BABBLING BOOKS

sirg1006 · Last edited by sirg1006 on Sun May 13, 2007 11:16 pm; edited 2 times in total

JUNE BOOK CHOICES - YOU DECIDE!

Which books would you like to be read in June? 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 21st May will be chosen to be read from 1st June.

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

The polls end midnight 21st May!

1. A Respectable Trade by Philippa Gregory 512 pages

The devastating consequences of the slave trade in 18th century Bristol are explored through the powerful but impossible attraction of well-born Frances and her Yoruban slave, Mehuru. Bristol in 1787 is booming, from its stinking docks to its elegant new houses. Josiah Cole, a small dockside trader, is prepared to gamble everything to join the big players of the city. But he needs ready cash and a well-connected wife. An arranged marriage to Frances Scott is a mutually convenient solution. Trading her social contacts for Josiah's protection, Frances enters the world of the Bristol merchants and finds her life and fortune dependent on the respectable trade of sugar, rum and slaves. Once again Philippa Gregory brings her unique combination of a vivid sense of history and inimitable storytelling skills to illuminate a complex period of our past. Powerful, haunting, intensely disturbing, this is a novel of desire and shame, of individuals, of a society, and of a whole continent devastated by the greed of others.

2. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving 640 pages

Eleven-year-old Owen Meany, playing in a Little League baseball game in New Hampshire, hits a foul ball and kills his best friend's mother. Owen does not believe in accidents and believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul is both extraordinary and terrifying.

3. Temple of my Familiar by Alice Walker 432 pages

A visionary cast of characters weave together their past and present in a brilliantly intricate tapestry of tales.It is the story of the dispossessed and displaced, of peoples whose history is ancient and whose future is yet to come. Here we meet Lissie, a woman of many pasts; Arveyda the great guitarist and his Latin American wife who has had to flee her homeland; Suwelo, the history teacher, and his former wife Fanny who has fallen in love with spirits. Hovering tantalisingly above their stories are Miss Celie and Shug, the beloved characters from THE COLOUR PURPLE.

4. Mathematics of Love by Emma Darwin 480 pages

BIRDSONG told the story of the First World War; ATONEMENT described the Second. Now there is THE MATHEMATICS OF LOVE. From the Suffolk countryside to the old Basque towns of Spain, Emma Darwin's unforgettable debut tells the astoundingly moving story of Stephen, a veteran of Waterloo, whose suffering and secret lost happiness is transformed by love. Gorgeously written, fascinating and engrossing, THE MATHEMATICS OF LOVE is a sexy, heartbreaking, glorious novel by a major new literary star.

5. Small Island by Andrea Levy 544 pages

It is 1948, and England is recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has only just begun. Queenie Bligh`s neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn`t know when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. What else can she do? Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently.

6. In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar 256 pages

On a white-hot day in Tripoli, Libya, in the summer of 1979, nine-year-old Suleiman is shopping in the market square with his mother. His father is away on business—but Suleiman is sure he has just seen him, standing across the street in a pair of dark glasses. But why isn't he waving? And why doesn't he come home when he knows Suleiman's mother is falling apart?

7. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden 512 pages

A seductive and evocative epic on an intimate scale, that tells the extraordinary story of a geisha girl. Summoning up more than twenty years of Japan's most dramatic history, it uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation. From a small fishing village in 1929, the tale moves to the glamorous and decadent heart of Kyoto in the 1930s, where a young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. She tells her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York; it exquisitely evokes another culture, a different time and the details of an extraordinary way of life. It conjures up the perfection and the ugliness of life behind rice-paper screens, where young girls learn the arts of geisha - dancing and singing, how to wind the kimono, how to walk and pour tea, and how to beguile the most powerful men.

8. The Rosary Girls by Richard Montanari 544 pages

In the most brutal killing crusade Philadelphia has seen in years, a series of young Catholic women are found dead, their bodies mutilated and their hands bolted together. Each clutches a rosary in her lifeless grasp. Veteran cop, Kevin Byrne and his rookie partner, Jessica Balzano set out to hunt down the elusive killer, who leads them deeper and deeper into the abyss of a madman's depravity. Suspects appear before them like bad dreams - and vanish just as quickly. While the body count rises, Easter is fast approaching: the day of resurrection and of the last rosary to be counted...

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I'm an auntie! Kelvin

sirg1006 · Posted: Sun May 13, 2007 10:55 pm Post subject:

Knew I'd heard of A Prayer for Owen Meany... was a good film!

D

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I'm an auntie! Kelvin

dingsy · Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 9:25 am Post subject:

Can't pass up the opportunity of a Gregory I haven't read so far!

Ruth · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 6:43 am Post subject:

Gone for Memoirs of a Geisha, as it has been on my tbr for quite a while!
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MissMuppet · Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 9:28 pm Post subject:

I went for the PG one as I nominated it!

jerseygirl · Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 7:43 am Post subject:

I have read Memoirs and Rosary Girls (both brilliant) and love the sound of all the others......mmmmm....A Respectable Trade, as I have wanted to read it for ages.

MissMuppet · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 4:24 pm Post subject:

Oooo hope the PG wins as I've wanted to read one of hers for a while and just haven't got round to it... would be the perfect opportunity!

blueflower · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 7:03 pm Post subject:

I have found it very hard to make choices out of this months polls.

So many great sounding books. The only one I have read is Memoirs of a Geisha, but in the end I have gone for Mathematics of Love.

sparkledpixie · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 7:43 pm Post subject:

Memoirs of a Geisha because it has been on my TBR forever and I need a good excuse to get into it!

MissMuppet · Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 3:01 pm Post subject:

Oh no, PG has been over taken!! I've read Memoirs already, surely I can't have another month of no BB read, this will be the 3rd month I've already read them!

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