NYRB Classics discussion

Happy New Year Everyone!!! I'm sure many of you are partying right now. I'm in my pjs, in front of the fireplace, cuddled up with dogs, and reading (well until I put the book down to come to the computer). It is my preferred way to bring in the new year.

A new nomination period begins! I will take nominations until Monday January 7th at 11:59pm EST, after which I will create a poll.

Each member may nominate up to 5 NYRB Classics titles. The books with the most nominations will make it to the poll.

Given that our February book is a big one, please give some thought to nominating shorter books this time around. I will get us started with:

Fatale
After Claude
Charles Bovary, Country Doctor: A Portrait of a Simple Man

Happy New Year!

My nominations are

Eve's Hollywood
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
Jigsaw
The Invention of Morel
The Vet's Daughter

Thanks!

Greetings, all,

My nominations for March:

Witch Grass by Raymond Queneau
Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
My Fantoms by Théophile Gautier
On the Abolition of All Political Parties by Simone Weil (very short and, perhaps, timely)

Cheers!

All About H. Hatterr
Cassandra at the Wedding
The Invention of Morel
A Month in the Country

And leaving one spot to be influenced by other's picks.

I'll double down on A Month in the Country and Cassandra at the Wedding

Other picks:
Loving Henry Green
Fat City by Leonard Gardner
Act of Passion by Georges Simenon

Happy New Year!

I nominate the following for March:

The Vet's Daughter
The Book of Ebenezer Le Page
Katalin Street
A View of the Harbour
We Think the World of You

I second Summer Will Show and Katalin Street and for the sake of keeping it simple Ill keep it at that.

Happy new year, all!

My nominations are:

Eve's Hollywood
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
The Vet's Daughter
A View of the Harbour
The Invention of Morel

Act Of Passion - Georges Simenon -
Cassandra At The Wedding - Dorothy Baker
Dirty Snow - Georges Simenon
The New York Stories Of Edith Wharton - Edith Wharton
The Expendable Man - Dorothy Hughes

Changing my votes to support other “hopefuls”. I nominate:

The Unknown Masterpiece
Iza's Ballad
Act of Passion
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
Summer Will Show

I nominate:
Fatale, by Manchette
A Balcony in the Forest, by Gracq
Act of Passion, by Simenon
Confusion, by Zweig
The Gate, by Soseki

Hello, everyone, I nominate the following shortish reads:
The Vet's Daughter
The Unknown Masterpiece
A Balcony in the Forest
In a Lonely Place
The Return of Munchausen

Fat City
In A Lonely Place
Black Wings Has My Angel

The Unknown Masterpiece
A Balconey in the Forest
The Return of Munchausen
The Mountain Lion
The Slaves of Solitude

The Book of Blam by Aleksandar Tišma
In Love by Alfred Hayes
Journey into the Past by Stefan Zweig
Houses by Borislav Pekić
Zama by Antonio Di Benedetto

Jean-Patrick Manchette, Fatale (seconding, thirding etc)
Teffi, Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi
and different books by a couple of the authors already mentioned in the thread:
Barbara Comyns, Our Spoons Came from Woolworths
Magda Szabo, Iza's Ballad

Liz M wrote: "All About H. Hatterr
Cassandra at the Wedding
The Invention of Morel
A Month in the Country

And leaving one spot to be influenced by other'..."

Adding The Vet's Daughter as my fifth book.

I’ll second:
Eve’s Hollywood
The Book of Ebenezer LePage
Tolstoy, Rasputin, Other, and Me
Cassandra at the Wedding

And add:
Transit by Anna Seghers

I'm going to throw in a vote for The Invention of Morel as well.

The poll is up and running. Please take a moment to vote on the book you want to read and discuss in March.

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

We had 4 books with 4 or more nominations and these 4 books have been included in the poll. 7 books had 3 nominations each, but I opted for a smaller poll of 4, instead of a poll of 11 books to choose from.

This may have been discussed before, but would you be opposed to showing the results while voting is going on?

There are two selections in this poll that I would vote for and I’d be happy if either won. I’d hate to find out at the end, however, that I voted for one that was way behind in the voting, whereas if I voted for the other it might have had a better chance. Does that make sense?

I hope you don’t mind the suggestion, I’d just rather vote for the one that has a chance. Thank you for all your effort getting this group going again!

How does everyone else feel? Hidden poll results or not?

Act of Passion has 4 votes as well.

I'd like to be able to see the poll results as well. Like Jason, I have preference for two of them, and would give my vote to the one with a better chance.

Oh shoot. I screwed up somewhere. I am really sorry but I am going to have to delete the poll and start over :-(

Lia wrote: "Changing my votes to support other “hopefuls”. I nominate:

I would ask that you don't change your nominations once you have posted them. If you want to make changes, put in a new message telling me that because as you guys post your nominations I write them down. If changes are made after that, it won't be reflected in the final tally.

