Next book after Pere Goriot?

I figured since we were halfway through the month we could start planning what we might want to read in February as the group read.

There have already been a few suggestions for reading Heart of Darkness over on the discussion board.

So I guess we can start nominating some books or perhaps go back to the last list we made when we were deciding on our January choice?

Would anyone be interested in reading a Shakespeare play?

Sure.

Shakespeare would work for me, too.

Hamlet would be awesome!

Hamlet was what I was thinking!

I finished Pere Goriot last night and would participate in a reading of Hamlet or another of Shakespeare's plays.

And... a big thanks to this extremely knowledgeable group for picking Pere Goriot another great read I might not have done.
This group brightens my world.
Thanks again... hugs...

Most likely I'll read Hamlet this year,
see:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/54114
and/or
http://www.librarything.com/topic/54845

and I'd surely love to take it as a group read with this excellent LT group !!

I'd skip on Hamlet (I studied it waaaay back at school; plus I find drama - like poetry - difficult to read, my eyes just don't seem to stay on the page and I find nothing really sinks in - my problem, not the writers' problem!). It's a great play, and if it's chosen, I'll have fun reading the comments, so don't think this is a vote *against* Hamlet, just not a vote for it. :)

I'm going to be reading Anna Karenina this quarter, so I shall propose that as my suggestion for the group read. But there are always great suggestions in this group, and I look forward to whatever we choose for February!

I'd vote for a Shakespeare play (I've been thinking about re-reading King Lear recently), or Anna Karenina I would not be enthusiastic about Heart of Darkness - I have difficulty getting over the racist aspect of using dark-skinned people as a symbol of the "dark side" of human nature. I last read it a long time ago - maybe I would see it differently now.

I am also still interested in reading The Leopard: A Novel by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa that was brought up during the last round of voting.

I'm studying Hamlet at the moment in school so i'd rather not. I wouldn't mind King Lear though.

I'm not going to chip in because I'm still in the midst of Balzac but I'll join in with whatever you all decide on ... you can be trusted ;)

Definitely King Lear! I have wanted to read this for some time because of what I have read about its existential theme, and especially after reading The Trial. (Hope this comment encourages new thinking about existentialism and doesn't discourage consideration of Lear!) It might also serve as a counterpoint to Goriot and his daughters.

> 10: guppyfp -- You should consider another read of Heart of Darkness; I remember it being about the dark motives of empire (Rome into Britain, Belgium into Congo) and the darkness of losing one's identity in service to these motives. In this view, 19th century Congo and Julius Caesar's Britain are equivalent, with no intended disparagement of dark-skinned people. You might also keep in mind The Waste Land and the movie, Apocalypse Now, if you re-read it.

Yeah,
King Lear is marvellous, and so is Hamlet. We could read both of them.
Not very voluminous books, you know.
Maybe we should compare them to each other? Rather different plays, but.... ???

I've already Hamlet so I'll probably skip this group read if we do that. Either way though, I'll probably end up skipping February to focus on reading volume 2 of Le comte de monte-cristo.

I would be interested in either Heart of Darkness or Shakespeare.
--BJ

Heart of Darkness or any Shakespeare would be great. I'd also be interested in The Oresteia by Aeschylus.

Heart of Darkness, YES. Aeschylus, YES.
Anna Karenina, YES. Shakespeare play, hmmm, well, I will see.

Some more suggestions from Norway (I think I've suggested them once or twice before):

The Iliad by Homer
or
The Odyssey by Homer (reread for me).

Ulysses by James Joyce. I think a group read of this novel will be the only way for me to manage more than some few pages of it.
(We could even compare it to The Odyssey)

#7> rosemeria, I'd also like to read The Leopard! I was rather disappointed it didn't get the votes for January's read. (Not that that is the reason why I haven't started Pere Goriot yet, that's because I've been stuck on Thoreau's Walden for far too long!)

I have Ulysses on my list for this year, so I wouldn't say no to that... I think I'd need the group therapy to get through it.

Ugh! not Ulysses -- I will never read that thing again.

I'll throw some new names in the hat: East of Eden by Steinbeck; Slaughter-House Five by Vonnegut. I haven't read either and I don't think we have done an Amwerican author yet, have we?

We did Edith Wharton just a couple of months ago.

#24 - Oh - thats right - Age of Innocence; I have the book I just never got around to reading it with the group. Oh well, my suggestions still stand.

Hello! I'm new to LT. I like all the sugestions. I think with a Shakespeare play, I'd be quoting a lot in my posts, so I'm not too eager about typing out lines--the language is too beautiful to pass up. That would be my own reservation. But great choices here. I'd like to add, if I may:
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coetzee (in my top three best books of all time)
I wouldn't mind reading Lord Jim for a longer Conrad.
Thanks!

I love the idea of a group reading of Ulysses. I tried it once on my own and gave up, desperately wishing to be able to discuss it while in progress.

So have we decided what to read for February? It is coming up this Sunday by the way.

I'm about 300 pages into Count of Monte Crisco by Dumas and it is a beautifully written story. Full of Romance, adventure and packed with French history. This book has been edged out in prior voting -- so I highly suggest this book for February. They say this could be the most read novel of all times...

Count of Monte Crisco is my suggestion.

