21st Century Literature discussion

Nominations are now open until November 25th for the January 2025 Open Pick.

Nominating guidelines:
- Fiction (original & translation, if applicable) first published between January 1, 2000 and January 1, 2024. For translations the latter date must be an English edition.
- One nomination per person (please do not nominate or vote for a book unless you are certain you can read and discuss if it wins)
- A book this group has not yet read (see the group bookshelf or the Index of all Group Reads here)
- A book that is not better suited to the wild card (genre) category

If you are nominating, please begin your post by stating "I nominate [name with hyperlink to book]"

The discussion will start on January 1st

Could I nominate Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Yes, that looks fine

Any more nominations? Tomorrow is the deadline.

I nominate Nobber, a novel set during the Black Death in 14th century Ireland. I have been wanting to get to this for a long time!

Thanks Ruben

I nominate The Singularity by Balsam Karam, published in 2021, if that one works

The Singularity is amazing, but the English edition was published after the cut off date.

Rachel wrote: "The Singularity is amazing, but the English edition was published after the cut off date."

Oops, forgot about that!

How about Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Céspedes? It looks like the newish translation by Ann Goldstein was published in 2023 even though the original in Italian was quite old.

If that doesn't work, how about Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung?

Cursed Bunny is fine, and The Singularity will become eligible in February. Translations of 20th century and older books are not really 21st Century works so are not eligible.

Hugh wrote: "Cursed Bunny is fine, and The Singularity will become eligible in February. Translations of 20th century and older books are not really 21st Century works so are not eligible."

ok, well at least I found one that works. So I'll nominate that one.

Nominations are now closed. The poll is now up here and will run until December 3rd.

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/3...

Not many votes so far, so I thought I'd bump this thread.

Sorry, I completely forgot that we hadn't settled this one. The poll ended in a tie, but it is getting late for a run-off, so to settle it, I'll withdraw my vote for Cursed Bunny, which means that Cloud Cuckoo Land won.

Henk, are you happy to lead the discussion? We'll set up the discussion folder a couple of days before the end of the year.

Yes sure, happy to do Hugh

I'm not sure I'll manage to fit in Cloud Cuckoo Land because of the length, but I did very much enjoy his other book All the Light We Cannot See so maybe I'll try to get to it later in the month.

I am actually now listening to a book about the Ottoman empire, and it is quite interesting how the history flows from the fall of Constantinople, that is one of the key events in Cloud Cuckoo Land

I read the novel when it came out so won't be rereading yet, but will be stopping in for comments.