21st Century Literature discussion

Please make any nominations you have for the February 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 2000-2014. 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, please.

Happy nominating! Also, don't forget we have three books for January: How to be both, American Gods, and The Vanishers. There should be something there for everyone.

I nominate A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James.

Let's test the waters and see how much interest there is in Redeployment, the set of short stories by Phil Klay that won the National Book Award for fiction and which is among the NYT 10 for 2014.

It is a tough book to read -- I have. But it is worthy of the effort a) if you have the stomach -- and heart -- for it (as we "should" -- at least for the U.S., with our volunteer military; we deploy these men and women to fight the battles most of us would rather avoid) and b) you are willing to look up or ride through the alphabet soup jargon.

This one is on my must read list.

I'll nominate one from my To-Read List: The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

Can I nominate The Bone Clocks

Hi, I'm new to the group and will read whatever's chosen. But the novel I'm most looking forward to reading is The Zone of Interest so I'd like to vote for that.

Violet wrote: "Can I nominate The Bone Clocks"

You just did!
:)

Marc wrote: "Violet wrote: "Can I nominate The Bone Clocks"

You just did!
:)"

:) So what are you voting for, smarty pants?

I might just vote for one of the existing nominees above--so many good choices!

Marc wrote: "I might just vote for one of the existing nominees above--so many good choices!"

So true! Looks like we may already have more than a single month on the table for consideration!

Ben wrote: "Hi, I'm new to the group and will read whatever's chosen. But the novel I'm most looking forward to reading is The Zone of Interest so I'd like to vote for that."

Ben -- you have just nominated Martin Amis's The Zone of Interest for all of us to consider. But as a newbie, let us remind you to be sure to vote for it when the poll is posted in about a week or so. This board is no longer sending out announcements when a poll goes active -- it was getting too many spurious votes from members who would vote but not participate.

Righty-o. Will you announce in this thread when the poll's up?

Hi, Ben. Yes, there will be an announcement in this thread when the poll goes up, and you can always find polls from the group homepage.

It hasn't come up for awhile, so with some new members this may be a good time to bring some of the rules up. If you vote on a book in the poll and it wins, that means you are committing to reading it and joining in the discussion. That goes double if you nominate a book and it wins. We haven't had nearly the problem with people voting and not participating since we stopped sending out notices to all group members about the nominations and polls. The idea was that we would only have people engaged enough with the group to check in on the threads, rather than just mechanically responding to a message.

And, yes, already too many great choices!

I nominate the 2014 Kirkus fiction prize winner -- Euphoria by Lily King. The author was inspired by the life of anthropologist Margaret Mead to write the book (see http://www.vogue.com/872367/lily-king... for an interview of King about the inspiration of Margaret Mead). It is on the top five fiction books for 2014 picked by the book editors of the NY Times. It's been on my shelf for a few months and it would be fun to read with this group.

Linda wrote: "I nominate the 2014 Kirkus fiction prize winner -- Euphoria by Lily King. The author was inspired by the life of anthropologist Margaret Mead to write the book (se..."

I echo Linda's nomination - Euphoria by Lily King.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

I'm new here, too, and in fact, this is my first ever involvement with a book club. I'm in the middle of "American Gods" and am very much looking forward to the discussions about that one. I'd like to nominate "The Lowland" by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Welcome, Marjorie!

The poll for voting on the February Open Pick will go up on Monday and voting will close on the last day of this month. So any one who has not yet made a nomination and still wants to do so--you have today and tomorrow to throw your pick into the ring :)

I'll post a notification in this thread when the poll is up.

Out of interest how many people buy these books? I imagine most resort to the library but because i live in Italy i don't have this option (which is why I participate less than i would like to). Anyone else have to fork out hard earned cash to participate in these discussions?

I had to purchase the January Open Pick (How to be both), but I can usually get by with the library (or I nominate books I already own but haven't read).

I almost always get my books from the library. I've bought the book a few times, either in ebook or in hard copy. That would make a huge difference in my participation if I had to buy them all, especially the ones only out in hardback.

I buy most of the books, though many of them I buy on Kindle. I don't smoke, I don't drink (other than an occasional glass of wine at a restaurant), I don't gamble, and I don't buy a lot of clothes, so really, buying books is my vice. My husband and I love books, and we used to have literally thousands of them. Then we had a horrible house fire a couple of years ago, and lost nearly all of them. Since then, we've been buying books at a record rate. I'm sure there is some psychological component to it. Having many books around is important to my comfort.

I really wanted to read All the light We Cannot see but simply couldn't afford it. I've bought American gods for january but that was nice and cheap. And I'll buy The Bone Clocks if it wins the feb poll!

I love buying books too except it's hard to justify the purchase of a new hardback when one can get five second hand paperbacks for the same price. Sorry to hear about the fire. That must have been scary and horrid.

I buy most of my books, but they are almost always used paperbacks so they don't cost a lot. I never buy new hardbacks anymore, the only hardbacks I read come from the library. Like Casceil, I don't spend my money on very many other things, so books are the extent of my frivolous spending. I read library books too, but not as often. Also like Casceil, there is something comforting by being surrounded by books, so I come home with stacks of them when I do buy. I now have my own library which consists of about 1/4 unread books to have on hand so I can have my choice of different types of books depending on the mood I'm in.

I've only read one book with this group so far, Provinces of Night and intended to get it from the library, only to find out my entire library system didn't have it so I had to order a used copy for purchase.

I found a cheap hardcover copy of Provinces of Night in a nearby used bookstore that goes by the uninspired name of "Books." We have several used bookstores in the area, and I love them all.

Violet wrote: "Out of interest how many people buy these books? I imagine most resort to the library but because i live in Italy i don't have this option (which is why I participate less than i would like to). An..."

