Suggestion Box for Future Book Discussions ~

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Suggestions for Future Discussions (titles=links to reviews)

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

Kristin Lavransdatter Vol I - Bridal Wreath by Sigrid Undset

The Finkler Question- Man Booker Prize by Howard Jacobson

Mark Twain Autobiography Vol I by Samuel Clemens

Vanishing Act" by Thomas Perry

Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

American Caesars: Lives of the US Presidents, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush by Nigel Hamilton

The Feminist Promise:  1792 to the present by Christine Stansell
 
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand Helen Simonson

Clara and Mr. Tiffany Susan Vreeland

A Novel Bookstore Laurence Cossé

Eight Months on Ghazza Street by  Hilary Mantel

Contact:  JoanP

Marina Lewycka's Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a bit of a hoot. I read it when it came out and noticed it on my shelves only a few days ago - mental telepathy Jonathan?

[salan]

Help!  I can't find the discussion we had for possible December book suggestions.  I have an idea and don't know where to post it.
Sally

[marcie]

You are in the right discussion here, Sally. Just post your ideas here.

[JoanR]

I see the Mark Twain autobiography up in the list for voting - I just recieved vol 1 and have been browsing through it.  The book is HUGE - 700 pages, the first 200 pages are preliminary documents and essays, the autobiography proper begins after that.  I opened at random and read the section on Susie's death with tears running down my face.  Twain lost so many loved ones, you know, and wrote about them so affectedly.  This autobio is written in an unconventional way and I can see that I am going to absolutely love it.  HOWEVER, it's much too much of a muchness  (who said that?) for a December book which I thought was to be one of a lighter vein.
  If we are wanting to do one of his books - how about Huck?  Even that would be a pretty serious discussion.
  The Finkler Question has humor, I understand, but being the Booker winner might be on reserve lists in the libraries.
  Allegra Goodman has a new book out - The Cookbook Collector - I remember reading a good review of it.  Will hunt one up now

[JoanR]

Here's the link to the review of"The Cookbook Collector"

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Reviews-Essays/The-Cookbook-Collector/ba-p/2932

I remember reading her "Kaaterskill Falls" some while back and liking it a lot.

[rosemarykaye]

Have you done The Bachelor Brothers Bed & Breakfast?  I read it a while ago and no longer have a copy, but I enjoyed it.

Nigel Slater's "Toast - the story of a boy's hunger" is also a good read and light, but not too light.  He is a famous cookery writer here - the book is about his rather fraught (but not as in misery memoirs or anything like that) childhood, and his first forays into the catering industry.  It's funny and also quite moving at times.

Speaking of which, I recall as a child borrowing a James Beard book from the library over and over again - I think he was brought up in Portland, and the thing I remember most about it was that he advocated using TEN eggs to make something - then if it went wrong, you were to throw it all away and start again.  Using more than 2 eggs in anything would have given my mother a panic attack (I suppose we were then not long out of post-war rationing, to be fair, although for those of us who were born after that it all seemed like ancient history).

Rosemary

[Babi]

 Having grown up in a fairly frugal household, I find myself bothered when I watch chefs throw
away so much perfectly good food.  They are concerned with preparing neat, elegant cuts
from the center of what they are working on; the rest gets trashed.  I keep hearing my
grandmother's voice murmuring about the poor hungry children who would love what I waste.
I remember replying once that I would be happy to send them what was on my plate, but I
didn't know how.  The dear lady frowned, but didn't know quite how to answer.

[Frybabe]

With my Mom, it was the starving children in China. My BF's mother brought up the starving Armenians. For a long time he thought it was a family down the street somewhere.

[Gumtree]

Yep, we got the starving children in China too - though it was always my dad who said it. Somehow it always chastened us enough to eat whatever it was we'd complained about.

I could keep house for a week on the amount of food my son and DIL waste before, during and after a dinner party. I try not to say anything.

[Jonathan]

I would like to see The Cookbook Collector added to the list of proposals. The review makes it sound like a good read, and  its 'fascination with moral ambiguities' would no doubt make for a good discussion. I take it that cookbooks per se have the same relevance to the main theme as tractors in the Lewycka book.

Huckleberry Finn could be fun as nostalgia -  as a picture of a bygone American national character.

Forget about the Finkler Question. I put a reserve on it and was  told there are 650 ahead of me!

[rosemarykaye]

With us it was the starving children of Biafra.  I was never convinced that they would like liver  (I do in fact like it now but the stuff served up at home was cooked until it was well and truly Dead - awful).

