tangle of history.

[princessponti]

...ooo...staying with the theme of remembrance, but taking it from a different angle, theres a book that I've been meaning to read for a really long time - 'Maus' by Art Spiegelman. It's actually a graphic novel, so I imagine different to what most people are used to, but the people I know that have read this have been really touched by the story.

The synopsis, from Wikipedia:

"Maus: A Survivor's Tale is a memoir presented as a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman. It recounts Spiegelman's father's struggle to survive the Holocaust as a Polish Jew and draws largely on his father's recollections of events he personally experienced. The book also follows the author's troubled relationship with his father and the way the effects of war reverberate through generations of a family. In 1992 it won a Pulitzer Prize Special Award. The New York Times described the selection of Maus for the honor: "The Pulitzer board members ... found the cartoonist's depiction of Nazi Germany hard to classify."

(..more info.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus )

I'm really interested to read this book, not only because it comes so highly recommended but also because I've recently visited Auschwitz so it's a subject quite close to my heart at the moment.

[Kell]

On a completely different theme, i'd also like to nominate Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro:

In one of the most acclaimed and strange novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewered version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now 31, "Never Let Me Go" hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, "Never Let Me Go" is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.

[dididave]

What about something a lot of people might already have? Something populist like Stephen King's/Richard Bachman's The Regulators springs to mind. Plenty to discuss, a fair length without being a tome and easy to get hold via library, charity or used book shops/eBay.

Book Description
Poplar Street is just an ordinary street in an ordinary town, except there's something strange about Audrey Wyler's nephew. When the strange-looking vans arrive a surreal nightmare begins which threatens to turn the familiar street into a wasteland of devastation and desperation.

[Kell]

... Something populist like Stephen King's/Richard Bachman's The Regulators springs to mind... Ooh, that's a good 'un! I got it out from the library a few years back & really enjoyed it! :)

[dididave]

Ooh, that's a good 'un! I got it out from the library a few years back & really enjoyed it! :)

Aye, and its not horror so should be accessible to most.

[Acesare*]

I'd like to second the David Baddiel book - I've read 2 of his and enjoyed them both muchly. I've read The Regulators many times and, although I really like it, I'm trying to avoid King for the time being.

[dogmatix]

When I think November I think food and one of my heroes Julia Childs. I nominate, Julie and Julia

Julie & Julia is the story of Julie Powell's attempt to revitalize her marriage, restore her ambition, and save her soul by cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I, in a period of 365 days. The result is a masterful medley of Bridget Jones' Diary meets Like Water for Chocolate, mixed with a healthy dose of original wit, warmth, and inspiration that sets this memoir apart from most tales of personal redemption.

When we first meet Julie, she's a frustrated temp-to-perm secretary who slaves away at a thankless job, only to return to an equally demoralizing apartment in the outer boroughs of Manhattan each evening. At the urging of Eric, her devoted and slightly geeky husband, she decides to start a blog that will chronicle what she dubs the "Julie/Julia Project." What follows is a year of butter-drenched meals that will both necessitate the wearing of an unbearably uncomfortable girdle on the hottest night of the year, as well as the realization that life is what you make of it and joy is not as impossible a quest as it may seem, even when it's -10 degrees out and your pipes are frozen.
Powell is a natural when it comes to connecting with her readers, which is probably why her blog generated so much buzz, both from readers and media alike. And while her self-deprecating sense of humor can sometimes dissolve into whininess, she never really loses her edge, or her sense of purpose. Even on day 365, she's working her way through Mayonnaise Collee and ending the evening "back exactly where we started--just Eric and me, three cats and Buffy...sitting on a couch in the outer boroughs, eating, with Julia chortling alongside us...." Inspired and encouraging, Julie and Julia is a unique opportunity to join one woman's attempt to change her life, and have a laugh, or ten, along the way. --Gisele Toueg

[Michelle]

I've been looking around for something that will be an interesting read, and spark some discussion.. and am struggling! So keep the idea coming.. we have to get a vote set up soon.

