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Tigerlily

FEBRUARY BOOK CHOICES - YOU DECIDE!

Which books would you like to be read in February? All you have to do is vote for one of the books below. Read the blurbs and see if there is anything that looks interesting and the book with the most votes by 23rd January will be chosen to be read from 1st Feb onwards.

There is also another poll running so please take a look at that one too as there may be something on that list of interest to you. There will be two books chosen but you don't have to read both if you don't want to.

1. The Memory Box by Margaret Forster - 288 pages

A young woman leaves a sealed memory box for her baby daughter before she dies. Years later, as a young woman herself, Catherine finds her mother's box full of unexplained, even bizarre objects. Finding out what the objects represent is her only chance to find out about the mother she never knew.

2. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road. Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter is drawn into the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.

3. Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann - 384 pages

1992: Leo Deakin wakes up in a hospital somewhere in South America, his girlfriend Eleni is dead and Leo doesn't know where he is or how Eleni died. He blames himself for the tragedy and is sucked into a spiral of despair. But Leo is about to discover something which will change his life forever. 1917: Moritz Daniecki is a fugitive from a Siberian POW camp. Seven thousand kilometres over the Russian Steppes separate him from his village and his sweetheart, whose memory has kept him alive through carnage and captivity. The Great War may be over, but Moritz now faces a perilous journey across a continent riven by civil war. When Moritz finally limps back into his village to claim the hand of the woman he left behind, will she still be waiting? Danny Scheinmann paints a dramatic portrait of two men sustaining their lives through the memory of love. Cinematic and brimming with raw emotions, it is the magnificent and emotive debut from a remarkable new writer.

4. Sepulchre by Kate Mosse - 544 pages

1891. Seventeen-year-old Leonie Vernier and her brother abandon Paris for the sanctuary of their aunt's isolated country house near Carcassonne, the Domaine de la Cade. But in the nearby woods, Leonie stumbles across a ruined sepulchre - and a timeless mystery whose traces are written in blood. 2007. Meredith Martin arrives at the Domaine de la Cade as part of her research for a biography she's writing. But Meredith is also seeking the key to her own complex legacy and soon becomes immersed in the story of a tragic love, a missing girl, a unique deck of tarot cards, an unquiet soul and the strange events of one cataclysmic night more than a century ago...

5. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee - 224 pages

After an impulsive affair with his student sours, David Lurie retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding. For a time, his daughter's influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. He and Lucy become victims of a disturbing attack which brings into relief all their faultlines.

6. Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones - 240 pages

'You cannot pretend to read a book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames.' Bougainville. 1991. A small village on a lush tropical island in the South Pacific. Eighty-six days have passed since Matilda's last day of school as, quietly, war is encroaching from the other end of the island. When the villagers' safe, predictable lives come to a halt, Bougainville's children are surprised to find the island's only white man, a recluse, re-opening the school. Pop Eye, aka Mr Watts, explains he will introduce the children to Mr Dickens. Matilda and the others think a foreigner is coming to the island and prepare a list of much needed items. They are shocked to discover their acquaintance with Mr Dickens will be through Mr Watts' inspiring reading of Great Expectations. But on an island at war, the power of fiction has dangerous consequences. Imagination and beliefs are challenged by guns.Mister Pip is an unforgettable tale of survival by story; a dazzling piece of writing that lives long in the mind after the last page is finished. Shortlisted for The 2007 Man Booker PRIZE.

7. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami - 624 pages

Koushun Takami's notorious high-octane thriller is based on an irresistible premise: a class of 42 junior high school students are taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are electronically collared, provided with weapons of varying potency, and sent out onto the island. If they are in the wrong part of the island at the wrong time, their collars will explode. If they band together to save themselves a collar will explode at random. If they try to escape from the island, they will be blown up. Their only chance for survival lies in killing their classmates. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan - where it then proceeded to become a runaway bestseller - Battle Royale is a Lord of the Flies for the 21st century, and a potent story of politics and survival in a dog-eat-dog world. Made into a controversial hit movie of the same name, Battle Royale is already a contemporary Japanese pulp classic, and is now available for the first time to the UK mainstream.

8. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - 350 pages

Set against a background of political turbulence in Kerala, this novel tells the story of twins Esthappen and Rahel. Amongst the vats of banana jam and heaps of peppercorns in their grandmother's factory they try to craft a childhood for themselves amidst what constitutes their family.

9. Chart Throb by Ben Elton - 464 pages

Chart Throb is the ultimate pop quest. There are ninety five thousand hopefuls, three judges, just one winner. And that's Calvin Simms, the genius behind the show. Calvin always wins because Calvin writes the rules. But this year, as he sits smugly in judgement upon the mingers, clingers and blingers whom he has pre-selected in his carefully scripted 'search' for a star, he has no idea that the rules are changing. The 'real' is about to be put back into 'reality' television and Calvin and his fellow judges (the nation's favourite mum and the other bloke) are about to become ex-factors themselves. Ben Elton, author of "Popcorn" and "Dead Famous" returns to blistering comic satire with a savagely hilarious deconstruction of the world of modern television talent shows. Chart Throb has one winner and a whole bunch of losers.

10. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield - 416 pages

Vida Winter, a bestselling yet reclusive novelist, has created many outlandish life histories for herself, all of them invention. Now old and ailing, at last she wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. Her letter to biographer Margaret Lea - a woman with secrets of her own - is a summons. Vida's tale is one of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family: the beautiful and wilful Isabelle and the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline. Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling, but as a biographer she deals in fact not fiction and she doesn't trust Vida's account. As she begins her researches, two parallel stories unfold. Join Margaret as she begins her journey to the truth - hers, as well as Vida's.

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

Ruth · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:12 pm Post subject:

Gone for Random Acts...as I nominated it! But I also have The Thirteenth Tale and Chart Throb on my tbr, so it was quite a tough choice!
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"People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading."

Tigerlily · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:25 pm Post subject:

I've gone for Mr Pip, and added the ones I don't have to my wish list.
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Reading: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
Reading Challenge 2009: 8
2008: 4
2007: 10

blueflower · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:53 pm Post subject:

Really tough one this, I have so many of these and want to read them.

Amie · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:54 pm Post subject:

I've gone for the God of Small Things, as it's on my tbr. Wouldn't mind Sepulchre, but I don't think it's out in paperback yet and I'm skint right now.
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Kill the tbr - currently 124
Currently reading:
War and Peace - Leo Tolsty
Wild Swans by Jung Chan
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing

amarie · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:38 pm Post subject:

Went for Disgrace as I nominated but doesn't look like it will win. I've got The Thirteenth on my TBR so hope that wins now. Have read God of Small Things years ago & it's one of the best books I've ever read.
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heathera · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:52 pm Post subject:

I've gone for The God of Small Things as I nominated it and it's been on my tbr for ages. Having said that I like the look of most of these on this list!
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Currently Reading:

The Moonlit Cage - Linda Holeman

1001 Book Challenge:
2009 - 4
2008 - 14
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nicnic · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:48 pm Post subject:

I've gone for Thirteenth Tale as its been on my monstrous TBR pile for ages. I have Woman in White and Disgrace too so if one of the 3 is chosen I'll be chuffed

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Currently reading: Man in the Dark by Paul Auster

mummymelly · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:02 pm Post subject:

Can't decide between Chart Throb and The Memory Box....will have to have a think! I have Chart Throb on my TBR but I'd like to get hold of The Memory Box
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Currently Reading "Switchcraft" by Lowri Turner

annecater · Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:43 pm Post subject:

So many great choices here, I've gone for Random Acts.
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Currently reading: The Tent The Bucket and Me by Emma Kennedy and Granny The Pag by Nina Bawden

1001 Challenge Books read in 2009 - 3
1001 Challenge Books read in 2008 - 8
1001 Challenge Books read in 2007 - 13

Tigerlily · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 10:13 am Post subject:

I'm reading Mr Pip at the mo, so will be chuffed if Thirteenth Tale wins as I have it on my TBR, and also Random Acts of Love.

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

mags51 · Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 7:13 pm Post subject: February poll

I vote for Wilkie Collins. I bought the book last summer but have never got round to reading it so this would spur me on.

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