Group Reads -> January 2020 -> Nomination thread (A nautical book won by Typhoon by Joseph Conrad)

[Nigeyb]

Thanks Val


If you and Brian both participate in our Typhoon discussion thread it should be very informed

I am really looking forward to it

[Nigeyb]

Last few hours before the poll closes....


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

[Nigeyb]

Its official.....


Joseph Conrad's Typhoon has won our poll



I'll do all the admin soon

Thanks to everyone who nominated, discussed, and voted. Here's to a great discussion in January 2020.


The accompanying mod read will be....

Lusitania: Triumph, Tragedy, and the End of the Edwardian Age by Greg King

Some of us have already read this book so, if you prefer, you can read a Lusitania book of your choice

The blurb...

On the 100th Anniversary of its sinking, King and Wilson tell the story of the Lusitania's glamorous passengers and the torpedo that ended an era and prompted the US entry into World War I.
Lusitania: She was a ship of dreams, carrying millionaires and aristocrats, actresses and impresarios, writers and suffragettes – a microcosm of the last years of the waning Edwardian Era and the coming influences of the Twentieth Century. When she left New York on her final voyage, she sailed from the New World to the Old; yet an encounter with the machinery of the New World, in the form of a primitive German U-Boat, sent her – and her gilded passengers – to their tragic deaths and opened up a new era of indiscriminate warfare.

A hundred years after her sinking, Lusitania remains an evocative ship of mystery. Was she carrying munitions that exploded? Did Winston Churchill engineer a conspiracy that doomed the liner? Lost amid these tangled skeins is the romantic, vibrant, and finally heartrending tale of the passengers who sailed aboard her. Lives, relationships, and marriages ended in the icy waters off the Irish Sea; those who survived were left haunted and plagued with guilt. Now, authors Greg King and Penny Wilson resurrect this lost, glittering world to show the golden age of travel and illuminate the most prominent of Lusitania's passengers. Rarely was an era so glamorous; rarely was a ship so magnificent; and rarely was the human element of tragedy so quickly lost to diplomatic maneuvers and militaristic threats.

[Susan]

Thanks, Nigeyb. Looking forward to both.

[Roman Clodia]

I've only read Conrad's Heart of Darkness so will be joining the reading of Typhoon. His prose style is stunning, even more so given that English was a second language.

[Jill]

I've also only read Heart of Darkness, so I will be joining in too.

[Pam]

I plan on participating! I haven’t read anything by Conrad yet but have The Secret Agent on tap for my next classic this year.

[Nigeyb]

My heart is warmed to discover so many of us will be participating in this discussion


The book is now on the group's bookshelf and the discussion thread is ready and locked, awaiting January 2020.

The same applies to a thread to discuss the Lusitania disaster. You can read any book about the sinking. The book attached to the thread is Lusitania: Triumph, Tragedy, and the End of the Edwardian Age. There are a plethora of other books on this fascinating event.

See you in January for more nautically themed book discussion

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

My library has the Lusitania title you mention. Not sure I'll get to it, but will see if I can find a place for it. Also on the subject is Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, which I read in 2015. Larson's style is some of the most readable nonfiction.

[Susan]

I enjoyed Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania Elizabeth. Might see if I can fit a re-read of that in, alongside the Greg King title.

[Jill]

Thanks Elizabeth I really liked Larson's The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, so I will try to get hold of Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

[Brian E]

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Also on the subject is Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania"

I also enjoyed that book and agree that he is very readable.
I attended a talk by Mr. Larson after he wrote The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America and found him fairly engaging and friendly afterwards. Those are the only two books by Larson that I've read.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

I have also read his Thunderstruck. He has a couple others I mean to get after.

[Jill]

I did get Thunderstruck when I got White City , but to be honest I forgot about it.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Jill wrote: "I did get Thunderstruck when I got White City , but to be honest I forgot about it."

It was a crime I didn't know about. But then I didn't know about the crimes at the time of the Chicago World's Fair either. The Marconi parallel story is also interesting.

[Roman Clodia]

On Conrad, there's a short but vivid portrait of him in Javier Marias' Written Lives, a book full of idiosyncratic, affectionate mini biogs of writers. I love that Conrad annexed his bathroom to write in for a week... leaving his wife and children very disconcerted!