BABBLING BOOKS

nicnic · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 12:46 pm Post subject: Vote for our 2008 Readalong!

Please vote for your readalong choice. The poll will run until the 15th of July, which gives us a week to get our copies and for me to sort out sections.

I've put approximate number of pages with each description but this will differ with different editions (but we'll sort that out once the book is chosen

).

Lots of choices here - enjoy!

Anthony Trollope's celebrated Parliamentary novels, of which 'The Eustace Diamonds' is the third and most famous, are at once unfailingly amusing social comedies, melodramas of greed and deception, and precise nature studies of the political animal in its mid-victorian habitat. With its purloined jewels, its conniving, resilient, mercenary heroine, and its partiality for the human spectacle in all its complexity.
(~832 pages)

The story of Edmund Dantes, self-styled Count of Monte Cristo, is told with consummate skill. The victim of a miscarriage of justice, Dantes is fired by a desire for retribution and empowered by a stroke of providence. In his campaign of vengeance, he becomes an anonymous agent of fate. The sensational narrative of intrigue, betrayal, escape, and triumphant revenge moves at a cracking pace. Dumas' novel presents a powerful conflict between good and evil embodied in an epic saga of rich diversity that is complicated by the hero's ultimate discomfort with the hubristic implication of his own actions.
(~896 pages)

First published in 1936, this book is a historical novel set against the dramatic backdrop of the American Civil War. It tells the love story of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler.
(~1024 pages)

Acclaimed by many as the world's greatest novel, this is the story of a wife, Anna Karenina, who abandons her empty existence as the wife of a Petersburg government minister for a passionate relationship with a young officer, Count Vronsky.
(~864 pages)

George Eliot's most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama, hailed by Virginia Woolf as 'one of the few English novels written for adult people'
(~880 pages)

Enter the dazzling world of nineteenth century magicians fighting Napoleon's advancing army - and fighting between themselves
Two magicians shall appear in England. The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me...
The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed since practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country. Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very opposite of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms the one between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.
(~1024 pages)

When a man crashes his car into a petrol station, he brings with him the foul corpses of his wife and daughter. He dies and it doesn't take long for the plague which killed him to spread across America and the world.
(~1344 pages)

Based on a decade of research, and on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before - and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him - this is the most authoritative life of Mao ever written. It is full of startling revelations, exploding the myth of the Long March, and showing a completely unknown Mao: he was not driven by idealism or ideology; his intimate and intricate relationship with Stalin went back to the 1920s, ultimately bringing him to power; he welcomed Japanese occupation of much of China; and he schemed, poisoned and blackmailed to get his way. After Mao conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world. In chasing this dream he caused the deaths of 38 million people in the greatest famine in history.
Combining meticulous history with the story-telling style of "Wild Swans", this biography makes immediate Mao's roller-coaster life, as he intrigued and fought every step of the way to force through his unpopular decisions. The reader enters the shadowy chambers of Mao's court, and eavesdrops on the drama in its hidden recesses. Mao's character and the enormity of his behaviour towards his wives, mistresses and children are unveiled for the first time. This is an entirely fresh look at Mao in both content and approach. It will astonish historians and the general reader alike.
(~992 pages)

Following the success of "Pickwick Papers" and "Oliver Twist", "Nicholas Nickleby" was hailed as a comic triumph and firmly established Dickens as a 'literary gentleman'. It has a full supporting cast of delectable characters that range from the iniquitous Wackford Squeers and his family, to the delightful Mrs Nickleby, taking in the eccentric Crummles and his travelling players, the Mantalinis, the Kenwigs and many more. Combining these with typically Dickensian elements of burlesque and farce, the novel is eminently suited to dramatic adaptation. So great was the impact as it left Dickens' pen that many pirated versions appeared in print before the original was even finished. Often neglected by critics, "Nicholas Nickleby" has never ceased to delight readers and is widely regarded as one of the greatest comic masterpieces of nineteenth-centure literature.
(~800 pages)

Jack Burns' mother, Alice, is a tattoo artist in search of the boy's father, William, a virtuoso organist, who has fled America to Europe. To fund her journey, she plies her trade in the seaports of the North Sea as she tracks her four-year-old son's errant father. But Alice is a mystery, and William can't be found. And even Jack's memories are subject to doubt. Jack returns to the United States, and studies in Canada and New England, but his life is still shaped by the events of his childhood quest, in particular his relationships with older women. It is only when he becomes a Hollywood actor that what he has experienced in the past comes into telling play in his present...
(~928 pages)

Even now, at the age of 82, Iris lives in the shadow cast by her younger sister Laura. Now poor and trying to cope with a failing body, Iris reflects on her far from exemplary life, in particular the events surrounding her sister's tragic death and the novel which earned her such notoriety.
(~641 pages)

The publication of Wild Swans in 1991 was a worldwide phenomenon. Not only did it become the best-selling non-fiction book in British publishing history, with sales of well over two million, it was received with unanimous critical acclaim, and was named the winner of the 1992 NCR Book Award and the 1993 British Book of the Year Award. Few books have ever had such an impact on their readers. Through the story of three generations of women -- grandmother, mother and daughter -- Wild Swans tells nothing less than the whole tumultuous history of China's tragic twentieth century, from sword-bearing warlords to Chairman Mao, from the Manchu Empire to the Cultural Revolution. At times terrifying, at times astonishing, always deeply moving, Wild Swans is a book in a million, a true story with all the passion and grandeur of a great novel. For this new edition, Jung Chang has written a new introduction, bringing her own story up to date, and describing the effect Wild Swans' success has had on her life.
(~720 pages)

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Currently reading: Man in the Dark by Paul Auster

blueflower · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:10 pm Post subject:

I have six of these but the only one I have read is Anna Karenina. But can't decide which to vote for. Will have to think about it.

annecater · Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:34 pm Post subject:

Oh my goodness, what a choice!! So many pages! I'm really looking forward to this starting
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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: Sat Jul 05, 2008 12:02 am Post subject:

Wow! Loads to choose from. Fantastic

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

sirg1006 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:07 am Post subject:

Not sure what to go for! I suggested 2... didn't suggest GWTW as I'd read it but still have it so wouldn't mind if that was chosen.

D

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I'm an auntie! Kelvin

miranda · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:41 am Post subject:

WOW! What a brill selection, I won't mind which one of these is chosen. I have read Middlemarch, but would read it again because I enjoyed it so much. I really fancy The Eustace Diamonds - which I was supposed to read at uni but didn't have time! - and The Count of Monte Cristo. I am trying to read more Dickens tho and fancy that too. I started Anna Karenina, but gave up! Would try again tho. Will def have to have a think b4 I vote.

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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.'

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