MobileRead August 2010 Mobile Read Book Club Vote

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Perhaps we should start a new book club...

Jon's book Club

Jon can select a book each month that we can read and discuss. What do you all think? Would it rival Oprah's Book Club? It would certainly be easier for "me" to run.

BOb

I like that! After all, we three have identical tastes in books, except for the Star Trek stuff. I second!

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

I voted for Don't Sleep There Are Snakes because it seems a bit different from what I've been reading lately. I think I'll read it even if it's not chosen (which is looking like it might be the case!)

I'm a bit more than half way through it. It is an interesting book about an unusual group of people. Not only is their language unique, their view of life and the world makes them one of the truly "Live for today" people.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by kennyc

...Hmmm.....my vote is still available....

Mine, too....

[DixieGal]

The Chandler book seems to be leading. That's OK. I have not read any Chandler since about 1992, during a college course on detective fiction. It was an easy A for the class, because it was so fascinating.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by CharlieBird

Which brings me, Bob, to your interchange w/DixieGal and her comment about more frequent participation in the BookClub. I find it very hard to spend hours with a book that you don´t mind putting down to feed the dogs or cut the grass! Is not reading time too precious to be spent on books you can´t really get into when there are so many others to pull from the shelf?

I think you misunderstood me a bit.

Originally Posted by CharlieBird

just added The Book Thief on Calibre...but usually after a couple of chapters if it´s not clicking I don´t feel guilty moving on.
d

That's what I mean. There is a difference between saying... "That book doesn't interest me when all you have done is read the blurb in message 1 here" as opposed to saying, "I read the first 3 chapters and it just wasn't for me, so I stopped."

The latter is perfectly fine... and is what I would do too. The former though... seems to go against the idea of participating in the book club.

That said.... I don't have a problem with Dixie's not reading a selected book in any way. As I have said many times, this is just very casual group, join in one month or not, read the book or not, participate in the discussion thread or not... it's just for fun and to maybe find some books and authors that you never would have considered or even known about previously.

I am sure each person is going to get something different out of the book club... and I'm cool with that. I was just posting my approach is all.

I have skipped a few of the selected books, but only because I was reading other books at the time. I'm a 1 book going at a time reader. So, I hate to stop something I am enjoying to start something else.

BOb

[glowhappy]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

I like that! After all, we three have identical tastes in books, except for the Star Trek stuff. I second!

If that's the case I'm in too! And I'm down with Star Trek!

[CharlieBird]

I, too, am a 1 book going at a time reader. I agree totally with your POV on participation in the BookClub. Thanks, Bob, for you thoughts.

I do need to note that it was Chandler's The Big Sleep I tried to read last winter. So if the leading nomination is chosen for August I will read it. Maybe I will irregardless to see if it changes my opinion of Mr. Chandler's skills!

[recluse]

I already have a book club, thank you very much.

Only my minions can be members.

Only the chosen can be minions.

What does Oprah have to do with literature?
Who reads to her?

[Mrgauth]

The Long Goodbye

[JSWolf]

For those who don't have a lot of time to read The book for August, Sh*t My Dad Says is a short book. Not at short as 39 steps, but probably shorter then any other on the voting list.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I hate to stop something I am enjoying to start something else

Spoiler:

This is exactly one of the strong motivation to progress. On the wall of a Pompei apothek: No more coitus interruptus, use Lucilla's invisible, extra thin sheep gut, one size fits all.

Since I started I missed one month of the club as I was in dire need of time, but I always had a great pleasure in all the phases of a Session. And this is thanks to you gals and guys, but also to the very friendly and competent leadership of pilotbob. Thanks BOb.

[HarryT]

Just a reminder that Mr. Chandler's works are not in the public domain in the USA, Europe, or indeed most places other than Canada. Please do not download it if it is not in the public domain for you.

[Over]

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

There's only praise in the first post, not a single description about what is it about.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Over

There's only praise in the first post, not a single description about what is it about.

