Scott's Book Selections

Hello Everyone - Scott posted his book selections in a comment to the March 31 meeting notice. Unfortunately blogger won't let you use links in a comment, only a post, so here is a copy of Scott's comment with functional links.

Well, it is tax season (boo hiss) and I am swamped. I have five suggestions, two of which I have not had time to read yet. In no particular order they are:

1) The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen I loved this book - really well written, great "navel gazing" as Linda puts it story of the dissolution sort of of the american family. I thought the writing was superb and the fact he dissed Operah was just a bonus. It is long however, just over 500 pages.

2) Deception - Denise Mina I am not sure whether this is book club worthy or whether it will merit much discussion, but it was a great read. Its the story of a man whose wife is convicted of murder. As he searches through her things for evidence to help her case on appeal, he discovers more than he bargained for. Told from the point of view of his diaries - really well written, very "David Lynchian" in its portrayal of the underbelly of middle class life. Only in hardcover at the moment I think.

3) Disgrace - J.M. Coetze Picked this booker prize winner up on trip to NY and have not had time to read it. It's short !!!! Barnes and Noble says "Another incident in the great campaign of redistribution," mutters the protagonist of J. M. Coetzee's Booker Prize-winning novel, Disgrace, as he discovers that his house has been ransacked and looted during a long absence. This incidental muttering, almost an afterthought, lies at the thematic and emotional center of this short but powerful novel. As with all of Coetzee's work, the new South Africa is a looming presence, both literally, as the story's setting, and thematically, as its characters struggle to adapt to a culture that has been remade, often violently, from the bottom up. And while Disgrace offers a lot on the larger themes of power, redistribution, reformation, forgiveness, and more, it is at heart a finely tuned and often bleak portrayal of one man who realizes that he has become outmoded and outdated.Maybe a bit too south african after Christine's lets not go to the dogs tonight, but on the other hand has lots of themes for discussion, must be well written for the booker, and is again short!!!

4) Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell Havent read it yet, but I really want to. Once again, long = 500 pages. But it sounds amazing. Mitchell’s virtuosic novel presents six narratives that evoke an array of genres, from Melvillean high-seas drama to California noir and dystopian fantasy. There is a naïve clerk on a nineteenth-century Polynesian voyage; an aspiring composer who insinuates himself into the home of a syphilitic genius; a journalist investigating a nuclear plant; a publisher with a dangerous best-seller on his hands; and a cloned human being created for slave labor. These five stories are bisected and arranged around a sixth, the oral history of a post-apocalyptic island, which forms the heart of the novel. Only after this do the second halves of the stories fall into place, pulling the novel’s themes into focus: the ease with which one group enslaves another, and the constant rewriting of the past by those who control the present. Against such forces, Mitchell’s characters reveal a quiet tenacity. When the clerk is told that his life amounts to “no more than one drop in a limitless ocean,” he asks, “Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?”I'm really intrigued by this. Probably too long.

5) The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand This should be read by every human being and committed to memory as absolute truth. Philosophically debunks the myths of socialism and communism for what they are. Seriously though, a classic, a great read, and it certainly will gernerate a lot of discussion. May have been read too many times by too many people.

Okay, discuss amongst yourselves and I'll see you at book club.