March Open Pick Nomination

[Whitney]

It's that time again! Please make any nominations you have for the March Open Pick here. Nominations will be open for a week before the poll goes up. The usual rules: books must be works of fiction originally published from 2000-2015. Selections that are overly genre or fail to meet the group standards of literary quality will not be permitted in the final poll. One nomination per customer, and please provide a GR link to the book.

[Zulfiya]

History of the Rain by Niall Williams

[Caroline]

Are short story collections allowed? If so, I nominate The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel. I saw some folks were discussing Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies recently, which reminded me that Mantel had released this collection last year. I'm eager to read it and would enjoy some company while reading it!

[Lily]

Caroline wrote: "Are short story collections allowed? ..."

Absolutely, so long as it meets the "literary" criteria. A scan of previous reads will show Munro's Dear Life: Stories and Saunders's Tenth of December (May, 2014) and probably others, certainly accepted for the polls. (For some reason, I don't find Saunders on the bookshelf, which I am told is supposed to include all past reads?)

[Violet]

I'd like to vote for one that almost made it in February Euphoria if that's allowed.

[Whitney]

Violet wrote: "I'd like to vote for one that almost made it in February Euphoria if that's allowed."

Yep. Previous nominations are always allowed. Some books have won through sheer persistence!

[Maureen]

Whitney wrote: "Violet wrote: "I'd like to vote for one that almost made it in February Euphoria if that's allowed."

Yep. Previous nominations are always allowed. Some books have won through sheer..."

I once again echo Violet's vote for Euphoria.

[Lily]

Euphoria by Lily King was selected as one of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2014. Part of the review: "“Euphoria” is a meticulously researched homage to Mead’s restless mind and a considered portrait of Western anthropology in its primitivist heyday. It’s also a taut, witty, fiercely intelligent tale of competing egos and desires in a landscape of exotic menace — a love triangle in extremis."

[Lily]

Lily wrote: "Euphoria by Lily King was selected as one of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2014. Part of the review: "“Euphoria” is a meticulously researched homage to Mead’s restless mind and ..."

I must admit a concern about the fictionalization of real lives that has become such a part of current writing. This is not a statement against this book -- I may vote for it. But, if chosen, I hope we can explore in a bit of depth the pros and cons and why we think it is happening.

[Sarah]

Lily wrote: "Euphoria by Lily King was selected as one of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2014. Part of the review: "“Euphoria” is a meticulously researched homage to Mead’s restless mind and ..."

And I already have a library hold on it. It would be good timing. :)

I also struggle with fictionalizing real characters, or even events that real people are used in. I think I'll read Euphoria as if it's not real people and just pretend they're characters and I've never heard of them.

[Lily]

I'm not big either on books that fictionalize real people, but I'm willing to step out of my comfort zone for this one.

[Sarah]

I would like to nominate The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

[[deleted user]]

Have you read Joseph Boyden's work? Three Day Road and The Orenda are brilliant works based in Canada's 'first contact' years.

[Martin]

If the Prague Cemetery needs a seconder, count me in. May not be the very best Eco, but that still means better than just about everything else. Interesting to speculate why the device of the doppelganger that was used in The Island of the Day Before exercises a fascination for Eco. Ultimately this book, even if flawed has more of an emotional impact than the earlier novel.

[Martin]

Lily wrote: "Lily wrote: "Euphoria by Lily King was selected as one of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2014. Part of the review: "“Euphoria” is a meticulously researched homage to Mead’s restl..."
As I commented in my recent post about Hilary Mantel, prominent real characters give the author a chance to offer an internal life of a character that contrasts with what we think we know about them (as well as providing a ready made structure). It's an easy way to signal that what is going on may not be what the protagonist imagines - at best (at worst just lazy) and it may get a potential reader who is invested with an opinion about the characters portrayed hooked in, so effective marketing. I share a sense of unease about this, particularly in regard to the recently deceased or even living.

[Casceil]

I've read Euphoria, and I did not get the sense that it was seriously trying to be biographical. I took the story as fiction. Where the real people come in, I think, is that you needed some role model for people who had done what Margaret Mead and her colleagues did: going to remote places and living with native groups, all of which would seem highly improbable except that a few people really did it. I don't think the plot was based on real events. Maybe I'm wrong, but I would need to read more about Mead's actual life before I would put much faith in this book being true to things that actually happened. As Martin has suggested, comparing your fictional characters to real people who were very interesting is good marketing. By the way, I loved the book.