[Kell]

I have another nomination: Lovely Green Eyes by Arnost Lustig
Fifteen-year-old Hanka Kaudersova has ginger hair and clear, green eyes. When her family is deported to Auschwitz, her mother, father and younger brother are sent to the gas chamber. By a twist of fate, Hanka is faced with a simple alternative: follow her family, or work in as SS brothel behind the eastern front. She chooses to live, her Aryan looks allowing her to disguise the fact that she is Jewish. As the German army retreats from the Russian front, Hanka battles cold, hunger, fear and shame, sustained by her hatred for the men she entertains, her friendship with the mysterious Estelle, and her fierce, burning desire for life. "Lovely Green Eyes" explores the compromises and sacrifices that an individual may make in order to survive, the way a woman can retain her identity in the face of appalling trauma, and the value of human life itself. This is a remarkable novel, which soars beyond nightmare, leaving the reader with a transcendent sense of hope.

I actually already have a copy that I picked up very cheaply in Ottakars & it looks very interesting - could be a real discussion-starter... Have just realised I've gone for another one set during wartime!

[Lilywhite]

I'm sure I tried to swap this one a while back. Sounds very interesting so I will second that nomination.

[Sarahrob]

...ooo...staying with the theme of remembrance, but taking it from a different angle, theres a book that I've been meaning to read for a really long time - 'Maus' by Art Spiegelman. It's actually a graphic novel, so I imagine different to what most people are used to, but the people I know that have read this have been really touched by the story.


I remember reading this book - it is incredible. It is a book that will stay with you for years.

[pontalba]

dogmatix
Your suggestion made me think and remember I'd heard a bio of Child was or had come out, anyway it has come out, and sounds delightful.
Here is the Amazon link. http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-France-Julia-Child/dp/1400043468/sr=1-1/qid=1161094708/ref=sr_1_1/104-2475307-4591139?ie=UTF8&s=books
And synopsis.. From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. With Julia Child's death in 2004 at age 91, her grandnephew Prud'homme (The Cell Game) completed this playful memoir of the famous chef's first, formative sojourn in France with her new husband, Paul Child, in 1949. The couple met during WWII in Ceylon, working for the OSS, and soon after moved to Paris, where Paul worked for the U.S. Information Service. Child describes herself as a "rather loud and unserious Californian," 36, six-foot-two and without a word of French, while Paul was 10 years older, an urbane, well-traveled Bostonian. Startled to find the French amenable and the food delicious, Child enrolled at the Cordon Bleu and toiled with increasing zeal under the rigorous tutelage of éminence grise Chef Bugnard. "Jackdaw Julie," as Paul called her, collected every manner of culinary tool and perfected the recipes in her little kitchen on rue de l'Université ("Roo de Loo"). She went on to start an informal school with sister gourmandes Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, who were already at work on a French cookbook for American readers, although it took Child's know-how to transform the tome—after nine years, many title changes and three publishers—into the bestselling Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961). This is a valuable record of gorgeous meals in bygone Parisian restaurants, and the secret arts of a culinary genius. Photos. First serial in the New York Times Magazine and Bon Appétit. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

It certainly sounds interesting to me. :)

[Gyre]

Maus: A Survivor's Tale sounds interesting and something I would enjoy reading.

All the other suggestions are great too, I will read anything!

:mrgreen:

[pontalba]

Kell,
Can you add My Life in France the Julia Child Bio to the November list, or was there a reason not to?
I do see I forgot to put the name in the nomination, but it was in the link, so I am sorry about that.

[Michelle]

We choose 3 or 4 from the nominations.. I believe Kell chose the ones that had been seconded this time. You're very welcome to nominate it again another month. :)

[Kell]

That was exactly what I did, Michelle - it was tough to choose anyway as they all sounded so interesting. By all means, please do nomminate it again for another month - it's happened before that one that just missed the cut got renominated & chosen the next time!:mrgreen: