BABBLING BOOKS

Tigerlily

AUGUST BOOK CHOICES - YOU DECIDE!

Which books would you like to read in August? All you have to do is vote for one of the books listed here. Read the blurbs below to see if there is anything of interest to you and place your vote. The book with the most votes by 27th July will be chosen for discussion from 1st August.

There is another poll running so please take at look at that one too. Two books will be chosen, but don't feel you have to read both if you don't want to!

The polls end midnight Friday 27th July.

1. Hide and Seek by Clare Sambrook 288 pages

Meet Harry Pickles, aged nine and a bit. Harry is the fastest boy runner in the world (probably), first son of Mo and Pa (the best-looking parents in the school car park), big brother to Daniel (who runs like a girl but is, in his own twerpy way, a star). His life is good. He's premier league. At least, that's the way it was before the school trip...Clare Sambrook's unforgettable first novel captures with startling truth and clarity the perspective of a confused nine-year-old. Poignant and personal, "Hide and Seek" resonates with authenticity and a brutal honesty that manages to be harrowing, life-affirming and funny.

2. The Secret History by Donna Tartt 640 pages

The narrator of this story is a boy who leaves California to attend a college in New England. He falls in with a group of students of Ancient Greek. Four of their number work themselves into a trance-like condition one night, and murder a local farmer. Bunny then tries to blackmail the others.

3. The Book With No Name by Anonymous 352 pages

Detective Miles Jensen is called to the lawless town of Santa Mondega to investigate a spate of murders. This would all be quite ordinary in those rough streets, except that Jensen is the Chief Detective of Supernatural Investigations. The breakneck plot centres around a mysterious blue stone - 'The Eye of the Moon' - and the men (and women) who all want to get their hands on it: a mass murderer with a drink problem, a hit man who thinks he's Elvis, and a pair of monks among them. Add in the local crime baron, an amnesiac woman who's just emerged from a five-year coma, a gypsy fortune teller and a hapless hotel porter, and the plot thickens fast.Most importantly, how do all these people come to be linked to the strange book with no name? This is the anonymous, ancient book that no one seems to have survived reading. "The Book With No Name" is a fast-paced, cinematic page-turner shot through with black humour, which will hold you rapt from its intriguing opening to the dramatic climax. There's only one way to find out what happens when you read the book with no name... A book with no name - by an anonymous author. Everyone who has ever read it has been murdered. What can this mean?

4. The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella 448 pages

Twenty-two-year-old James Gould arrives in Occupied Naples in 1943, where his duties include dissuading Allied soldiers from marrying their beautiful Italian girlfriends, and his diet includes little more than spam fritters and warmed-up rations. The girls of Naples, however, soon arrange for a beautiful young country girl to join his staff as a cook. Under the twin influences of Italian food and Italian passion, James has only just realised that his heart is more important than his orders, when an eruption of Vesuvius sets in motion a series of epic events that will change their lives for ever.

5. Affinity by Sarah Waters 368 pages

Set in and around the women's prison at Milbank in the 1870's , "Affinity" is an eerie and utterly compelling ghost story, a complex and intriguing literary mystery and a poignant love story with an unexpected twist in the tale. Following the death of her father, Margaret Prior has decided to pursue some 'good work' with the lady criminals of one of London's most notorious gaols. Surrounded by prisoners, murderers and common thieves, Margaret feels herself drawn to one of the prisons more unlikely inmates - the imprisoned spiritualist - Selina Dawes. Sympathetic to the plight of this innocent-seeming girl, Margaret sees herself dispensing guidance and perhaps friendship on her visits, little expecting to find herself dabbling in a twilight world of seances, shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions.

6. Life of Pi by Yann Martel 384 pages

Like its noteworthy ancestors (Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, the Ancient Mariner and Moby Dick) Life of Pi is a tale of disaster at sea. Both a boys' own adventure (for grown-ups) and a meditation on faith and the value of religious metaphor, it was one of the most extraordinary and original novels of 2002. The only survivor from the wreck of a cargo ship on the Pacific, 16 year old Pi spends 221 days on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal Tiger called Richard Parker ...

7. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo 368 pages

Who would believe that reading a novel written in deliberately bad English could be as uplifting an experience as this? But Xiaolu Guo, writing in English for the first time, has pulled it off in a novel that has the potential to be as successful as "A History of Tractors in Ukranian" or "Lost in Translation". Her narrator, who calls herself Z because no one can pronounce her name, is a 23-year-old Chinese language student who has come to London to learn English. When the book begins she can barely ask for a cup of tea, but when language comes, so does love. As she gets to know British culture she also falls for an older English man who lives a resolutely bachelor life in Hackney. It's a million miles away from the small Chinese town she comes from, where her parents want nothing more for her than that she should follow them into the shoe business. Z learns about sex, humour, companionship and passion, but she also learns the painful truth that language is also a barrier and the more you know about it, the less you understand.Written in short chapters, each the definition of a word, this is a brilliantly clever book that pokes fun at England and China, explores the endless possibilities for misunderstanding between East and West and paints a portrait of a relationship that everyone will understand, no matter what their nationality.

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Reading: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
Reading Challenge 2009: 8
2008: 4
2007: 10

miranda · Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:11 am Post subject:

I don't know what to vote for - Life of Pi or A Concise .... I am reading The Secret History just now and have to say it is a bit of a disappointment, I am having to force myself to finish it.

But I know it has had rave reviews and is on the 1001 list, so maybe some of us will like it. Oh decisions decisions.
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Currently reading: The Human Stain by Philip Roth
'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.'

Mazzystar · Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:30 am Post subject:

I've gone for 'Affinity' but I'd happily read 'The Secret History', 'Hide & Seek' or the Chinese one x
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Currently reading: Other people's children - Joanna Trollope
Challenge books read: 5

Garscadden · Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:01 am Post subject:

I read the Secret History when it was out, yonks ago, and really enjoyed it, then started to reread it a couple of years ago and... it just didn't take.

Hugely enjoyed 'The Book With No Name', but it is unmitigated pulp and tosh. It is one of those books that is good fun, if you have nothing else to do (had a month off work last december, grew a beard, went to ireland to watch the pogues, and read pulpy books, it would have been decadent if it were so banal).

My vote is for the Life of Pi - one of those books i never read as it just looked too popular. I can be such a book snob sometimes, but then admit to reading the book with no name (and am a fan of Sci-Fi) - which is a terrible attitude, I know, I know.

Tigerlily · Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:02 pm Post subject:

I know a couple of people who thought The Life of Pi was incredible and said it is worthy of all the hype it received.
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Reading: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
Reading Challenge 2009: 8
2008: 4
2007: 10

dingsy · Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:12 pm Post subject:

"Wedding officer", as so many seem to have enjoyed it.

blueflower · Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 6:04 pm Post subject:

heathera · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 11:35 am Post subject:

I have gone with A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo as I liked the look of that book a while ago, but haven't gotten around to getting a copy and reading it as yet. However The Book With No Name looks good too....!
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Currently Reading:

The Moonlit Cage - Linda Holeman

1001 Book Challenge:
2009 - 4
2008 - 14
Books Available for Swapping on RISI

Tigerlily · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:46 pm Post subject:

blueflower · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 5:33 pm Post subject:

Thanks, I'll keep it on my TBR and hope to get around to it sometime.

miranda · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:34 pm Post subject:

My sister also loved 'The Secret History' and apparently the ending is very clever - will let you know when I get there

_________________
Currently reading: The Human Stain by Philip Roth
'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.'

miranda · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:38 am Post subject:

I have put my copy of 'The Secret History' on the 'free book' section on RISI if anyone fancies it. It is quite tatty, but perfectly readable!
_________________
Currently reading: The Human Stain by Philip Roth
'Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.'

mummymelly · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 1:49 pm Post subject:

I saw that and did think about it actually but I have so many others to read at the moment!

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Currently Reading "Switchcraft" by Lowri Turner

Tigerlily · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:16 pm Post subject:

mummymelly · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 5:49 pm Post subject:

I'm actually quite liking the look of A Consise Chinese...I may have to read that anyway!
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Swap List: http://tinyurl.com/33pg6r
Currently Reading "Switchcraft" by Lowri Turner

miranda · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 6:18 pm Post subject:

mummymelly · Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:20 pm Post subject:

blueflower · Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 12:40 pm Post subject:

Looks like this could be another close one, but I have just got a copy of The Book with No Name. I didn't vote for it but reading the blurb on the books again I thought it sounded interesting!

Tigerlily · Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 9:33 am Post subject:

And the winner is...The Book With No Name by Anonymous

Looking forward to this
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Reading: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
Reading Challenge 2009: 8
2008: 4
2007: 10

blueflower · Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 2:49 pm Post subject:

The Book With No Name ..................everyone who has read this has been murdered.

If there is a spate of mysterious deaths among BB members can those who haven't read the book please inform the police of what the link is!

Can't wait to read this but must finish the Historian first.

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