November 2104 Group Read Nominations

[Doug, Co-moderator]

Nominations are open for what the group should read in November. Continuing our alternating schedule, this is a legal-related month. So the book should address a legal topic, or lawyers, or law school.

[Doug, Co-moderator]

The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps

Maps have long exerted a special fascination on viewers—both as beautiful works of art and as practical tools to navigate the world. But to those who collect them, the map trade can be a cutthroat business, inhabited by quirky and sometimes disreputable characters in search of a finite number of extremely rare objects. Once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley spent years doubling as a map thief —until he was finally arrested slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library. The Map Thief delves into the untold history of this fascinating high-stakes criminal and the inside story of the industry that consumed him.

[wonderwomand]

The map thief sounds interesting.

[Paul]

Hello All - Pardon the lack of humility, but would like to nominate my own new book, Law of the Jungle, which comes out tomorrow from Crown. It's a fast paced non-fiction narrative about how the legal fight against oil pollution in the rainforests of Ecuador went very wrong. Recent reviews in San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/R...
Dallas Morning News
http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainme...
and Kirkus (starred review)
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...

[wonderwomand]

Thank you. I will look for your book at the bookstore and at the library.

[Casey]

I nominate The Oath: The Obama White House and The Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin.

From the moment John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States, blundered through the Oath of Office at Barack Obama's inauguration, the relationship between the Supreme Court and the White House has been confrontational. Both men are young, brilliant, charismatic, charming, determined to change the course of the nation—and completely at odds on almost every major constitutional issue. One is radical; one essentially conservative. The surprise is that Obama is the conservative—a believer in incremental change, compromise, and pragmatism over ideology. Roberts—and his allies on the Court—seek to overturn decades of precedent: in short, to undo the ultimate victory FDR achieved in the New Deal.
This ideological war will crescendo during the 2011-2012 term, in which several landmark cases are on the Court's docket—most crucially, a challenge to Obama's controversial health-care legislation. With four new justices joining the Court in just five years, including Obama's appointees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, this is a dramatically—and historically—different Supreme Court, playing for the highest of stakes.
No one is better positioned to chronicle this dramatic tale than Jeffrey Toobin, whose prize-winning bestseller The Nine laid bare the inner workings and conflicts of the Court in meticulous and entertaining detail. As the nation prepares to vote for President in 2012, the future of the Supreme Court will also be on the ballot.

[Doug, Co-moderator]

Paul and Robert -

Both of your books were nominated last month and neither gathered any votes, so we are not going to include them in the selection poll. If a particular book received at least 25% of the vote but does not win during a selection period, that book will automatically be nominated at the next cycle for its category.

[Doug, Co-moderator]

Pure democracy. You were nominated. People voted. You didn't win.

I welcome thoughts from the group on how often authors should be able to re-nominate their own book. Should the waiting period for renomination be a few months?

[Casey]

Part of me thinks you shouldn't be allowed to nominate your own book at all... but if it is allowed, I say the waiting period should be 3-6 months.

[Julie]

I think the current 25% rule Doug stated is okay. I appreciate that writers can nominate their own works. Heck, if I ever write a book, I would like to be able to promote in this manner.

Actually, a lot of the self-nominated books are things I'd like to read, eventually.

I enjoy learning about these new authors, but perhaps if they received zero votes the previous month, then ask them to abstain from nominating themselves in just the next month (which is what I understand Doug may be saying)? They could resubmit self-nomination after skipping that next month. So, in essence, they could self-nominate as frequently as every other month.

Thanks to the moderators for soliciting feedback. That's democratic, imo.

And Robert, so tempting, but I will not succumb to taking the thread off topic into politics. Please save that talk for a book discussion on that topic.

[wonderwomand]

Thank you

[Doug, Co-moderator]

Last call for nominations. I'm setting a deadline for the last minute of September.

At this point, there are two nominations: The Map Thief and The Oath.