BABBLING BOOKS

Tigerlily · Last edited by Tigerlily on Tue Mar 27, 2007 10:26 am; edited 3 times in total

APRIL BOOK CHOICES - YOU DECIDE!

Which books would you like to be read in April? 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 March will be chosen to be read from 1st April.

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 March!

1. Small Island - Andrea Levy (544 pages)

The Winner of the Whitbread Book Award 2004! Also winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2004...

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. It's desperation that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie and knock at her door. Gilbert's wife Hortense, too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. But when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby, decrepit, and far from the golden city of her dreams. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was.

2. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen (320 pages)

During an eventful season at Bath, young, naive Catherine Morland experiences the joys of fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who shares Catherine's love of Gothic romance and horror, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father's mysterious house, Northanger Abbey. There, her imagination influenced by novels of sensation and intrigue, Catherine imagines terrible crimes committed by General Tilney. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine, this is the most youthful and and optimistic of Jane Austen's works.

3. Only Strange People Go to Church - Laura Marney (352 pages)

Maria, a community worker, looks after an unruly gang of mentally disabled people. She wants to put on a community show but lacks both a venue and a community to perform it. Ray's workshop, actually a deconsecrated church, could be the answer to her prayers. Ray, however, wields an unnatural influence over people. Can he be trusted? On the other hand, Dezzie, her colleague, is a great guy; he's tall, handsome, and he doesn't mind women with concave chests. After an alarming incident with a flasher and auditions that include the Can-Can Grans, Maria succeeds in setting up a Musical Extravaganza. However, in doing so she suffers a moral dilemma that would curl a bishop's hair. If Maria does 'the right thing' she'll wreck careers, break hearts and end up alone and flat-chested. What is 'the right thing' and should she do it? "Only Strange People Go to Church Nowadays" is a lighthearted look at modern secular society and our need for community. It is also an exploration of love and sex with the wrong people.

4. The Bullet Trick - Louise Welsh (368 pages)

When down-at-heel Glasgow conjurer, William Wilson gets booked for a string of cabaret gigs in Berlin, he's hoping his luck's on the turn. There were certain spectators from his last show who he'd rather forget. But secrets have a habit of catching up with him and the line between what's an act and what's real starts to blur.

5. Beyond Black - Hilary Mantel (480 pages)

An hilarious and sinister tale of dark secrets and secret forces in suburban England - "Beyond Black" is the new novel from the critically acclaimed author of "Giving Up the Ghost". Alison Hart is a medium by trade: dead people talk to her, and she talks back. With her flat-eyed, flint-hearted sidekick, Colette, she tours the dormitory towns of London's orbital road, passing on messages from dead ancestors: 'Granny says she likes your new kitchen units.' Alison's ability to communicate with spirits is a torment rather than a gift. Behind her plump, smiling and bland public persona is a desperate woman. She knows that the next life holds terrors that she must conceal from her clients. Her days and nights are haunted by the men she knew in her childhood, the thugs and petty criminals who preyed upon her hopeless, addled mother, Emmie. They infiltrate her house, her body and her soul; the more she tries to be rid of them, the stronger and nastier they become.This tenth novel by Hilary Mantel, the critically acclaimed author of "Giving Up the Ghost", is a witty and deeply sinister story of dark secrets and dark forces, set in an England that jumps at its own shadow, a country whose banal self-absorption is shot through by fear of the engulfing dark.

6. The Sea - John Banville (200 pages)

This title is the winner of the 2005 Man Booker Prize. When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma. The Grace family had appeared there, in that long-ago summer, as if from another world. Mr. and Mrs. Grace, with their worldly ease and candour, were unlike any adults he had met before. But it was his contemporaries, the Grace twins, Myles and Chloe, who most fascinated Max. He grew to know them intricately, even intimately, and what ensued would haunt him for the rest of his years and shape everything that was to follow. Praise for "The Sea": 'With his fastidious wit and exquisite style, John Banville is the heir to Nabokov. "The Sea" [is] his best novel so far ...Banville's prose is sublime' - "Daily Telegraph". 'This is a novel in which all Banville's remarkable gifts come together to produce a real work of art, disquieting, disturbing, beautiful, intelligent, and in the end, surprisingly, offering consolation' - Allan Massie, "Scotsman". '"The Sea" is a beautiful novel, challenging and richly rewarding ...It is a comfort to know that we have a lord of language among us' - Gerry Dukes, "Irish Independent".

7. Stuart - A Life Backwards - Alexander Masters (304 pages)

This is a highly original and captivating memoir which has captured the hearts of readers everywhere. "Stuart, A Life Backwards", is the story of a remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer and illustrator ('a middle class scum ponce, if you want to be honest about it, Alexander) and a chaotic, knife-wielding beggar whom he gets to know during a campaign to release two charity workers from prison. Interwoven into this, is Stuart's confession: the story of his life, told backwards. With humour, compassion (and exasperation) Masters slowly works back through post-office heists, prison riots and the exact day Stuart discovered violence, to unfold the reasons why he changed from a happy-go-lucky little boy into a polydrug-addicted-alcoholic Jekyll and Hyde personality, with a fondness for what he called 'little strips of silver' (knives to you and me). Funny, despairing, brilliantly written and full of surprises: this is the most original and moving biography of recent years.

8. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka (336 pages)

For years, Nadezhda and Vera, two Ukrainian sisters, raised in England by their refugee parents, have had as little as possible to do with each other - and they have their reasons. But now they find they'd better learn how to get along, because since their mother's death their aging father has been sliding into his second childhood, and an alarming new woman has just entered his life. Valentina, a bosomy young synthetic blonde from the Ukraine, seems to think their father is much richer than he is, and she is keen that he leave this world with as little money to his name as possible. If Nadazhda and Vera don't stop her, no one will. But separating their addled and annoyingly lecherous dad from his new love will prove to be no easy feat - Valentina is a ruthless pro and the two sisters swiftly realize that they are mere amateurs when it comes to ruthlessness. As Hurricane Valentina turns the family house upside down, old secrets come falling out, including the most deeply buried one of them all, from the War, the one that explains much about why Nadazhda and Vera are so different.In the meantime, oblivious to it all, their father carries on with the great work of his dotage, a grand history of the tractor.

9. Keeping Faith - Jodi Picoult (448 pages)

For the second time in her marriage, Mariah White catches her husband with another woman, and Faith, their seven-year-old daughter, witnesses every painful minute. In the aftermath of a sudden divorce, Mariah struggles with depression and Faith begins to confide in an imaginary friend. At first, Mariah dismisses these exchanges as a child's imagination. But when Faith starts reciting passages from the Bible, develops stigmata, and begins to perform miraculous healings, Mariah wonders if her daughter - a girl with no religious background - might indeed be seeing God. As word spreads and controversy heightens, Mariah and Faith are besieged by believers and disbelievers alike, caught in a media circus that threatens what little stability they have left. Is Faith a prophet or a troubled little girl? Is Mariah a good mother facing an impossible crisis - or a charlatan using her daughter to get attention?

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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 Mar 14, 2007 3:32 pm Post subject:

This list is harder to choose from. I have 6 of the books already which I would like to get read. I would like to read one of the others but not keen on the other two.

clairabella · Enjoys Books Joined: 06 Feb 2007 Posts: 52

Voted for A short history of tractors in Ukranian as its on my TBR.

Only Strange People go to Church looks interesting so will keep a look out for this even if it's not chosen for April

katey · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 4:53 pm Post subject:

I voted for Northanger Abbey.
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Katey
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Books 01.09- 18 (5)
Books 02.09- 12 (4)
Books 03.09- 9 (1)
Books 04.09- 3 (0)
Books 05.09- 3(0)
Books 06.09- 8(1)
Books 07.09- 9(0)
Books 08.09- 10(1)
Books 09.09- 3(1)
Books 10.09- 9(1)

Target for 2009- 100 (15)- 16(2) to go!

mummymelly · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 5:11 pm Post subject:

Gone for Keeping Faith as it's the only one I have! The other ones I must try and get hold of is Only Strange People go To Church....sounds good and I'd quite like to read a Jane Austen at some point, as I've never read one of hers.
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Swap List: http://tinyurl.com/33pg6r
Currently Reading "Switchcraft" by Lowri Turner

miranda · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 6:46 pm Post subject:

WOW! That is a great list! I would be happy reading any of these! But I would particularly like to read Small Island and The Sea.

I will vote for The Sea.

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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.'

Tigerlily · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:12 pm Post subject:

I voted for Tractors as it's my Secret Santa book and I'm itching to read it

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

nicnic · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:52 pm Post subject:

I voted for Tractors too as i swapped for it recently. At least it'll be another one off my TBR!!
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Currently reading: Man in the Dark by Paul Auster

Ruth · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 9:14 am Post subject:

I voted for The Bullet Trick. However, A Short History Of Tractors... and Keeping Faith are both on my tbr pile as well, so I was tempted by those. I've read Northanger Abbey before, but it is a fantastic book, so would be happy to read it again!
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"People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading."

mummymelly · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 12:11 pm Post subject:

Ooh! It's a tie at the mo! Really want keeping Faith!!!!
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Swap List: http://tinyurl.com/33pg6r
Currently Reading "Switchcraft" by Lowri Turner

sirg1006 · Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:31 pm Post subject:

I've already voted on this one so we may need another poll unless someone else comes along!

D

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I'm an auntie! Kelvin

Tigerlily · Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 11:11 am Post subject:

Can we start a poll for the two books?
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Reading: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
Reading Challenge 2009: 8
2008: 4
2007: 10

Tigerlily · Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 3:12 pm Post subject:

Right have started a third poll to help us decide between Tractors & Keeping Faith.

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

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