January 2008 - Nominations

[Kell]

Time to start thinking about the first Reading Circle of the New Year - yes, it's time to start thinking about what you'd like to read and discuss in January 2008!

The nominations thread will remain open till the evening of Monday 17 December, after which a selection will be chosen for the poll.

Let the nominations begin!

~~*~~
- Please only make nominations and seconds here, rather than discussing the books nominated or going off-topic.

- Bear in mind that having hundreds of nominations makes it more difficult, so please limit yourself to a maximum of two nominations per person, although you can second as many as you like.

- Please also remember to post a synopsis of the books you nominate as it helps people to know what they're seconding!

- Please make sure the books you nominate are available in paperback (as we don't want to make it prohibitively expensive for members to take part in the reading circle).

- If the book you're nominating is part of a series, please make sure it is either the first one or a stand-alone (or the sequel to one already read by the reading circle).

~~*~~
Nominations:
The Human Stain by Philip Roth
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos De Laclos
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Out by Natsuo Kirino
Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein
The Collector by John Fowles
Bitter Is The New Black by Jen Lancaster

[Kell]

My two nominations to get the ball rolling are:

The Human Stain by Philip Roth:
Coleman Silk has a secret. But it's not the secret of his affair, at seventy-one, with a woman half his age. And it's not the secret of his alleged racism, which provoked the college witchhunt that cost him his job. Coleman's secret is deeper, and lies at the very core of who he is, and he has kept it hidden from everyone for fifty years. Set in 1998, with the backdrop of the impeachment of a president, "The Human Stain" shows us an America where conflicting moralities and ideological divisions result in public denunciations and houndings, and where innocence is not always a good enough excuse.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos De Laclos:
Published in 1782, just years before the French Revolution, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" is a disturbing and ultimately damning portrayal of a decadent society. At its centre are two aristocrats, former lovers, who embark on a sophisticated game of seduction and manipulation to bring amusement to their jaded existences. While the Marquise de Merteuil challenges the Vicomte de Valmont to seduce an innocent convent girl, the Vicomte is also occupied with the conquest of a virtuous married woman. But as their intrigues become more duplicitous and they find their human pawns responding in ways they could not have predicted, the consequences prove to be more serious, and deadly, than Merteuil and Valmont could have guessed.

[FishAndChips]

I'm pretty sure it's been nominated before but I'd like to give this one another chance at the vote

The Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Some books defy categorisation: Life of Pi, the second novel from Canadian writer Yann Martel, is a case in point: just about the only thing you can say for certain about it is that it is fiercely and admirably unique. The plot, if that’s the right word, concerns the oceanic wanderings of a lost boy, the young and eager Piscine Patel of the title (Pi). After a colourful and loving upbringing in gorgeously-hued India, the Muslim-Christian-animistic Pi sets off for a fresh start in Canada. His blissful voyage is rudely interrupted when his boat is scuppered halfway across the Pacific, and he is forced to rough it in a lifeboat with a hyena, a monkey, a whingeing zebra and a tiger called Richard. That would be bad enough, but from here on things get weirder: the animals start slaughtering each other in a veritable frenzy of allegorical bloodlust, until Richard the tiger and Pi are left alone to wander the wastes of ocean, with plenty of time to ponder their fate, the cruelty of the gods, the best way to handle storms and the various different recipes for oothappam, scrapple and coconut yam kootu. The denouement is pleasantly neat. According to the blurb, thirtysomething Yann Martel spent long years in Alaska, India, Mexico, France, Costa Rica, Turkey and Iran, before settling in Canada. All those cultures and more have been poured into this spicy, vivacious, kinetic and very entertaining fiction.

