03-19-2010, 08:15 PM | #1 |
Grand Sorcerer
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April 2010 Book Club Nominations
Help us select the next book that the Mobile Read book club will read for April 2010.
The nominations will run through Mar 26. Voting (new poll thread) will run for 5 days starting Mar 26. Book selection category for April per the "official" club opening thread is: April 2010 Humor In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third). How Does This Work? The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome. How Does a Book Get Selected? Each book that is nominated will be listed in a pool at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection. How Many Nominations Can I Make? Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person. How Do I Nominate a Book? Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest. How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated? Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP. When is the Poll? The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed. The floor is open to nominations. Official choices each with three nominations: The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald. The Egg and I, first published in 1945, is a humorous memoir by American author Betty MacDonald about her adventures and travails as a young wife on a chicken farm on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. The book is based on the author's experiences as a newlywed in trying to acclimate and operate a small chicken farm with her first husband Robert Heskett[1] from 1927 to 1931 near Chimacum, Washington. On visits with her family in Seattle, she told stories of their tribulations, which greatly amused them. In the 1940s, MacDonald's sisters strongly encouraged her to write a book about these experiences. The Egg and I was MacDonald's first attempt at writing a book. Topper by Thorne Smith It all begins when Cosmo Topper, a law-abiding, mild-mannered bank manager, decides to buy a secondhand car, only to find it haunted by the ghosts of its previous owners—the reckless, feckless, frivolous couple who met their untimely demise when the car careened into an oak tree. The ghosts, George and Marion Kerby, make it their mission to rescue Topper from the drab "summer of suburban Sundays" that is his life—and they commence a series of madcap adventures that leave Topper, and anyone else who crosses their path, in a whirlwind of discomfiture and delight. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Via www.fantasticfiction.co.uk A monument to sloth, rant and contempt, and suspicious of anything modern - this is Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans, crusader against dunces. In revolt against the 20th century, Ignatius propels his bulk among the flesh-pots of a fallen city, documenting life on his Big Chief tablets as he goes, until his mother decrees that Ignatius must work. My man Jeeves by P G Wodehouse Containing drafts of stories later rewritten for other collections (including "Carry On, Jeeves"), "My Man Jeeves" offers a fascinating insight into the genesis of comic literature's most celebrated double-act. All the stories are set in New York, four of them featuring Jeeves and Wooster themselves; the rest concerning Reggie Pepper, an earlier version of Bertie. Plots involve the usual cast of amiable young clots, choleric millionaires, chorus-girls and vulpine aunts, but towering over them all is the inscrutable figure of Jeeves, manipulating the action from behind the scenes. Early or not, these stories are masterly examples of Wodehouse's art, turning the most ordinary incidents into golden farce. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain Wikipedia says "The novel explains the tale of Hank Morgan, a 19th-century resident of Hartford, Connecticut who awakens to find himself inexplicably transported back in time to early medieval Britain at the time of the legendary King Arthur". Fool by Christopher Moore This is from Publisher's Weekly (as cited on Amazon): Starred Review. Here's the Cliff Notes you wished you'd had for King Lear—the mad royal, his devious daughters, rhyming ghosts and a castle full of hot intrigue—in a cheeky and ribald romp that both channels and chides the Bard and all Fate's bastards. It's 1288, and the king's fool, Pocket, and his dimwit apprentice, Drool, set out to clean up the mess Lear has made of his kingdom, his family and his fortune—only to discover the truth about their own heritage. There's more murder, mayhem, mistaken identities and scene changes than you can remember, but bestselling Moore (You Suck) turns things on their head with an edgy 21st-century perspective that makes the story line as sharp, surly and slick as a game of Grand Theft Auto. Moore confesses he borrows from at least a dozen of the Bard's plays for this buffet of tragedy, comedy and medieval porn action. It's a manic, masterly mix—winning, wild and something today's groundlings will applaud. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Augustus Carp, Esq. - Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Henry Bashford From amazon.com: 'Bashford's comic 1924 volume offers the mock autobiography of Augustus Carp, a self-aggrandizing, stuffy, puritanical oaf, who indulges in numerous vices in the name of Christianity, rationalizing his own weaknesses while condemning others for the same acts. Great fun.' A Damon Runyon Omnibus She quotes Wikipedia: [Runyon] was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the Brooklyn or Midtown demi-monde. The adjective "Runyonesque" refers to this type of character as well as to the type of situations and dialog that Runyon depicted. He spun humorous tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, and gangsters, few of whom go by "square" names, preferring instead colorful monikers such as "Nathan Detroit," "Big Jule," "Harry the Horse," "Good Time Charley," "Dave the Dude," or "The Seldom Seen Kid." Runyon wrote these stories in a distinctive vernacular style: a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense, and always devoid of contractions. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years -- except Biff.Ever since the day when he came upon six-year-old Joshua of Nazareth resurrecting lizards in the village square, Levi bar Alphaeus, called "Biff,"had the distinction of being the Messiah's best bud. That's why the angel Raziel has resurrected Biff from the dust of Jerusalem and brought him to America to write a new gospel, one that tells the real, untold story. Meanwhile, Raziel will order pizza, watch the WWF on TV, and aspire to become Spider-Man.Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung-fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes -- whose considerable charms fall to Biff to sample, since Josh is forbidden the pleasures of the flesh... The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde "The first in a series of outlandishly clever adventures featuring the resourceful, fearless literary detective Thursday Next-a New York Times bestseller!In Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Bront?'s novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde's ingenious fantasy-enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel-unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix." Candide by Voltaire Last edited by pilotbob; 03-25-2010 at 11:01 PM. |
03-19-2010, 08:51 PM | #2 | |
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The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald.
Freely available from the Mobileread downloads section From Wikipedia: Quote:
Last edited by Zipr; 03-19-2010 at 09:06 PM. |
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03-19-2010, 08:51 PM | #3 |
Grand Sorcerer
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03-19-2010, 09:07 PM | #4 |
Zealot
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03-19-2010, 09:16 PM | #5 |
Bah, humbug!
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My First Nomination
And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer.
Eoin Colfer, a lifelong fan of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series, says he was 'dumbfounded' when he got the call to write this book, but Adams' widow and his daughter had read all of Colfer's books and felt he was the perfect person to write the sixth book in the trilogy. Product Description (from the Amazon website): An Englishman's continuing search through space and time for a decent cup of tea ... Arthur Dent's accidental association with that wholly remarkable book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, has not been entirely without incident. Arthur has traveled the length, breadth, and depth of known, and unknown, space. He has stumbled forward and backward through time. He has been blown up, reassembled, cruelly imprisoned, horribly released, and colorfully insulted more than is strictly necessary. And of course Arthur Dent has comprehensively failed to grasp the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Arthur has finally made it home to Earth, but that does not mean he has escaped his fate. Arthur's chances of getting his hands on a decent cuppa have evaporated rapidly, along with all the world's oceans. For no sooner has he touched down on the planet Earth than he finds out that it is about to be blown up ... again. And Another Thing ... is the rather unexpected, but very welcome, sixth installment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It features a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone's favorite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer, and at least one very large slab of cheese. Last edited by WT Sharpe; 03-19-2010 at 09:46 PM. |
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03-19-2010, 09:18 PM | #6 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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I nominate "The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde
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03-19-2010, 09:28 PM | #7 | |
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Quote:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Another-Thin...9048209&sr=8-1 |
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03-19-2010, 09:38 PM | #8 |
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03-19-2010, 09:43 PM | #9 |
Bah, humbug!
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My Second Nomination
Topper by Thorne Smith! Although written in 1926, I found the irreverent wit and sexy humor holds up incredibly well. This book had me rolling!
And you can download it from MobileRead! Description (From the upload post): Thorne Smith is a master of urbane wit and sophisticated repartee. Topper, his best-known work, is the hilarious, ribald comedy on which the hit television show and movie (starring Cary Grant) were based. It all begins when Cosmo Topper, a law-abiding, mild-mannered bank manager, decides to buy a secondhand car, only to find it haunted by the ghosts of its previous owners—the reckless, feckless, frivolous couple who met their untimely demise when the car careened into an oak tree. The ghosts, George and Marion Kerby, make it their mission to rescue Topper from the drab "summer of suburban Sundays" that is his life—and they commence a series of madcap adventures that leave Topper, and anyone else who crosses their path, in a whirlwind of discomfiture and delight. As enchanting today as it was when first published in 1926, Topper has set the standard in American pop culture for such mischievous apparitions as those seen in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Heaven Can Wait, Beetlejuice, and Bewitched. MobiPocket Mobi/PRC Books uploaded by BenG https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18530 Sony BBeB/LRF Books uploaded by BenG https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18529 eBookwise IMP format uploaded by BenG https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19962 Last edited by WT Sharpe; 03-19-2010 at 09:47 PM. |
03-19-2010, 09:53 PM | #10 | |
Bah, humbug!
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Quote:
But BOb, you save $11.70 off the digital list price of $25.99! Don't you want to save money? |
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03-19-2010, 10:42 PM | #11 | |
Manic Do Fuse
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This is my first ever nomination in the MobileRead book Club. One of the funniest books ever written and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1981. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
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03-20-2010, 01:01 AM | #12 | |
Wizard
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I'd like to nominate Desparate Husbands by Richard Glover
From Amazon: Quote:
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03-20-2010, 01:07 AM | #13 | |
Wizard
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Quote:
It's not available in Australia, so I'm not worried... |
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03-20-2010, 01:14 AM | #14 |
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I nominate Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. I have never gotten through a whole Discworld novel except Mort and I understand this is in the same style. I would love to read another Pratchett. Summary from Amazon:
Discworld's equivalent of Santa Claus, the Hogfather (who flies in a sleigh drawn by four gigantic pigs), has been spirited away by a repulsive assassin, Mr. Teatime, acting on behalf of the Auditors who rule the universe and who would prefer that it exhibited no life. Since faith is essential to life, destroying belief in the Hogfather would be a major blow to humanity. It falls to a marvelously depicted Death and his granddaughter Susan to solve the mystery of the disappeared Hogfather, and meanwhile to fill in for him. On the way to the pair's victory, readers encounter children both naughty and nice; gourmet banquets made of old boots and mud; lesser and greater criminals; an overworked and undertrained tooth fairy named Violet; and Bilious, the god of hangovers, among other imaginative concepts. |
03-20-2010, 01:22 AM | #15 |
Wizard
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