Group Read -> October 2018 -> Nomination thread (A book about the 1970s won by 'Instructions for a Heatwave')

[Nigeyb]

Pollwatch @ 6 August 2018 - wide open at the top....


Instructions for a Heatwave (Judy) 4 votes, 30.8%
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (Roman Clodia) 3 votes, 23.1%
Quartet in Autumn (Pamela) 2 votes, 15.4%
1971 - Never a Dull Moment: Rock's Golden Year (Nigeyb) 1 vote, 7.7%
Troubles (Susan) 1 vote, 7.7%
The Periodic Table (Haaze) 1 vote, 7.7%
A Dry White Season (Elizabeth) 1 vote, 7.7%

[Hugh]

I was going to vote for Troubles, but having seen the brilliant Angela Carter documentary on Saturday I would love to see a debate on The Bloody Chamber.

[Susan]

I have recorded the Angela Carter documentary, Hugh.

[Roman Clodia]

I'd missed that but see it's on iplayer so must catch up - I know hardly anything about Carter other than her brilliant writing and her early death.

[Hugh]

There were some great clips of her appearances on book discussion programs - she certainly spoke her mind (and had a great sense of mischief)! It made me want to reread all of the Carter books I read when I was much younger, particularly the last two novels. And I must read The Sadeian Woman....

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

I started Carter's Wise Children, and got quite far into it before abandoning it. She's just not for me.

But one of the reasons I was so keen to read her were her comments about Pat Barker's debut, Union Street. quoted in Barker's Wikipedia article 'Carter liked the book, telling Barker "if they can't sympathise with the women you're creating, then sod their fucking luck," ...' Yes, Hugh, she is definitely outspoken. However, I think Barker is the better writer.

[Hugh]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "However, I think Barker is the better writer. "
We'll have to agree to differ on that one! I like Barker, but Carter was unique and far more innovative.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Hugh wrote: "Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "However, I think Barker is the better writer. "
We'll have to agree to differ on that one! I like Barker, but Carter was unique and far more innovative."

Perhaps I should have said "Barker is the better writer for me." I don't do well with satire, which I'm sure was the point of Wise Children.

[Roman Clodia]

I love them both but they're very different so comparisons might not be helpful. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories isn't satire but does rework fairy tales from all kinds of angles: some are hugely, cleverly funny, others expose the patriarchal assumptions which underpin the stories.

[Hugh]

Wise Children was so complex and inventive that it is hard to pigeonhole - yes it did have elements of satire and bawdy humour but there was much more to it than that. Having said that, it is a long time since I read it and I might feel differently about it now.

Her early 70s books (The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman and The Passion of New Eve) are very surreal and I found them difficult to follow, but the documentary helped my understanding of those by talking about the two years Carter spent in Japan before writing them. Carter was also ahead of her time in many respects, and very influential.

I agree with RC that Barker is so different that the comparison is unfair.

[Nigeyb]

I rewatched the film version of The Company of Wolves a few weeks back. It has not aged well. It was the first time I'd seen it, though remember the film coming out in the mid 80s.

[Susan]

Although it seems that David Hepworth's 1971 will not win the poll this month, I was thrilled to see a new book by him, due out in November.

Nothing is Real: The Beatles Were Underrated And Other Sweeping Statements About Pop

Pop music’s a simple pleasure. Is it catchy? Can you dance to it? Do you fancy the singer?

What’s fascinating about pop is our relationship with it. This relationship gets more complicated the longer it goes on. It’s been going on now for 50 years.

David Hepworth is interested in the human side of pop. He’s interested in how people make the stuff and, more importantly, what it means to us.

In this wide-ranging collection of essays, he shows how it is possible to take music seriously and, at the same time, not drain the life out of it. From the legacy of the Beatles to the dramatic decline of the record shop, from top tips for bands starting out to the bewildering nomenclature of musical genres, with characteristic insight and humour, he explores the highways and byways of this vast multiverse where Nothing Is Real and yet it is, emphatically and intrinsically so. Along the way he asks some essential questions about music and about life: is it all about the drummer; are band managers misunderstood; and is it appropriate to play ‘Angels’ at funerals?

As Pope John Paul II said ‘of all the unimportant things, football is the most important’. David Hepworth believes the same to be true of music and this selection of his best writing, covering the music of last fifty years, shows you precisely why.

Pre-Ordered!

[Roman Clodia]

I've just watched the Angela Carter documentary - it's wonderful! Thanks for mentioning it Hugh.

[Jan C]

I didn't know the polls had opened. No email alert. And I didn't notice any new comments on the topic.

[Susan]

Some people dislike email alerts, Jan. Sorry you missed the poll opening - we do post dates at the top of the thread, but I agree that it is easy to miss these things. However, lots of time to vote and, luckily, you are a frequent poster - I know we always appreciate you posting kindle offers on this group and on Detectives :)

[Jan C]

Well, I usually get an alert when anyone makes a comment. That's the only reason I was surprised.

[Susan]

I like your vote, Jan :)

[Haaze]

Nigeyb wrote: "Haaze - you're back. Hurrah!


Thanks for your 11th hour nomination"


:)

[Nigeyb]

If I'd have thought about it in time I would have nominated...


