Nominations for the next two reads: January to March 2011

Hi folks

Let's have your nominations for the two books we'll read early next year. We'll use the same process as before:

1) You can nominate two books
2) You can second any number of books that are nominated by other people
3) All seconded books make it through to a vote
4) The two books with the most votes will be the next two reads.

So without further ado, I nominate:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

I've been missing from this group for a while, but I'm just gonna pop in to second The Way We Live Now, as it's on my TBR list anyway.

Seconding Anna Karenina! And for a slightly more obscure suggestion, The Root And The Flower by LH Myers, set in Mughal India.

Seconding The Way We Live Now, as I've been meaning to read Anthony Trollope for quite some time.
Nominating Shirley by Charlotte Bronte

In those months I plan to read The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood and Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, so I'll nominate those two.

I definitely second Shirley.
I nominate The Golden Bowl by Henry James.

Ohhhhhh, The Golden Bowl! James at his most obscure, opaque, absolute best. Do you have the guts for it?

I'm currently reading The Princess Casamassima.

Seconding The Golden Bowl! Unless geneg already did - I love that book (it isn't nearly as obscure as The Ambassadors, which reminded me of a brick wall of prose).

Now you all have me salivating... nothing like climbing a brick wall!

With Henry James, that's what you'll get: one brick wall after another. I vote for The Way We Live Now

I've got a couple of chunksters I was going to tackle this holiday season. It'd be nice to have reading company. :)

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Not seconding anything (yet). Happy with the choices already made.

This group was founded for mutual encouragement with big or difficult books, at the time War and Peace. I don't know Testament of Youth, but Infinite Jest certainly qualifies as a chunkster.

I would like to nominate again Conversation in the Cathedral; we haven't actually talked about it yet, and I would like to.

Robert

I will second Conversation in the Cathedral.

I'm not at home to check an accurate page count, but Testament of Youth is definitely taking up a sizeable chunk of shelf space. (Ahah, the LT pixies are telling me my edition is 640pp - not quite the chunkster of Infinite Jest with its 1104pp, oh my, but still a generously sized book.)

I'll second Infinite Jest and nominate

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

I'll second The Root and the Flower and nominate Europe Central by William Vollmann.

I might have to also second Dead Souls. I've not read anything by Gogol.

I would like to second Nicholas Nickleby.
--BJ

Seconding God of Small Things, which I've been trying to read for 3 years;
and second Testament of Youth.

Ditto to Message 18

I'll second Conversations in the Cathedral as it's winging its was to me from amazon

Didn't we decide already for Conversation in the Cathedral in the last nomination session? I'm just waiting for the discussions to start before I start reading it.

That's what I thought. Who's in charge?

Yes - Conversations in the Cathedral was voted as one of the two books for the last quarter of 2010...but there hasn't been any discussion about it so far. If people are interested in reading/discussing the book then go for it but i think we should exclude it from the current nominations.

Why? We haven't discussed it yet. If interest has finally arisen why shouldn't we finally pay full attention to it?

Robert

As i said - "if people are interested in reading/discussing the book then go for it." It is our current book after all. I think that the current nominations should be for the two books AFTER Conversations in the Cathedral.

I second Europe Central.

I agree with Scarper. Conversations in the Cathedral was voted up last time. If folks are not interested in it enough to read it and discuss it, then let it go. If you want to start a discussion thread, have at it. That will indicate how many folks actually read the book last time around.

I'm still intending on reading Conversations, but I'm third on the library roster... who knew it'd be such a popular book. I'll have a crack at it in the New Year.

Hi everybody! I'm wondering which books will be chosen... If I already own them, I'll try and join the discussion.
I nominate 1. The Tin Drum by Günther Grass and 2. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

I'll second Les Misérables, with some trepidation...

When are we going to vote? January is not that far away now.

I'll second The Tin Drum as well.

Les Miserables--what a wonderful book. One of my all time favorites.

What's the deadline for nominations?

Shall we close nominations tomorrow and then run a poll for five days?

Sounds perfect to me!

Yes, I think that's a good idea. So how does the voting-stuff work?

OK, we usually set up a poll that only includes the books that have been nominated and seconded. These are:

The Way We Live Now
Anna Karenina
Shirley
The Golden Bowl
Infinite Jest
The Root and the Flower
Dead Souls
Nicholas Nickleby
The God of Small Things
Testament of Youth
Europe Central
Les Miserables
The Tin Drum

The two books with the highest number of votes in the poll will be the next two books.
You can vote for as many books as you like but please don't vote more than once for a particular book.

Click here to vote in the poll:
http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/512437

Click here to view the current scores in the poll:
http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/512437/results

Voting closes on 7 January. It's a great list of books - happy voting!

The votes are in and it looks like The Way We Live Now (10 votes) and Les Miserables (9 votes) are the winners. Shall we start with The Way We Live Now?

Sounds good to me!
--BJ

Yes, that's great. Since I don't own The Way We Live Now and since I'll need much more time with Les Miserables, I'll just read that book (in fact, it consists of two volumes). But I'll be looking forward to read Hugo.

Will the Miserables-discussion start in the second half of february?

Yay! I already started The Way We Live Now in anticipation.

I have ordered The Way We Live Now and will hopefully be able to get underway with that one when it arrives.

Hi everyone, I'm new to the group, but am looking forward to reading The Way We Live Now with you all. I got an older edition from the library and have read the intro and first chapter, just enough to say I've started :)