I still feel cross when my children waste food - the top contentious issue is whether or not they can possibly eat a banana whose skin is not 100% yellow.  You can guess who says yes.  I've just made yet another loaf of banana bread to rescue some more bananas from an undeserved trip to the compost.  i know that probably means I've spent twice the cost of the bananas on the sugar, dates, cherries, etc, but at least everyone will eat it.  They are also terrible for eating just round the middle bit of an apple or  pear, then slipping it into the compost before I see them.  I think I need to get another dog to use up all the bits off the plates (another example of spending a fortune to save a penny, but I fear it's in the blood!)

And don't you feel irritated when you see how much food people leave on plates in restaurants?  Oh yes, this is great grumpy old woman material 

Rosemary

[Babi]

 ROSEMARY, I was interested to see you put cherries and dates in your banana bread.
Sounds scrumptious. As to leftovers, I'm quite often unable to finish a restaurant
plate of food, but that's what take-out boxes are for. What I can't eat now is lunch
for tomorrow.

[salan]

Instead of choosing one book for December, what if we just read books with Christmas themes?  There are many out there with various themes (cooking, mystery, historical fiction, etc.)  We could share what we are reading and give recommendations.  I don't think I want to read any one book in depth in December.  I always choose light reading for that month.  We could also share any really good recipes that we have discovered, or traditional family recipes.  What do you think??
Sally

[rosemarykaye]

Babi - that's where you Americans have such good ideas - we do not have take-out boxes in this country, you are just supposed to leave it on your plate, and I dread to think what happens to it afterwards.

The other day we were having coffee in a hotel.  We had some butter in a dish, and the waitress accidentally took it away before I was finished with it.  I couldn't find anyone to ask about it, so I walked into the kitchen - just in time to hear the waitress ask the chef if she should throw my butter (into which we had both stuck our jammy knives) out or put it into the next person's dish!

Sally - sounds like a good idea to me.  I am trying to think of Christmassy books, but so far have only come up with Dickens.

Rosemary

[JoanP]

I'm away from my desk for a long weekend - on a computer in a motel - you may know what I'm experiencing here...

We'll be home late tomorrow afternoon and I'll try t catch up with you all.  I love these suggestions - and will put them into the header tomorrow for consideration for the coming year.   For December, rather than attempt to find a book to fill all expectations - holiday, light, funny... the DLs have decided to hold a Holiday Open House  of Memories -
We'll be discussing a short story at the start of each week - and much more.  Stay tuned.

That doesn't mean we won't consider the suggestions you have brought here  - in the future.  Will consider each one - tomorrow!  Thanks!

[BarbStAubrey]

Memories of reading at Christmas – OH my - So many Christmas books that the season is too easily filled with reading and reading and reading with little time for all the other activities. Hmmm maybe that is my excuse to start early as in before Thanksgiving.

Of course as Rosemary said, so many from Dickens - the obvious and then, the Cricket on the Hearth, A Christmas Tree, John Spatter and others in What Christmas is as we Grow Older, the Traveler who lost the child in A Child's Story.

However, each year I must read - Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales - and of course, both Paddington and the chapter from Wind in the Willows where Badger's finds his old house and he and Ratty celebrate Christmas in it.

Patrick Taylor is a really nice writer that I found a couple of years ago – he has a whole group of books now about Doctors in Rural Ireland just before WWII - reminds me of Herriot's stories except Herriot is a Vet - Patrick Taylor has The Irish Christmas that is a delight. Speaking of Herriot, you have to include his The Christmas Day Kitten .

Then Tolstoy's The Other Wise Man - and O’Henry’s Little Match Girl as well as - oh cannot remember the name of it - she cuts her hair and he sells the watch…

There is, Christmas Day at Sea by Conrad and Mark Twain's My First Christmas Tree and the wonderful Truman Capote’s heartbreaking One Christmas and also his The Thanksgiving Visitor.

Mrs. Brownlow's Christmas Party by Allen - and A Red Bird Christmas by Fannie Flagg - Rachel Field's The Bird's Christmas.

Oh yes, and Washington Irving’s Old Christmas, Damon Runyon Dancing Dan's Christmas, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, yes, The Blue Carbuncle is a Christmas story. And of course Agatha is in on Christmas with Hercules Poirots solving The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Christmas in the Big Woods, and by Anne Perry A Christmas Secret: A Novel    Least we forget this classic, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight remember the Green Knight strode in during Christmas Dinner with his challenge.

