The next book; Nominations open for January - March 2010

We might as well get this process going for the next two books. Here are the guidelines:

*You can nominate TWO books.
*You can SECOND as many as you want (not your own nominations though).

*Books that get nominated AND seconded are voted on in a poll.

*If no clear winner is decided, there will be a runoff between the top 3 or 4.

Submit your nominations here, then we'll do a poll. Ready -- Set -- GO!

Then I'll jump right in and nominate:
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
and
The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse

I'll nominate

The Monk by M. G. Lewis

and

To Serve Them All My Days by R. F. Delderfield

I'll nominate two tomes I have on my shelf right now ;-)

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

and

2666 by Roberto Bolaño

I will second Buddenbrooks

I'll second The Monk.

I propose
The Golden Bowl by Henry James
Shirley by Charlotte Brontë

I'll stick with my nominations from last time:

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner

I'm still keen on reading either/both of them!

And I'll have to second 2666, and Shirley. And maybe some more, once some more nominations have come in!

I'll nominate

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

and

Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun

Seconding Madame Bovary and Growth of the Soil (that sounds very interesting!)

Seconding Madame Bovary.

I shall nominate The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot.

Second Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.

I second Moby Dick.
--BJ

I'll also second Madame Bovary and I'll also second The Sound and the Fury (so I'm echoing #8's nominees).

I'll nominate The Pickwick Papers and The Gold Bug Variations

I'll fourth (or is it fifth?) Madame Bovary and nominate The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann because I have a lovely Franklin Library edition that is begging to be read.

Just fyi - no need to second a book again -- once it's been seconded, it's in the poll. Interesting to see the interest in it though.

I forgot to include dates on the nomination process. How about we close nominations on the 8th; poll goes up for a week; runoffs if necessary for five days. So we should have our two books by December 20th.

I'll second The Magic Mountain and Gold Bug Variations

teelgee: that sounds good to me.

The nomination and voting timescale sounds good to me too.
I nominate Howards End and The Third Policeman

I would like to second The Pickwick Papers and Howards End.

I would like to nominate A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Doctor Zhivago.

I'm nominating Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

I nominate Voss by Patrick White and Silence by Shusaku Endo.

I'll second Silence.

I'll second Frankenstein

I'll second Voss.

I'll nominate David Copperfield by Dickens and Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann.

I second Glass Bead Game. This looks to be a juicy list. I may have a really hard time voting. Or maybe I'll just vote a few times :).

I'll second The Magic Mountain and Howards End.

...and nominate I, Claudius by Robert Graves and The Plague by Camus.

I will second I, Claudius and nominate The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki and The English Patient

I'm seconding Buddenbrooks and David Copperfield. I just finished I, Claudius, though, but if that one wins out I'll be sure to join in on the conversation.

Seconding The Makioka Sisters.

Re-seconding Patrick White's Voss, and seconding The Picture of Dorian Gray.

(And squeaky ooohs! at so many on the list that have already been seconded! But I had to re-second Voss because each year I say "I must read a Patrick White *this* year" and each year I fail...)

I would like to second Doctor Faustus.
thank you,
belva

I'll second The Golden Bowl

I second A Tree Grows in Broklyn and nominate Bleak House as I've been meaning to read it for ages

Ktrina - this group already read Bleak House, back in 2008. All the posts are still there, so you can read the book and follow along with the conversation. I'm sure if you add any comments to the posts, others will see them and respond and you may get the conversation going again.

Hi thanks for having me.

I'll second 2666 and Shirley.

Second Doctor Zhivago

Nominate Les Miserables

second Les Miserables please.
belva

Since my head is full of flu bugs wrestling with my brain cells, could someone double check and make sure I have all the nominees that have been seconded so far before I put the poll together tomorrow? Thanks!

2666
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Buddenbrooks
David Copperfield
Doctor Faustus
Dr. Zhivago
Frankenstein
Glass Bead Game
Growth of the Soil
Howard’s End
I, Claudius
Les Miserables
Madame Bovary
Moby Dick
Of Human Bondage
Shirley
Silence
The Gold Bug Variations
The Golden Bowl
The Magic Mountain
The Makioka Sisters
The Monk
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Pickwick Papers
The Sound and the Fury
Voss

>40 teelgee:, teelgee,

I've just checked your list, and I think these 26 books are the nominees that have been seconded until now.

Looking forward to the poll and the voting (and the result and Xmas).

Thanks, kik. Nice to know someone's brain cells are working.

Nominations are now closed; The poll is up and running.

Vote here

Results here

Excellent choices in there. No matter what gets chosen I think it'll be a good read. :)

Curses, only allowed to vote for three. My fourth choice is doing alright anyway. Looks to be a great list!

OK, folks, we have a clear winner for #1: Dr. Zhivago with 15 votes. So that will be our first read, January 01 to approx. Feb. 15. Give or take a few weeks!

Now, for the second book, the tally goes:

2666 - 10 votes
Shirley - 9 votes
Les Miserables and The Sound and the Fury - each with 8 votes.

Need a consensus: Shall we have a runoff for book #2 between the top two? or the top four? or declare 2666 the winner?

Let's give this a couple of days of decision making, to poll or not to poll.

Finally Dr. Zhivago is chosen! I don't know how many times I've nominated that one.

As for the second book, I know of two other groups doing a group read on Les Mis right now so it'd be nice to see something different. 2666 would be good for me.

I am good with whatever!~! Glad to see Doctor Zhivago carry the day though.
belva

Doesn't matter to me. I'll definitely be reading Dr. Zhivago, but probably won't be able to fit in another long one anyway.

I also am planning to read Dr. Zhivago. It has been sitting on my tbr for a while now. Any decision on the second book is ok with me.
--BJ

Let's declare 2666 the winner! (I'm only saying that b/c it is the one I voted for).