[angerball]

Once again, I'd like to nominate:

Out by Natsuo Kirino:
Four women who work the night shift in a Tokyo factory that produces boxed lunches find their lives twisted beyond repair in this grimly compelling crime novel, which won Japan's top mystery award, the Grand Prix, for its already heralded author, now making her first appearance in English. Despite the female bonding, this dark, violent novel is more evocative of Gogol or Dostoyevsky than Thelma and Louise. When Yayoi, the youngest and prettiest of the women, strangles her philandering gambler husband with his own belt in an explosion of rage, she turns instinctively for help to her co-worker Masako, an older and wiser woman whose own family life has fallen apart in less dramatic fashion. To help her cut up and get rid of the dead body, Masako recruits Yoshie and Kuniko, two fellow factory workers caught up in other kinds of domestic traps. In Snyder's smoothly unobtrusive translation, all of Kirino's characters are touching and believable. And even when the action stretches to include a slick loan shark from Masako's previous life and a pathetically lost and lonely man of mixed Japanese and Brazilian parentage, the gritty realism of everyday existence in the underbelly of Japan's consumer society comes across with pungent force.

[Spooncat]

I will second Life Of Pi - :mrgreen:

[Kell]

Once again, I'd like to second Out by Natsuo Kirino (I had a feeling you'd re-nominate that one, Angerball ;) ).

[angerball]

Once again, I'd like to second Out by Natsuo Kirino (I had a feeling you'd re-nominate that one, Angerball ;) ).

:lol: I'm going to keep re-nominating it for as long as it takes. :lol:

[SteffieB]

Ooh...I second Out.

[Pilgrim]

Job: A Comedy of Justice - Robert A. Heinlein

After he firewalked in Polynesia, the world wasn't the same for Alexander Hergensheimer, now called Alec Graham. As natural accidents occurred without cease, Alex knew Armageddon and the Day of Judgement were near. Somehow he had to bring his beloved heathen, Margrethe, to a state of grace, and, while he was at it, save the rest of the world ...

[Spooncat]

I nominate The Collector by John Fowles

"A singularly skilled first novel, original in its conception and unnervingly acute in its observation of an obsession. It is the story of a kidnapping- a nutty clerk captures and holds the art student he has become fixated upon, and there follows a fiendish interplay of sanity and insanity, the contest of minds wihtout a meeting point."

Its gripping stuff from start to end! :mrgreen:

[lovesreading06]

I would like to second or third these two

The Life of Pi - Yann Martel

Out by Natsuo Kirino:

[Adam]

I will fourth The Life of Pi :)

[Kylie]

Another vote for Life of Pi here!

[Deirdre]

As a newbee I would like to vote for Out.

[Kell]

We're just doing the nominations at the moment, Deirdre, but those books that get multiple "seconds" are more likely to get put into the poll (which will run for a week). It's increasingly looking like Ot will be one of those in the mix. It was popular last time it was nminated too, but got pipped to the post in the end...

[Deirdre]

Oops sorry, I will save my vote until its definitely nominated then.:blush:

[angerball]

^ I commend you on your future vote! ;)

[jenmck]

I'd like to do "Out" too.

I'll nominate one just for the heck of it.

"Bitter Is The New Black" by Jen Lancaster (http://www.amazon.com/Bitter-New-Black-Condescending-Self-Centered/dp/B000O17CZG/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197859472&sr=8-1)

Jen Lancaster was living the sweet life-until real life kicked her to the curb.

She had the perfect man, the perfect job-hell, she had the perfect life-and there was no reason to think it wouldn't last. Or maybe there was, but Jen Lancaster was too busy being manicured, pedicured, highlighted, and generally adored to notice.

This is the smart-mouthed, soul-searching story of a woman trying to figure out what happens next when she's gone from six figures to unemployment checks and she stops to reconsider some of the less-than-rosy attitudes and values she thought she'd never have to answer for when times were good.

Filled with caustic wit and unusual insight, it's a rollicking read as speedy and unpredictable as the trajectory of a burst balloon.
I know. I loved this book though.

[Kell]

This thread now closed - please cast your vote on the poll thread. :)