Vote for the book that you would most like to read for the month of October. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card Once again, the Earth is under attack. Alien "buggers" are poised for the final assault. The survival of the human species depends on a military genius who can defeat the buggers. But who? Ender Wiggin. Brilliant. Ruthless. Cunning. A tactical strategic master. And a child. Recruited for military training by the world government, Ender's childhood ends the moment he enters his new home: Battleschool. Among the elite recruits Ender proves himself to be a genius among geniuses. In simulated war games he excels. But is the pressure and loneliness taking a toll on Ender? Simulations are one thing. How will Ender perform in real combat conditions? After all, Battleschool is just a game. Right? The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay "'Take my camel, dear,' said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass." So begins The Towers of Trebizond, the greatest novel by Rose Macaulay, one of the eccentric geniuses of English literature. In this fine and funny adventure set in the backlands of modern Turkey, a group of highly unusual travel companions makes its way from Istanbul to legendary Trebizond, encountering potion-dealing sorcerers, recalcitrant policemen, and Billy Graham on tour with a busload of Southern evangelists. But though the dominant note of the novel is humorous, its pages are shadowed by heartbreak—as the narrator confronts the specters of ancient empires, religious turmoil, and painful memories of lost love. American Gods by Neil Gaiman Released from prison, Shadow finds his world turned upside-down. His wife has been killed; a mysterious stranger offers him a job. But Mr. Wednesday, who knows more about Shadow than is possible, warns that a storm is coming--a battle for the very soul of America...and they are in its direct path. One of the most talked-about books of the new millennium, American Gods is a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth and across an American landscape at once eerily familiar and utterly alien. It is, quite simply, a contemporary masterpiece. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come. On Writing by Stephen King Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King's On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You're right there with the young author as he's tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London's. It's a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. "I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash." But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of "I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber." As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife's intervention, which he describes). "There's one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing." King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer's "tool kit": a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft's arcane vocabulary, Hemingway's leanness, Grisham's authenticity, Richard Dooling's artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman's sentence fragments. He explains why Hart's War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard's Be Cool could be the antidote. King isn't just a writer, he's a true teacher.
Can I have already read it before, so I would be discussing it with you but not actually reading it? In that case my vote goes towards American Gods. It's one of my favorite books of all time.
You can vote for a book you've already read. When we've decided on a book, and I post the discussion thread, I'll post some rules for discussion, and a non-compulsory schedule.
If there's a tie, whoever is taking the lead o9n BotM (Freshmaker this month) can select based on his or her decision of which tied book has the most merit. Arbitrary choices aren't always a bad thing.
Normally, I would say that the only way to settle this is naked pudding wrestling. But that would take time, money, and valuable pudding. Plus, I'm pretty sure that at least one of the authors is dead. Keep voting, kids! Only one day left!
I don't like pudding, why not jello? btw Fresh, is there any chance that we could use second and third place suggestions for the months after?
I don't see why not. I think it would be good to include one book that didn't make it in each month's poll. Okay, looks like we have a winner. When I get home from work, I'll post the discussion thread.
I'm not really a fan of Neil Gaiman >_>;;; I'm not complaining (ok I am a little). I guess, I should step out of my comfort zone. With scific/fantasy, I am a fan of Michael Moorcock, Neal Stephenson and CS Lewis. I guess, there's no harm in trying American Gods, since Gaiman seems to have grown up (according to wiki) reading Moorcock and Lewis. Hopefully some of that genius has rubbed off on him.
I was wondering if next time we could start the voting a little sooner so that everyone who wants to participate can get a copy in time. Right now every copy of American Gods is out at my library and there are lots of people ahead.
This might help? Yeah, it was kinda short notice this time, I know. From now on, the voting will start earlier, and you'll have plenty of time.
Harper Collins has an online version free, though it really sucks toenails to have to read such hideously small text. They probably want to force people to buy it instead by making murder on our eyes >>;;
LOL! Haha, hadn't realized. Just typed 'book of the month: october' in search, and this is what I came with. And now that I think of it, it's already November... There isn't a thread for this month's book, isn't there?
I posted a little while back saying I'd get around to restarting it mid-November in time for a Book of the Month December, I'm just swamped with study atm and don't have time for leisurely reading and discussing books..rest assured it will be back though, so feel free to give some suggestions if there's a particular book you wanna do.
Okay, I'll be waiting for the suggestions thread. Until then, I have plenty of new books that are waiting for me.
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway I just finally read this a couple weeks ago, and was entranced by its rich characterization through dialogue.