The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury

I've never read it but vividly remember the 1970s BBC TV adaptation which enthralled me as a kid

Howard Kirk is the trendiest of radical tutors at a fashionable university campus. A self-appointed revolutionary hero, Howard always comes out on top. And Malcolm Bradbury dissects him in this savagely funny novel that has been universally acclaimed as one of the masterpieces of the decade.

Wikipedia page....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_His...

It outraged moralists and feminists, but Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man was one of the most influential novels of the 1970s. David Lodge hails a modern classic

Concluding paragraph...

It is hard to disentangle the reception of the novel from the reception of the television version, but one good effect of the latter was to prompt many more people to read the former, and to establish it firmly as a modern classic. The counterculture radicalism which the novel anatomised is now itself history, as is (in Britain at least) the right-wing radicalism which superseded it. But today there are new forms of radicalism, fundamentalisms of various kinds, and The History Man is still relevant, warning of what can happen when, in the words of WB Yeats, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...

[Susan]

Haven't read, or seen, it, Nigeyb, but it looks great. I have always meant and, never got around to, David Lodge either. Will put both on my TBR list - love the cover of the Picador Classic edition.

The History Man: Picador Classic

[Judy]

I mentioned earlier that I nearly nominated that one, Nigeyb, because I think it's a quintessentially 1970s book - I read it at the time and also saw the TV version. That cover looks a bit like the actor who played the character in the TV adaptation.

[Susan]

It's looking like Instructions for a Heatwave, which I am looking forward to re-visiting, Judy.

[Judy]

Looks like it so far! :) Some great nominations all round this month - I do fancy the music book about 1971 even though it is at the bottom at the moment...

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

I will gladly find a place for Heatwave, having already found a place for Andre Brink.

[Susan]

I might try to squeeze 1971 - Never a Dull Moment: Rock's Golden Year in during our Seventies month. If anyone else fancies reading it, I will set it up as a buddy read? Even though we do have an 'extra,' Halloween Buddy Read for you all already, which we will reveal when we announce the Mod-Led read :)

This month, I managed to read Bertie: A Life of Edward VII which never did anything in the 1900's vote, but which I really enjoyed.

[Nigeyb]

I'd love to read '1971' so will try to fit in with those timings Susan.

[Susan]

Hurrah! Let's have some Hepworth in October :)David Hepworth

[Judy]

Sounds great, 1971 was probably when I started to
love music!

[Susan]

I think I was probably interested from about 1973, when I was 7, but I love that era and I love David Hepworth's books.

[Nigeyb]

Looking very good for Instructions for a Heatwave however there's still a few hours to vote/change your vote.....


Instructions for a Heatwave 6 votes, 31.6%
Troubles 3 votes, 15.8%
Quartet in Autumn 3 votes, 15.8%
A Dry White Season 3 votes, 15.8%
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories 3 votes, 15.8%
The Periodic Table 1 vote, 5.3%
1971 - Never a Dull Moment: Rock's Golden Year 0 votes, 0.0%

#pollwatch

[Susan]

Spoilt for choice this month :)

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

I have already ordered a copy of Heatwave!

[Nigeyb]

Great news Elizabeth. It should be a popular choice and a great discussion.

[Nigeyb]

Just to confirm - our October 2018 read will be 'Instructions for a Heatwave'


Hurrah

Sophisticated, intelligent, impossible to put down, Maggie O'Farrell's beguiling novels blend richly textured psychological drama with page-turning suspense. Instructions for a Heatwave finds her at the top of her game, with a novel about a family crisis set during the legendary British heatwave of 1976.

Sophisticated, intelligent, impossible to put down, Maggie O'Farrell's beguiling novels - After You'd Gone, winner of a Betty Trask Award; The Distance Between Us, winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; The Hand That First Held Mine, winner of the Costa Novel Award; and her unforgettable bestseller The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - blend richly textured psychological drama with page-turning suspense. Instructions for a Heatwave finds her at the top of her game, with a novel about a family crisis set during the legendary British heatwave of 1976.

Gretta Riordan wakes on a stultifying July morning to find that her husband of forty years has gone to get the paper and vanished, cleaning out his bank account along the way. Gretta's three grown children converge on their parents' home for the first time in years: Michael Francis, a history teacher whose marriage is failing; Monica, with two stepdaughters who despise her and a blighted past that has driven away the younger sister she once adored; and Aoife, the youngest, now living in Manhattan, a smart, immensely resourceful young woman who has arranged her entire life to conceal a devastating secret.

Maggie O'Farrell writes with exceptional grace and sensitivity about marriage, about the mysteries that inhere within families, and the fault lines over which we build our lives—the secrets we hide from the people who know and love us best. In a novel that stretches from the heart of London to New York City's Upper West Side to a remote village on the coast of Ireland, O'Farrell paints a bracing portrait of a family falling apart and coming together with hard-won, life-changing truths about who they really are.

[Nigeyb]

Judy wrote: "Another book I kept wondering whether to nominate was The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury, because it is such a quintessentially 70s book, but then the summer weather sent me in a different direction."

Nigeyb wrote: "If I'd have thought about it in time I would have nominated The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury

I've never read it but vividly remember the 1970s BBC TV adaptation"

Having now started The History Man I've set up a thread for Mr B.....

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...