[Lily]

Julie wrote: "Have you read Joseph Boyden's work? Three Day Road and The Orenda are brilliant works based in Canada's 'first contact' years."

Are you nominating one of them? I haven't double checked, but I don't believe we have read either here. I don't find his name on the group bookshelf.

[[deleted user]]

Well, I've just joined so don't want to be presumptuous .. but if it is all right to nominate then I would pick Three Day Road for its soaring beauty.

[Sarah]

I just joined too, Julie. We can be presumptuous together ;)

[Lily]

Sarah wrote: "I just joined too, Julie. We can be presumptuous together ;)"

Both of you, please do! One of the wonders of online groups is the energy and knowledge brought to them, sometimes by new members, sometimes by old timers.

Don't despair, either, if a nomination is not chosen the first month suggested. We have seen belief in a book communicated by persistence, as Whitney commented (@6).

[Lily]

Despite how much moderators have tried to educate me, I haven't yet figured out how to use the bookshelf (or other methods) to determine (easily) if a book has been selected here before, so I'll nominate and let my fingers get slapped if it has already been chosen:

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

Although some excellent choices have already been nominated, I have personal reasons for soon discussing this one on-line (a f2f discussion in February). Since it is a Man-Booker winner and since the first pages have drawn me into this lengthy story, I am going to go ahead and nominate it, especially since March gives readers some time to tackle it. I am already intrigued that a 28-year old author is making some of the observations she is. I understand the book may get bogged down later on, so there is no intent to misrepresent. But, still, should be worthy of consideration. Please do! (If it is eligible for nomination.)

[Lily]

Okay, although a search of the bookshelf for The Luminaries left me confused, I just did a sort by author and found that it was discussed in May, 2014. Nomination withdrawn. Mea culpa.

[Sarah]

That looks absolutely amazing Lily!

[Casceil]

Here is a link to the discussion for Part One of the Luminaries. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
From there, you should be able to get to all of the topics about the Luminaries. From the linked Part one page, click on "5/14 The Luminaries" which appears in green (at least on my computer). That should take you to a list of all the discussion topics for the book.

[Sarah]

Thanks you Casceil. I definitely want to read that.

[Marc]

Lily wrote: "Okay, although a search of the bookshelf for The Luminaries left me confused, I just did a sort by author and found that it was discussed in May, 2014. Nomination withdrawn. Mea culpa."

Lily, I just went through all the discussions to make sure all those books are reflected on the group shelf--the only one missing from the group shelf was Tenth of December (which you previously mentioned not being on the shelf)--it has now been added.

A lot depends on what device you're using to browse the shelves (in terms of how easy it is to navigate). I usually click on the "title" column to sort them alphabetically, but I almost missed a few since GR lists everything with a "The" in the title under the "T" section.

Here's an alphabetical list of the 101 books the group has read thus far (including those planned for February 2015):
- 11/22/63 King, Stephen
- 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
- A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver
- A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
- American Gods by Neil Gaiman
- Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Arcadia by Lauren Groff
- Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
- Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
- City of Thieves by David Benioff
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- Cracks in the Invisible by Stephen Kampa
- Dear Life by Alice Munro
- Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser
- Different Hours by Stephen Dunn
- Dirt Music by Tim Winton
- Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos
- Empire Falls by Richard Russo
- Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story by D.T.Max
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
- Finding My Elegy by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Fire to Fire by Mark Doty
- Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
- Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru
- Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- HHhH by Laurent Binet
- Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins
- House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
- How to be both by Ali Smith
- Invisible by Paul Auster
- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
- Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann
- Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
- Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
- My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
- My Noiseless Entourage by Charles Simic
- Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil
- Nemesis by Philip Roth
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Night Film by Marisha Pessl
- NW by Zadie Smith
- Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
- Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
- Paperboy by Bob Thurber
- Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
- Provinces of Night by William Gay
- Reading Lolita in Tehran Nafisi, Azar
- Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
- Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee
- Space, in Chains by Laura Kasischke
- Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire
- Stag's Leap by Sharon Olds
- Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
- Tenth of December by George Saunders
- The Accidental by Ali Smith
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
- The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
- The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
- The Cave by José Saramago
- The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
- The Circle by Dave Eggers
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
- The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
- The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
- The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
- The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
- The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
- The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
- The Infatuations by Javier Marías
- The Islanders by Christopher Priest
- The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
- The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
- The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell
- The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
- The Master by Colm Tóibín
- The Mind-Body Problem by Katha Pollitt
- The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
- The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
- The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
- The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
- The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
- The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman
- The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín
- The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits
- The White Tiger Adiga, Aravind
- The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
- The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
- Time and Materials by Robert Hass
- Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
- Traveler of the Century by Andrés Neuman
- Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
- Vanishing Point by David Markson
- We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
- Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

[Whitney]

Um, wow - Impressive work, there!

