21st Century Literature discussion

Here are the choices for the August Moderator pick. Voting will be open for 10 days, and the discussion will start on August 1st.

The poll can be found at https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2... and from the group homepage.

1. Cocoon by Zhang Yueran.

"In this multilayered novel about the sins and traumas of China’s past, two childhood friends reunite in their provincial home town after years apart. In the course of a winter night, their alternating monologues sift through their family histories, circling a fateful moment during the Cultural Revolution which left one man’s grandfather comatose and set the other’s up for an eminent medical career. As the two friends’ fortunes become increasingly intertwined, they also trade stories of their childhoods in the eighties, and the historical weight shouldered by their generation." —The New Yorker

2. Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo.

"Manifoldly clever…brilliant… ‘Glory’ is its own vivid world, drawn from its own folklore. This is a satire with sharper teeth, angrier, and also very, very funny.” —Violet Kupersmith, The New York Times Book Review

3. If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura

“At first, If Cats Disappeared from the World feels as light and puzzling as a fairy tale, but then, steadily, chapter by chapter―using nothing more than conversation, memory, and a winning narrator's searching, sensitive thought experiments―it raises its cosmic stakes higher than any thriller. Like a padding cat or the shadow of death, Genki Kawamura's book snuck up on me; the next thing I knew, I was crying.” ―Robin Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough.

The voting resulted in a tie, so I will cast my senate tie-breaking vote for Glory!

Thanks to everyone who voted, and I hope to see all of you in the discussion, which will start around August 1st.

That sounds like a good solution. I could have achieved the same result by withdrawing my vote.