Modern Good Reads discussion

It’s time to nominate our APRIL Book of the Month. Let’s let the fun of a new book and discussion begin.


What do you want to read & discuss?

We will be picking from your choices, but one book will be decided by your votes and the second by the moderators. We try to maintain a balance between indie and more mainstream books, and will make sure the final choices reflect the two. If the popular vote is for an indie, then the moderators will choose a mainstream option. If the popular vote is mainstream, then we will chose an indie option.


Please nominate your favorite to our list and we will get the poll up soon. First the ground rules:
- No self-nominations
- Any nominated book must have a minimum of 100 ratings
- The nominations will be open for three days
- Nominations will be listed in a first-come, first-serve manner, with the books with the most nominations heading the list
- Total number of nominations taken for the poll is twenty.
- If you prefer to email me your choices, those will be added at the end of that day’s nominations.

American Ghost

Revival

First Night of Summer

The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam
by Bảo Ninh

The Leopard
by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Prince Lestat by Anne Rice

Suspect by Robert Crais

LAPD cop Scott James is not doing so well. Eight months ago, a shocking nighttime assault by unidentified men killed his partner Stephanie, nearly killed him, and left him enraged, ashamed, and ready to explode. He is unfit for duty...until he meets his new partner.

Maggie is not doing so well, either. A German shepherd who survived three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan sniffing explosives before losing her handler to an IED, her PTSD is as bad as Scott's.

They are each other's last chance. Shunned and shunted to the side, they set out to investigate the one case that no one wants them to touch: the identity of the men who murdered Stephanie. What they begin to find is nothing like what Scott has been told, and the journey will take them both through the darkest moments of their own personal hells. Whether they will make it out again, no one can say.

Take One With You by Oak Anderson

MURDER GOES VIRAL! They meet in an online chatroom dealing with depression and soon hatch a plan to bring meaning to their lives by encouraging other despondent individuals to help eradicate the "scum of society," such as pedophiles and rapists who have escaped justice. Anyone dead set on committing suicide is urged to first kill someone who "got away with it" before taking their own life. Why not, they ask, "take one with you?" The idea goes viral and things rapidly spiral out of control. As they develop romantic feelings for each other, their worldwide followers begin to enact a very different version of the idea, perverting its original intent and threatening the thin line between civil society and criminal anarchy. Just as they find hope of happiness together, Charlie and Sarah must deal with the monster they've created, a global epidemic of murder-suicide that threatens the very core of their humanity. Take One With You is a unique crime thriller/millennial love story that poses the question: If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, would you kill someone tonight? Someone who had done something terrible. Someone who deserved to die. If so, who would it be? If you couldn't do it, what about your neighbor? Your friend? Your enemy? Who draws the line? Who decides who lives and who dies? And what if we all began to take justice into our own hands?

Faking Normal

I Cried, You Didn't Listen: A First Person Look at a Childhood Spent Inside CYA Youth Detention Systems

"I CRIED, YOU DIDN'T LISTEN IS THE MOST POWERFUL TALE OF HORROR WITHIN THE WALLS OF PENAL INSTITUTIONS SINCE 'PAPILLON.' THE TERRIFYING ASPECT IS THAT IT DESCRIBES AMERICA'S JUVENILE SYSTEM" - Alden Mills, ARETE MAGAZINE
"THE AUTHOR'S WELL-WRITTEN STORY COMES AT THE READER FAST AND FURIOUSLY; SHOCKING READERS INTO AN AWARENESS OF THE INHUMANITY OF AMERICA'S JUVENILE PENAL INSTITUTIONS."- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"I CRIED, YOU DIDN'T LISTEN IS A POWERFUL INDICTMENT OF A SYSTEM THAT MAY HAVE LOST TRACK OF ITS PURPOSE."- Don Davis, THE SAN DIEGO UNION


An early Winner of the "Project Censored" Award of Excellence; I Cried, You Didn't Listen is a powerful story. It is shocking, haunting and brutal. Although it is a rare and valuable document, what is exceptional is not Dwight Abbott's experience, but his clarity and courage in sharing that experience. Dwight tells the disturbing tale of a very young child, first committed to the care of the state because of family tragedy and bad luck. Once institutionalized, he must learn to live within the cruel dynamics of a system that grants power through violence and leaves children at the mercy of predatory adults. He is continually faced with the need to choose between dehumanizing options: Be predator or be prey. Even in Dwight's description of racialist violence we see the effect that the social system has had on him – cementing stereo-types and prejudices that become self-fulfilling prophesy. Dwight's account is terrifying. Upon reading it, one must recognize that, faced with the stark choice between victimizing another and being a victim oneself, the morals and values that make sense in freedom fall away. Perpetrating violence appears as the best option for self-preservation. This is the fundamental dynamic at work in Dwight's institutional life. I Cried, You Didn't Listen shows that, within incarcerating institutions, violence in all its forms – sexual assault, cliques, crews, gangs, emotional abuse – is essentially about power and control both over and above one’s own sense of self. -Books not Bars

Nightingale by Fiona MacIntosh, I don't know if any of you have read anything by this extraordinary writer, she writes in the romance genre but about historical places. This story is based on the ANZAC forces in Gallipoli in the 14-18 war, a look at the destruction and confusion of that ugly battle.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

The Buried Giant. I'm one hundred pages into this recently released work. Intriguing. Part fable, part Arthurian legend, part fantasy and much more.

Thanks guys! Going on spring break today, so I have to close nominations lightly early to get the poll up for you.