In addition, the marvelous collection of Christmas stories by Thackeray The Christmas Books of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh: Mrs. Perkins Ball. Our Street. Dr. Birch and His Young Friends. the Kickleburys On the Rhine. the Rose and the Ring and Sir Walter Scott had a magazine now a book Christmas in the Olden Time - We cannot forget Seuss How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Yes, a child's story but oh how wonderful. I really think the movie did a lot to elevate the story into an ageless classic.

There are the sappy Christmas tear-jerker’s like The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson and Elaine Stritch and The Littlest Angel by Charles Tazewell and Katherine Evans.

For heart wrenching you have to read Robert E. Lee's Letter to his Daughter written December 21, 1866. Even Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird wrote for Christmas, Christmas To Me

And for me - the very best - my favorite - several of the Miss Read stories, especially The Christmas Mouse - it just isn't Christmas without reading abut Mrs. Berry, her daughter, two Grand-daughter’s Christmas Eve shopping in the Village followed by Mrs. Berry’s sleepless night with the intruder.

[rosemarykaye]

Wow, Barb, what a fantastic list - some I'd heard of and some I hadn't, but none I could remember before you kindly jogged my ancient brain cells - thanks so much for all this material.

The scene in the Wind in the Willows is wonderful - one of my very favourite books.

The only other thing I can think of is a book my daughters and I have enjoyed - Eloise at Christmas, in the big hotel overlooking Central Park.

I was interested to read about the Irish doctor books, as years ago I spent quite a few Christmasses in Ireland with my friend and her huge family.  I have wonderful memories of staying on the farm, and of all the socialising with neighbours and friends that went on at that time of year.

Rosemary

[Babi]

 Understandable, ROSEMARY.  He wrote so many Christmas stories!  I notice, tho', that
many of our mystery writers like to turn out short Christmas-themed mysteries. They are
usually lighter than the general run of mysteries, in keeping with the season
  Oh, BARB, so many great Christmas stories. I see so many treasures!  We really must read
some of them during December.  Maybe we should start immediately after Thanksgiving. 

[JoanP]

In a few weeks we will open a Holdiay Memories Open House - you have provided so many great ideas for this discussion!  I think it's going to be a lot of fun.  Please plan on joining in as you go about your holiday preparations.  I'm really interested to hear about your memories from way back THEN and also which traditions you still carry on...

[JoanK]

BARB: what a wonderful list!

[Babi]

 JOANP, I am currently reading a book recommended by SL readers, entitled "Cutting for Stone"
by Abraham Verghese.  It is an excellent book and I am finding so much in it that would be great
material for discussion.  I would very much recommend it for our suggestion box.

[JoanP]

Goodness, Babi - what a book!  Where did you hear about it - did someone recommend it or did you just come upon it by chance?  Is this based on a true story, do you know?  Thanks for the recommendation...

The plot of this big, dense book is fairly straightforward. Marion and Shiva Stone are born one dramatic afternoon in 1954 in Addis Ababa, the same day their mother — a nun, Sister Mary Joseph Praise — dies of complications from her hidden pregnancy. The boys are conjoined at the skull, yet separated at birth; they are raised by Dr. Kalpana Hemlatha, a forceful woman known as Hema, and Dr. Abhi Ghosh, both immigrants from Madras and both doctors at the hospital where the boys’ natural parents also worked. Missing Hospital, it’s called: “Missing was really Mission Hospital, a word that on the Ethiopian tongue came out with a hiss so it sounded like ‘Missing.’ ” They grow up amid the political turmoil of Ethiopia (its actual chronology altered slightly by Verghese to suit his fictional purposes), and in 1979 Marion flees, first to Nairobi and finally to New York, where he qualifies as a surgeon. Shiva, too, goes into medicine, specializing in treating vaginal fistula, for which work he is acclaimed in this very newspaper, a sure sign of his renown. Almost supernaturally close as children, the brothers become more and more distant as the novel progresses; they are dramatically reunited at its end — through the mysterious agency of the long-vanished Thomas Stone.

[salan]

Cutting for Stone is my ftf book choice for our May discussion.  I haven't read it yet; but am looking forward to it.  I am glad to hear that others highly recommend it.
Sally

[Babi]

 JOAN, someone hear at SL was posting about it...don't remember who.  It is fiction, but the
author was born in Ethiopia of Indian parents, like the two that raised the twins in the book. The rest is fiction, but of course reflects the people and culture of Ethiopia accurately.  And all the
medical references are factual as well, as the author is a well-established doctor.

[Frybabe]

Sheila just brought up the question of what we will be reading in March. The last list of possibles I see is on Oct. 21. There are at least two on that list I would like to read, The Lacuna and A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.

[Aberlaine]

I would love to read "Cutting for Stone" or "Vanishing Act".

