August Open Pick Nominations Are Open

[Whitney]

Time to nominate books for the August Open Pick. Nomination will stay open for 1 week.

The usual rules: one nomination per person, a work of fiction published in the 21st century, books that are overly genre or fail to meet the group standards of literary quality may be disqualified.

Okay, go!

[Lily]

Okay, time to nominate something once again. Here's one a couple of respected readers in my circle of online and not online friends have told me is a "must" read:

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

I know one of you "leading edge" readers already nominated it awhile back. Hopefully, it is widely enough recognized by now to have a chance this month.

(The Kindle edition is currently available at $2.99. I don't know for how long.)

[Marc]

Ferrante's name keeps popping up in the last few months and I've yet to read any of her work, so thank you for nominating this one, Lily!

[LindaJ^]

I will once again nominate All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu. I have now read it and loved it.

[Caroline]

Linda wrote: "I will once again nominate All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu. I have now read it and loved it."

Hooray! I'm still dying to read it.

[Zulfiya]

I wish we could read A Little Life, but it is way too big for a monthly read, so instead I would like to nominate A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

[Whitney]

Nominations closing soon if anyone has anymore to add.

[Peter]

I'm going to nominate Glow again -- Beauman has style and a wicked sense of humor.

[Casceil]

I nominate The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright.

[Whitney]

Okay, the nominations are closed, and the poll will be up for a week. From this link or from the homepage:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

[Whitney]

And for those who missed it, the wild card pick for July is In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente. For those who have never read her, you're in for a treat. She is a poet as well as a novelist, and it shows in her prose.

[Whitney]

The poll will end tomorrow. The race is close.

Get any last minute votes or traitorous vote changes in now!

[Whitney]

We have a tie! I will post a run-off pole which will be open for 3 days to pick between My Brilliant Friend and All Our Names. Campaigning for your preferred book is perfectly acceptable. Should there still be a tie, the moderators will decide using their collective wisdom and insight. Or possibly they will flip a coin. The new poll can be found here or from the homepage.

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

Speaking of moderators, the Moderator Choice for August is The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany. And don't forget our July reads, starting any minute now!

[Lily]

Whitney wrote: "Speaking of moderators, the Moderator Choice for August is The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany...."

Does it work to put The Yacoubian Building on the "to read" list on the book shelf? Just now I wanted to figure out what books were coming up on this board, and I went first to check the book shelf.

[Whitney]

Lily wrote: "Whitney wrote: "Speaking of moderators, the Moderator Choice for August is The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany...."

Does it work to put The Yacoubian Building on the "to read" l..."

We just decided on the book yesterday.

1. The mods have jobs, families and personal issues of their own to deal with, and can't always do things right away.

2. I'm waiting for the results of the runoff poll which will be over TOMORROW so I can update the bookshelf with both books at once.

[Lily]

Whitney wrote: "...I'm waiting for the results of the runoff poll which will be over TOMORROW so I can update the bookshelf with both books at once...."

[g] Needn't get defensive, Whitney! I thought there was probably some funky reason that it might not be feasible to put future selected to-reads on the bookshelf for the group. I had some vague memory of having some similar problem a year or so ago with a board I moderate. But things about how bookshelves work seem to keep shifting.

Much thanks to you and all the moderators for all you do to keep this board functional and active. Many days, I can't believe how many books you all juggle at the same time, including the time to collude on the moderator choice, let alone the specials.

I found the information. Still, with the holiday here in the U.S., I missed the opening hours of our local library for the three-day long weekend. :-( I forgot they are closed today instead of Monday.

[Whitney]

I didn't mean to sound defensive. I meant to sound annoyed.

[Lily]

Whitney wrote: "I didn't mean to sound defensive. I meant to sound annoyed."

Your choice, Whitney. As our emotions are for each of us. I 'm sorry if either seemed necessary or needed.

[Whitney]

We have a winner! The open pick choice for August after a close race is My Brilliant Friend. Lily, as the nominator, would you like to moderate?

[Lily]

Whitney wrote: "We have a winner! The open pick choice for August after a close race is My Brilliant Friend. Lily, as the nominator, would you like to moderate?"

Thank you, Whitney. As usual, I prefer not to moderate, although I'll certainly be an active contributor. I'm about a quarter of the way through the novel and will be very interested in this group considering the pull of this story and the ways in which Ferrante presents it.

Ferrante holds that "books, once they are written, have no need of their authors." (from her Goodreads page)

To those of you who voted in the run-off:

Although I confuse it with by , which I have on my Kindle, but have not read, to those of you who voted for by , if you nominate it again and it is selected, I shall get a copy and join you. It was hard to stay focused on what I had started, with the strong choices offered.

[LindaJ^]

Lily wrote: "Although I confuse it with by , which I have on my Kindle, but have not read, to those of you who voted for by , if you nominate it again and it is selected, I shall get a copy and join you. It was hard to stay focused on what I had started, with the strong choices offered.

I won't be nominating All Our Names again. Primarily because, on the off chance it might win, I will be traveling most of September and not able to participate much during the month. I read We Need New Names immediately after and can assure you they are very different, although both address the African dyaspora. I much preferred All Our Names.

[Lily]

Linda wrote: " I read We Need New Names immediately after and can assure you they are very different, although both address the African dyaspora. I much preferred All Our Names. ..."

Thanks for the feedback, Linda.

[Lily]

Lily wrote: "Thank you, Whitney. As usual, I prefer not to moderate, although I'll certainly be an active contributor...."

I will have limited PC/Internet access during the opening salvos on My Brilliant Friend, but I will be back.

(Don't miss the character lists/charts in the beginning of the book. I did and they would have helped a lot. A Kindle edition may open beyond them, but they are there. Look for them.)

[Marc]

Lily wrote: "Lily wrote: "Thank you, Whitney. As usual, I prefer not to moderate, although I'll certainly be an active contributor...."

I will have limited PC/Internet access during the opening salvos on [book..."

We'll keep an open seat waiting for you, Lily :-)

[Lily]

Marc wrote: "We'll keep an open seat waiting..."

Thx, Marc! With you (?) moderating, the discussion is certain to get off to a good start as you all take to the streets of Naples with these "friends" and otherwise.

[Lily]

Naples

Panoramas of some sites: http://www.italyguides.it/en/campania... (Also has a map, but I haven't tried matching it with our text to know how useful it is.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naples -- has a map showing the districts of Naples

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/italy/cam... Gallery has numerous images of the city (100?)

Google has much more. I haven't matched photography with text at this point. Would enjoy what others might find.

[Caroline]

Discussion threads for My Brilliant Friend and The Yacoubian Building are now up!

My Brilliant Friend: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

The Yacoubian Building: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...