[Violet]

Wish i had been around for some of those.

[Martin]

thanks for posting these. I've been away from it all for a while and recently rejoined so very interesting to see what i've missed and should catch up on. Some I've read and some are on a mental to do list. Is it easy to track back over what the group thought? For instance I don't get either Murakami ("churning it out" seems bang on to me) or Jonathan Frenzen. Both seem like very ordinary, not to say cliched, writers who are praised to the skies. Maybe some of the postings point to whatever i'm missing - I surely trust readers over critics in any case.

[Whitney]

Martin wrote: "thanks for posting these. I've been away from it all for a while and recently rejoined so very interesting to see what i've missed and should catch up on. Some I've read and some are on a mental to..."

Martin, you're always welcome and encouraged to read back over older posts and revive discussions. Unfortunately, you generally don't get the same level of response as during the 'official' discussion, but frequently people are happy to revisit topics and hear new ideas.

[Casceil]

Martin, you can reach any of the past discussions from the group home page by looking through the whole list of discussion topics. It runs more than one page, so when you get to bottom of the home page you have to click something like "more discussions."

[Maureen]

Marc wrote: "Lily wrote: "Okay, although a search of the bookshelf for The Luminaries left me confused, I just did a sort by author and found that it was discussed in May, 2014. Nomination withdrawn. Mea culp..."

Marc, Thank you for posting these - both conscientious and considerate of you! I have only been a group member for a few months now, and this is very helpful.

I agree with Violet @ 28, that I wish I had been around for some of these titles, but I am also encouraged by Casceil @ 31 that I can always go back and visit when reading a particular title.

May I say thank you to all; I feel I made a most fortunate choice in selecting to be a member of this group.

[Lily]

Maureen wrote: "Marc, Thank you for posting these - both conscientious and considerate of you! ..."

Yes, thank you, Marc! I'm going to pull the list you created off into my own Excel file so I can find it when I need/want it. (99% of the time I use my PC to access Goodreads -- the other ~1% is from an Iphone.)

[Marc]

I'm glad people found it helpful. I've been meaning to do it for a while--for my own use and the group's. I have trouble scanning the bookshelf on GR--it's like I don't remember what I'm seeing. Thought it might help with nomination ideas, too. There's so many great books in this group!

Keep those nominations coming :)

[Whitney]

Nominations are closing tomorrow, so get any last minute ones in now!

[Whitney]

The poll, it is up. Find it here, or from the homepage. https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

As usual, voting for a book means you will read it and join the discussion. Nominations for March are closed, thanks for all the excellent nominees!

[Sarah]

Is anybody else getting some weird poll about Michael and Otis instead of this month's poll?

[Whitney]

Whoa. Yes, please, if anyone else if having this problem, please let me know.

[Sarah]

I think I've had this happen before but this is my first round of voting for this site, so apparently it's happened elsewhere.

[Whitney]

You obviously have gremlins!

If the link I posted isn't working for you, go the the 21st Century Literature Homepage and click on "polls". That should get you there.

[Violet]

When should I open the discussion about The Bone Clocks? And don't i need special powers to create threads?

[Whitney]

Beginning of March. A mod will set up a folder, then you can add the different threads that you want for the discussion.

[Whitney]

Beginning of March. A mod will set up a folder, then you can add the different threads that you want for the discussion.

[Violet]

Great. Thanks Whitney. Really looking forward to it.

[Violet]

Take it you meant beginning of February?

[Whitney]

Yes, yes I did. (The "March Open Pick" thread confused me.)

Also looking forward to the discussion!

[Whitney]

Poll is closing soon, get those last minute votes in!

[Whitney]

And the winner is Euphoria.

Violet, your nomination again. Did you want to do back-to-back moderating, or would you prefer someone else takes this one?

[Violet]

I'm happy to do that Whitney.

[Whitney]

Great!

The moderator pick will be announced in the near future.