Right now we're in the middle of reading "Empire of the Summer Moon".  Quite a lively discussion and lots to learn!

[JoanP]

Sheila, the Bookclub Online discussion for February, the Empire of the Summer Moon,  is a surprisingly good one. I agree with Nancy.  I don't know why I was surprised - I guess it didn't seem like my kinda story - the Indians and Texas Rangers on the Plains.  But it is hard to put down!  We'll continue that in February.

The Bookclub Online for March is Homer's Odyssey...this begins now - mid February and will go through March.

In April, the Paul Scott series will continue with sort of a coda to the Raj Quartet, Staying On - though the book can stand alone - won the Booker prize on its own merits.

We are gearing up for a vote for the April Bookclub Online discussion and I'm happy to hear there is interest in some of the titles mentioned since the last vote.
We're  still taking nominations for the vote...there have been several titles suggested elsewhere - I'll bring them here and put them in the heading this afternoon.

Thanks for your continued interest!

[Frybabe]

Thanks, JoanP. I didn't know if we had an ending time frame for Odyssey. I guess I assumed that the Classical Book Discussion was separate from our general picks.

[JoanP]

When we saw that so many of our posters had signed on for Odyssey, we decided to make it the March selection...with an early start in February.

At this point, I don't think anyone is sure what the end date will be...  In 1996 or 7, we talked about it for a year!

[serenesheila]

I have a book which I would like to suggest.  It is:  "The Feminist Promise:  1792 to the present".  Also:  "American Caesars". by Nigel Hamilton.

Sheila

[salan]

I guess I assumed that the Odyssey was  for a different discussion group (classics, perhaps).  I am disappointed because I don't feel like struggling thru reading it again.  I also assumed that Staying On was also part of another discussion.  I know a number of you participated in The Raj Quartet.  I know that you can't please everyone, so will hang in there and wait for other books to come up.
Sally

[PatH]

Sally, don't give up on us.  Odyssey is still close enough to starting that it would be easy to join in (the first 500 posts are prologue).

Staying On is not part of anything else.  Although it follows the Raj Quartet, it stands alone, and I am going to be part of the discussion even though I haven't read any of the Quartet.

[Gumtree]

PatH: you must read the Quartet. I hadn't read any of it until we had the discussion for the Jewel - after that I just had to go on to the end although I think each of the novels stands alone. It was one of the best reads I've had in years - Paul Scott is a master and superb with the language. I plan to reread it all ...sometime.

[JoanP]

Thanks for the latest suggestion, Sheila!  I'll be back this evening to enter a bunch of new ones proposed around the site - before we vote~  Again, thanks!

[Aberlaine]

I will also wait to hear what the April book choice will be.  I'm not interested in reading the Odyssey or Staying On.  I did try to read the Raj Quartet and managed to finish the first book.  I will try to read them all in time.

There are so many books on my list to be read.  I'm always reading at least one book for my f2f book club (this month it's Drowning Ruth).  I think I'll take March and April to listen to the books I have on my mp3 player: Roses, The Vanishing Act and Stones into Schools.

Be back later.
Nancy

[JoanP]

Nancy,  hope you vote - it's the only way we can tell where the interest lies.  I've put up a few titles our participants have posted about in other sites.  There's still time to add to the list in the heading above.  We'll have two votes - the first to narrow the list and the second to select severals to discuss in the spring...

Remember, the titles in the heading are links to reviews - in case you want to learn more about the nominated books.

[rosemarykaye]

JoanP - I am not sure if we are supposed to be able to post in the list above, but if so, I have failed!  I wondered if anyone would be interested in reading "Eight Months on Ghazza Street" by Hilary Mantel?  I read it years ago but still remember it as a wonderful book (and it's quite short) - it's about a woman who goes with her husband to live in a strict Arab country (it's for his job).  She is more or less holed up in the apartment block where they live, as she's not allowed to do anything.  A mystery develops about the woman in the flat opposite.  I can't remember all the details but I know it was good!  Hilary Mantel is a fabulous writer.

R

[JoanP]

Sounds great, Rosemary!  Reminds me of an assignment my husband had in Kiev years ago.  He became so concerned for my safety that when he told me I'd have to stay inside for two years unless he was with me, I refused to go.

You did fine posting here as you did.   For those who want to read more about this title:
Eight Months on Ghazza Street by  Hilary Mantel

ps...whenever you want to do another PYM, I'd be up for it...

[JoanK]

Me too!

[JoanR]

Good idea!  Perhaps our Pym expert would like to choose a title for us!