I like the hidden polls as the suspense makes it more interesting.
You also get a representation of what people want to read rather than tactical voting.
Also I think it's the first time I've seen hidden polls so it has novelty value.

40 people have voted already so I have decided to leave the poll up as it is. It appears Lia changed her nominations at some point and that is why I missed Act of Passion. As you nominate, I start my tally, so any changes you make to your original post might get missed. I am sorry Lia that I missed it. Next time just post a new message saying you are replacing one nomination for another so I can make the appropriate changes on my spread sheet. Thank you.

Ah okay, I didn't realize you started the tally before the nomination period is closed. Sorry I'm new to this group and still figuring out how things are done.

Lia wrote: "Ah okay, I didn't realize you started the tally before the nomination period is closed. Sorry I'm new to this group and still figuring out how things are done."

No worries Lia. It was never stated anywhere that I started my tally right away, so how were you to know. But it's easier for me to do it that way.

I know, we’re all figuring things out, I shouldn’t have assumed and created more works for you, that’s all. Won’t do that next time, I promise!

Thanks for doing the (otherwise) thankless admin tasks!

I guess I'd vote to keep the polls hidden--it's intriguing in an annoying way. It truly piques my interest.

I would vote for a visible poll, too, for reasons mentioned by Jason and Lia, above; or ranked choice voting, if Goodreads can accommodate that.

I am also more in favor of voting being open so people can change their votes any time they feel like it. I think it can also lead to some fun conversations in the poll itself as people try to "win" votes for their choice.

That said, I've also enjoyed the secret vote for the surprise factor. I think the benefits of a visible vote outweigh that fun, though. I'm good with whatever happens in the future, though!

In The Roundtable we did a year long Tournament of Books and part of the fun was the horse trading. “I’ll give up The Tin Drum and vote for Midnights Children if you’ll vote for One Hundred Years of Solitude instead Pride and Prejudice.” That was a huge project.

The Mookse Madness was fun because members were able to champion their favorites, in the end the choice was the mods, which is how it should be since they do the work.

I can see the value of open polling, but Im fine with whatever the group decides.

WndyJW wrote: "In The Roundtable we did a year long Tournament of Books and part of the fun was the horse trading. “I’ll give up The Tin Drum and vote for Midnights Children if you’ll vote for One Hundred Years o..."

Oh god, I didn’t know that existed and now I neeeeed it. How do I get in on this lucrative horse trading?

Visible poll, please

Lia, that was last year’s challenge. If you like book challenges join the Roundtable. It’s a closed group, so you just have to request to join. This year we have Book Bingo, Mount TBR, group reads.

You have spoken and I have listened. The poll results are now unhidden. Go take a peek. It is very close.

I should have known: the only book I don't own and didn't nominate is winning :P

Liz, that just means you have an excuse to buy a book! I read The Vet's Daughter in the last few years and really liked it. I’m still hoping Katalin Street pulls ahead.

77 people have voted! Even if it’s counting changed votes that’s way more people than I thought were participating in the group.

It's 77 "total votes". I don't think changed votes are counted twice. Each person's vote, no matter how often they change it, is counted as one vote. We had 105 votes last time. I'm also pulling for Katalin Street.

Louise wrote: "It's 77 "total votes". I don't think changed votes are counted twice. Each person's vote, no matter how often they change it, is counted as one vote. We had 105 votes last time. I'm also pulling fo..."

I changed my vote to Katalin Street from Cassandra. Still not enough.

I actually like both ways of polling for different reasons. Maybe you could alternate them. I like being able to vote, but I mind less what the book actually turns out to be than some do. Still, we have a few days left to see how it all pans out.

Katalin Street and The Vet's Daughter are evenly tied now! This is exciting. Those who voted for the other two books, if you have a preference between Katalin Street and The Vet's Daughter you might want to change your vote as I do think it will come down to one of these two at this point.

For future polls, I am toying with the idea of keeping the poll a secret so that people vote for the book they really want to read and to keep some of the surprise factor in BUT if I see that the results are very close, then I can make the poll public so people can change their votes if they would rather support one of the front runners in a close race.

That’s a good plan, Louise.

Top 2 look so depressing, I'm not sure I'll read them, though I do like Hungarian literature

Yes, sounds good.

Louise, what will we do if there is a tie?! In my other group, I flip a coin, and I’m good if you cast the deciding vote.

Trevor wrote: "Louise, what will we do if there is a tie?! In my other group, I flip a coin, and I’m good if you cast the deciding vote."

I keep hoping that the members who voted for The Invention of Morel and Cassandra at the Wedding will go change their votes to help break the tie. If it stays tied, I have a plan. I will announce it after the poll closes.