Would I be right in assuming that we're all too busy for a group read this month? Or does the group originator (I'm sorry, I'm not sure who you are!) want to just nominate a book of his/her choice (based on previous suggestions in this thread)?

I'm the group originator but by no means its leader. My suggestion was Hamlet.

If we're going to read an American novel next, I'll suggest a Steinbeck, perhaps
The Grapes of Wrath
or
East of Eden (cf. #23)

They're both rather voluminous books, aren't they?

When do you think we should stop suggesting (and start "voting")?

teelgee, in the absence of any clear leader (yay! anarchy! ;), I was nominating the originator because you probably had the best idea of what this group was for. :)

I'd be tempted to start voting with what has been suggested - but make it for March. February has already started (for me, at any rate), and it is a short month, and if we lose another few days of reading time then we'd better choose a very short book at least. (Although, Hamlet is a short book...)

Of course, I'm perfectly happy to be over-ruled at any time over this suggestion. It is just a suggestion, and I feel far too new to this group to start bossing everyone around. :)

wookiebender

It's fine to me if you start bossing.

By the way, could you make a list of the suggested books?

I'm a little busy doing other things just now, alas.

kjellika

Not a problem!

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
Hamlet, Shakespeare
The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
King Lear, Shakespeare
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
The Oresteia, Aeschylus
Ulysses, James Joyce

These were all books that got more than one mention above. If anyone notices any omissions, please post!

Shall we vote here, or does someone have the know-how for a Mister Poll (or other) vote?

I think this read could be a feb/march one so if people want to start in february, they could.
My vote would be for the leopard

I vote for King Lear

As far as timing these reads, I look at this as making microwave popcorn. You select a bag of popcorn, stick it in the microwave, after a couple of minutes the popcorn begins popping, over time it pops faster and faster as more kernels come to popping temperature and then it fades away until all the kernels but a few have popped. No time-limit, when discussion fades and most people are done with the book, move on to the next one. Trying to tie everything to calendar months is going to put too much stress on keeping things moving rather than reading the selection, as well as putting stress on reading short books. Part of what attracted me to this group was the fact they weren't afraid to take on a thousand page behemoth. How long did it take most here to read War and Peace at the outset? I believe it was several months.

It is time to settle on a new book, but let's not get in a rush.

#39, geneg, those are words of wisdom. :)

I vote for The Leopard!

I will vote for The Leopard too!

Sicily has a very interesting history.

Yes, we haven't been reading a book a month per se. I think it's worked out conveniently in the past to use the beginning of a month as a marker, but nothing says we have to keep doing that or read our selection within a 30 (or 28) day timeframe. After all we're anarchists! Or at least very flexible.

The Leopard is fine with me, it's on my TBR pile!

I vote for Heart of Darkness, but any of the choices look good to me.
--BJ

I'm a vote for The Leopard, someone recommended it to me last year and I haven't had the chance to read it!

The Leopard gets my vote too.

I joined the group in January but didn't join in on Pere Goriot.
I'm a vote for the Leopard.

I have The Leopard and would be happy to join in with that, I would avoid reading Shakespeare as I prefer to enjoy it as a performance

I vote for The Leopard.

Ooh, I'm gonna say Leopard too! I have Italy as a 999 category, and I really need to cultivate my half-Sicilian side (the British get too much of my literary love).

Wow, lots of Leopard votes all of a sudden. Shall we go with that then or do people want an official voting poll thingy?

Looks like a landslide to me! :D How many people usually vote?
--BJ

I'll need to stock up on Chianti - let's do the Leopard! I have never seem this group so agreeable?!

I'll be a lemming and vote for The Leopard as well. It's been on the nomination list a few times so it seems fair that we finally read it.

But now I need to finish Pere Goriot. :)

I voted for The Leopard because it seemed to be on the nomination list repeatedly, and that piqued my interest. Mind you, I'd never heard of it before joining this group (although I did see the movie with Burt Lancaster a few years ago, and I thought that it would probably have made a great book).

I'm happy to accept the landslide and not bother about "official" voting, but if people who didn't want The Leopard would like an official voting procedure, I'm happy with that too.

Woot, another trip to the bookshop! Meep, I'd better find some time to finish Goriot!

Leopard--AOK for me.

The Leopard looks good to me...and my public library has it. Count me in.

Might I suggest something? I might. Seems like The Leopard is a popular choice. I say let's go with it and move on to selecting the next book. Then we would have a nice long stretch without pondering and nominating and voting.

Great idea, hemlok! Are most people ready to start The Leopard?

My edition is a little over 300 pages. I suggest we split it up like so:

1. Chapters 1 and 2 (takes us a little over 100pp)

2. Chapters 3 and 4 (takes us to ~220)

3. Chapters 5 - 8 takes us to the end.

My translation is by Archibald Colquhoun as an fyi.

Mine is due in the mail in a few days, so I do not know the structure, but there shouldn't be too much variance. Sounds good to me.

Will order The Leopard from Amazon later this week!

Leopard is waiting for my at the library. Wow. That sounded scary.

I only check the posts in this group once a week, so I missed out on the vote. Anyhow, my library is leopard-free so I will have to sit this one out for now....

I have a saturday job at my local bookshop so I'll order it in at the weekend:)

There's a new post up for the next book after the Leopard. Thought we'd get an early start.