Description from Amazon:

Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to his only friend in the world: Philip Marlowe, Private Investigator. He’s willing to help a man down on his luck, but later, Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty. Marlowe finds himself drawn into a sordid crowd of adulterers and alcoholics in LA’s Idle Valley, where the rich are suffering one big suntanned hangover. Marlowe is sure Lennox didn’t kill his wife, but how many more stiffs will turn up before he gets to the truth?

[beppe]

Originally Posted by Over

There's only praise in the first post, not a single description about what is it about.

There you go. watch out, the spoiler might be a spoiler.

Spoiler:

The novel opens outside a club called The Dancers. It is late October or early November 1949. Philip Marlowe meets a drunk named Terry Lennox, a man with scars on one side of his face. They forge an uneasy friendship over the next few months. Everything changes when Lennox shows up late one night (in June 1950) at Marlowe's place, asking for a ride to the Tijuana airport. Marlowe agrees as long as Lennox doesn't tell him any details of why he's running.
On his return to LA, Marlowe is arrested on suspicion of murder, after having annoyed the police investigating the case with his refusal to cooperate, as an attempt to force him to reveal that he helped Lennox. It is revealed that Lennox's wife was found dead in her pool house, and that she had died before Lennox fled. After three days of antagonizing his interrogators, Marlowe is released when Lennox is (allegedly) found dead of a suicide in Otatoclán with a full written confession by his side. Marlowe gets home to find a cryptic note from Lennox containing a "portrait of Madison" (a $5000 bill).


A $5000 bill with the portrait of Madison.
Marlowe gets a call from a New York publisher named Howard Spencer, asking him to investigate a case. One of his best writers, Roger Wade, has a drinking problem and has been missing for three days. Initially Marlowe refuses, but after Wade's wife, Eileen, also asks for Marlowe's help, he consents. Marlowe ends up finding Wade in a makeshift detox facility in a soon-to-be-abandoned ranch out in the desert. He takes his fee, but the Wades' stories don't match.
The Wades each try to convince Marlowe to stay at their house to keep Roger writing instead of drinking, and though he refuses, he ends up making further trips to the Wades' house at their behest. On one such trip, he finds Wade passed out in the grass with a cut on his head. Later, Roger tries half-heartedly to kill himself, but lets his wife take the gun from him. Mrs. Wade ends up in a sort of trance and attempts to seduce Marlowe, thinking he's a former lover of hers who died ten years earlier in World War II.
As all of this occurs, Marlowe is repeatedly threatened to lay off the Lennox case, first by a Spanish friend of Lennox's named Mendy Menendez, then by Lennox's father-in-law, the police, the Wades' servant (a Chileno named Candy), and Wade's wife. Marlowe also learns that Terry Lennox had previously lived as Paul Marston who was married previously and was probably from England.
Wade calls Marlowe again, asking him to come by to have lunch with him. Wade ends up drinking himself into a stupor, and this time succeeds in killing himself. Mrs. Wade arrives at the house shortly thereafter and accuses Marlowe of killing her husband. Candy initially tries to frame Marlowe, but his claims are undermined in an interrogation.
Marlowe gets a call from Spencer regarding Wade's death and he bullies Spencer into taking him to see Mrs. Wade. Once there, Marlowe grills her on the death of Terry Lennox's wife. Eileen first tries to blame it all on Roger, but Marlowe doesn't buy her story and argues that she killed both Mrs. Lennox and Roger Wade and that Paul Marston (Lennox) was actually her first husband, presumed killed in action with the Special Air Service off the coast of Norway or by the Gestapo. The next morning, Marlowe gets a call that Eileen Wade killed herself, leaving a confession in a note.
Marlowe still refuses to let the story lie. He's assaulted by Menendez, who ends up arrested in a setup arranged by a fellow hood (and erstwhile cop) named Randy Starr, who served with Menendez and Lennox/Marston during the war. Finally, Marlowe gets a visit from a Mexican man who claims to have been there when Lennox was killed in his hotel room. Marlowe listens to his story, and then says that he didn't buy it, because the Mexican man is none other than a post-cosmetic-surgery Terry Lennox.