Themes and nominations for August

[Basil]

Hey everyone - we're ready to pick a new pair of books. Here are the themes for August: Mysticism and Time.

Please submit your suggestions here. Let us know which theme your nomination falls under. We'll have a vote soon!

[Brendan]

These themes seem quite vague, could you elaborate a bit?

[Basil]

Brendan wrote: "These themes seem quite vague, could you elaborate a bit?"

They're intentionally vague. For example. In my notes, I wrote "Time Travel", and then I thought, but what if there's an awesome book that uses time as a central theme but has nothing to do with time travel... Like Martin Amos's Time's ArrowTime's Arrow.

For the Time theme - time needs to be a pivotal element in the story, whether as a plot device, or as a major theme (passage of time, synchronicity) I think Cloud AtlasCloud Atlas would qualify for this theme, for example.

For the Mysticism theme, my thoughts ran along the lines of shamanism. We could look at books that have mystical, rather than science-based, magic. Say, magic that runs of spiritualism. Or books that have central characters who are mystics. At the heart of mysticism is the idea that there is a Big Truth that is concealed from conventional knowability. The mystic is the one who seeks to learn that truth.

[John]

Hmm...I am planning on reading The Boat of a Million Years, which I think would be a great choice for the Time theme...however I am not planning on reading it until around October or November, so I'd have to come into the discussion late. If that's OK I'd like to nominate it.

[Basil]

That's why we have 3-month shelf-lives for our picks!

[Rich]

Nominating Self-Reference ENGINE for the time theme, I read it earlier this year and it's a total mind bender, so I'd love to see everyone else's opinion of it, and it would definitely benefit from a second run through. It would be a spoiler to say how time is part of the theme, but it works itself in there in quite a few ways.

[Kelsey]

I've been planning on reading Jo Walton's Lifelode since I found it at a used book store, and I gather that it has something to do with time, but I'm not sure to what extent. So I would hesitate to nominate it unless someone else could vouch for its suitability. And I know we're already reading Walton with The Just City.

Nothing for Mysticism yet? Bother.