Violet -- one of the things we have forgotten to tell you is that one reason the time was extended between polling and reading was that participants wanted more time to increase their ability get a new book on loan. You remind us that was a concern probably most applicable to English-speaking countries. Access to new books may always be more or less a problem for a discussion group tending to focus on recent books.

I thought I wrote something about my habits about book acquisition, but if I did, it is on some other thread -- it didn't show up here. My book acquisition traits span a wide range, from my own collection to whatever library or online resource I can easily tap to whatever is offering the best discount to where are used books or freebies available.

Nominations are now closed for the February Open Pick.

Click here to vote for one of our eight nominees.
You have thru Dec. 31st to vote (or change your vote, if necessary/desired).

Thanks for all the wonderful nominations!

Is it the first two that get picked or only the winner?

Just the winner. There is also a moderator pick each month.

Okay. Thanks Deborah.

Hi Violet!
Have you ever heard of Media Library? http://www.medialibrary.it/home/home....

It's a network of Italian libraries that share their multimedia resources. Basically you can download any ebook from any of the libraries that are part of this project (and keep the ebook for 15 days, after that the loan expires).

I suggest you verify if your library is in the system. Unfortunately the username is provided by the libraries, so if your library isn't involved you have no way to register on Media Library.

You can also download music ( the librarian told me that this download is permanent but I haven't tried it yet), skim through newspapers and magazines and a bunch of other stuff.

The selection of ebooks isn't exactly to my satisfaction, but it's worth checking out. You can find books from the most unknown Italian writer while there is no Murakami, no Gaiman, no Palahniuk...

Hi Georgia.
Only problem is I don't have a Kindle! I spend so much of my day staring at a screen that holding a real book is like recreation, a walk by the sea. We do have an English library in Florence and it's great for anything written before 1960 but pretty useless for modern novels (i think when the ex-pats here die they bequeath all their books to the library). There's also the Oblate and all its satellite libraries which provides a really good service. Huge thanks for thinking of me! XX

I'd never heard of Euphoria but it looks great so I'll be reading that even if it doesn't win.
Poor old Martin Amis!

I have only read Redeployment. All the others sound like ones I'd like, even the one by Martin Amis!

Wouldn't it be interesting as we're at the end of the year for each of us to list our favourite ten books we've read this year? Here are mine (in no particular order) -
Motherless Brooklyn – Jonathan Letham
HHhH – Laurent Binet
Great House – Nicole Krauss
The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt
2666 – Roberto Bolano
NW – Zadie Smith
In Love and War – Alex Preston
The Great Fire – Shirley Hazzard
A Girl is a Half Formed Thing – Eimear McBride
A Change of Climate – Hilary Mantel

We usually start a separate thread for everyone's "best of the year lists." Maybe I'll do that tomorrow, when I am off work.

Michelle wrote: "Violet, have you read Jenny Offill's "Dept. of Speculation"?
Nope, haven't read that Michelle. Girl has a very distinctive fragmented love-it-or-hate-it style - works brilliantly for some scenes and less so for others but it's an incredibly powerful novel.

Casceil wrote: "We usually start a separate thread for everyone's "best of the year lists." Maybe I'll do that tomorrow, when I am off work."
I didn't know that Casceil but really looking forward to finding out what others loved this year.

Casceil wrote: "We usually start a separate thread for everyone's "best of the year lists." Maybe I'll do that tomorrow, when I am off work."

Good idea - I went ahead and started the thread here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Please go ahead and repost comments about favorite books of the year over there.

Happy New Year, everyone!

The winner for our February Open Pick by a relative land slide is: The Bone Clocks! Violet, as the nominator, are you interested in moderating the discussion?

And don't forget our January book discussions, American Gods, How to Be Both, and The Vanishers.

Sure. If you give me some pointers about how to go about it.

Great, I'll send you a PM.

Whitney wrote: "...The winner for our February Open Pick by a relative land slide is: The Bone Clocks!..."

Whitney -- has the moderator selection for February occurred yet?

More generally, is there someplace on this board where it is relatively easy to go and see selections? If not, could one be created for 2015 -- perhaps preferably a thread that showed future (when known), current, and past selections for the year?

P.S. Happy New Year to one and all! Thanks for making this such a delightful board on which to participate.

Happy new year to you too, Lily.

Violet wrote: "Happy new year to you too, Lily."

Thanks, Violet. Look forward to your moderating The Bone Clocks, especially given your enthusiasm for Mitchell's writing. I haven't decided yet if I am going to read it at this time. I floundered on Cloud Atlas, so may lurk until I decide if I want to tackle this one. Besides, my reading plate is pretty full at the moment. But I suspect the readers (and lurkers) are going to be in for a treat having it discussed under your leadership.

Lily wrote: "Whitney wrote: "...The winner for our February Open Pick by a relative land slide is: The Bone Clocks!..."

Whitney -- has the moderator selection for February occurred yet?..."

Not yet, working on it :-)

The easiest way to keep up with books is from the group homepage, where current reads and upcoming reads are listed prominently. Also, a message to the entire group will be sent with the open and moderator picks once decided.

And thanks to you (and everyone else here) for the great participation that makes this such a great GR group!

Whitney wrote: "...The easiest way to keep up with books is from the group homepage, where current reads and upcoming reads are listed prominently. Also, a message to the entire group will be sent with the open and moderator picks once decided. ..."

Unfortunately, doesn't Goodreads limit those homepage selections to a maximum of four? Also, there are a number of times when I'd love a quick place to identify what has been read by month and selection type.

Now, I can create my own spreadsheet and maybe I will. In the past, I have tried to locate the information online at the moment I wanted it and such hasn't worked well for me. But, no group solution is necessary if it is mainly just my problem.