I'm happy to just declare 2666 as the winner, even if it was by a small margin. (Okay, I did vote for it.)

Nice to see Dr Zhivago finally win, after being a runner-up for so long!

Yah for Dr. Z. I also nominated and seconded it many times over the last few voting cycles. Plus it's already on my list to read in 2010. Re: the voting, I'm fine with 2666 (which I probably won't read).

Good choice! Dr. Zhivago is my favorite Russian book and one of my all-time favorite books. I have some other longish books lined up for January so I won't be reading Dr. Z again, but I will follow the conversation.

I read a terrific review at work (yes, we have a book club there too!) on 2666 - so I'm willing to give it a go. I'm getting behind though! On part 3 of Life and Fate and still Vanity Fair to go! We'll see what the holiday downtime brings...

Dr Z will take some time for me to read it. I started it a while back, but never finished. Lots of long Russian names and all of their nicknames. And of course they are used interchangeably.

Yeah, I know what you mean about names. I just started Les Miserables (sorry Dr. Zhivago) but I don't know if i'd have committed to reading it if I'd known it was going to be so, well, you know, French and all.

I don't know if i'd have committed to reading it if I'd known it was going to be so, well, you know, French and all..

Yeah, those French authors. It's so annoying how they do that. . . . thanks for the laugh.

Dr Z sounds great, I'm already reading Les Mis for another read-a-long 2666 sounds fine with me

pretty please 2666! Dr Jivago its great too.

Since I nominated 2666 in the first place, I suppose I'm in favor of reading it after Dr. Zhivago. ;-)

I didn't vote for 2666, but I think you might as well go with it. Based on Zhivago's experience, I"m sure Shirley will make it soon.

OK, well there's overwhelming apathy and there's overwhelming support for 2666, so let's call it. 2666 will be the next book after Dr. Zhivago. My work here is done.

Thanks teelgee! Now to source the books... and read Vanity Fair. Argh, so many good books out there!!

I assume I'll start reading Dr. Zhivago in about three weeks.

Vote for Dina's Book by H. Wassmo.
Everyone must read this book!~!
belva

I nominate Dina's Book.

Well, I will just second Dina's Book!~!

When do we vote?
When do we vote?

Whoa! You're getting a little ahead, belva! Hold that thought for a couple months.

*******shuffles out of room sniveling********

Dina's Book put me to sleep last time I tried reading it. Never did finish it. I keep telling myself I'll finish it someday...

I am so sorry lilisin. I guess that one of the best thing I have found about L.T. is the very great diversity amongst us all. What flips my "minner" apparently doesn't float your boat and that is okay. But somewhere out there, there is a book that both of us would like, don't you think?
belva

Oh yes of course. I've followed a few of your posts and we definitely have shared similar interests. I think part of the thing with Dina's book is that I wasn't in the mood for it. Which is why I keep telling myself that I need to reread it someday. Last I remember it sort of reminded me of Wuthering Heights but I might just be going bonkers. Or maybe it was just all the mist in the book. There was mist, right? Ha. Last I remember was a cliff and something going off of it. Or trying to go off of it. See? I don't remember much.

What you are remembering, lilisin, is the beginning of the book which absolutely blew me away in the way it was written. But I can certainly understand that one's mind would most likely need to be in the right place to read this one. I had the exact same experience you have just described with Crime and Punishment. It sent me running to Anne of Green Gables and my Clonazepam!~! Anyway, your memory isn't all that bad. I am off to check out your library, my dear.
belva

## 66-75

Well, I've got Dina's Book (in Norwegian: 'Dinas bok') on my shelf for some years now, and I did read book 1 and 2 of it many years ago. I'm not sure why I didn't finish, but if I'm going to read it "now", I assume I'll have to read it from the beginning, since I remember VERY little of it.

nannybebette,
is this book that good? Should I read it, maybe especially because I'm Norwegian? I could put it on my 2010 TBR pile........ ;-)

You can read about the movie "I AM DINA" (2002) at:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0281924/

You know with the holidays and the busy, busy time of year it is I think if I hadn't been challenged to read it NOW (and not knowing how really good it is) I would have put it off until the first of the year. Once you start you will be letting the baby cry, the cookies burn, not cooking dinner lying awake at night reading or thinking about it. Yeah, I think it is that good. It has practically taken over my life. Christmas time is not the ideal time to be reading a book that becomes you or that you become. So those are my thoughts on that.
(it's really good) And thank you for the link. I had not heard of this book until 2 weeks ago; ordered it immediately, then found out about the series and began searching for the second book. Did not know there was a movie out.
belva
P.S. And being Norwegian, you won't have to wait for the 3rd book of the series to be translated, you lucky dog. Right now just the 1st and 2nd books have been translated and I had a fairly difficult time finding the 2nd one. Had to shop U.K. to find one under 50.00 U.S. plus shipping and handling.

I bought 2666 today (grrrr, I hate paying new-book prices, but it is next to impossible to find used). So, now I'm committed. Dr. Z and then 2666 it is!

77 -
I don't know if you read French but Dina's book has been out for years. Like kjellika I read books 1 and 2 and 3 remains unread.

Have you see the mini-polls thread? Tim's worked a polling feature up that's going live soon - means we can poll in the threads instead of going outside:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/79509

Great, Dr. Zhivago and then 2666 sounds good to me. Thanks teelgee for all your efforts helping us read the right books!
Tim's poll device should be up and working for our next round of book selections - thanks Tim for this new service. klarusu - our group could run a fun test poll to see how it works.
Happy Holidays to all.

Ooo, I hadn't heard about the LT poll device! Very cool. Is there a blog post about it?

There's a link at #80 above. And yes, it's brilliant! Can't wait!