MobileRead February 2012 - Run-Off Vote

[WT Sharpe]

February 2012 Mobile Read Book Club Run-Off Vote

Help us choose a book as the February 2012 eBook for the Mobile Read Book Club. This is the run-off poll for February. It will be open for 3 days. The winner determines the book we will read for February. The vote this month will be hidden.


We will start the discussion thread for this book on February 20th. Select from the following Two Choices:

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

From goodreads: The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon--when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach--an "outlander"--in a Scotland torn by war and raiding Highland clans in the year of Our Lord...1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into intrigues and dangers that may threaten her life...and shatter her heart. For here she meets James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, and becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire...and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Prolect Gutenberg Australia / MobileRead / Inkmesh search

Spoiler:

A partial blurb from Amazon says:

Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character -- lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative -- Tender Is the Night, Mabel Dodge Luhan remarked, raised F. Scott Fitzgerald to the heights of "a modern Orpheus."

[hpulley]

I'll probably read both of them but it was an easier choice than I thought it would be.

[caleb72]

Just realised that I can't get Outlander in Australia unless someone knows something I don't.

[Asawi]

I'm not sure I'll read either of them, but there is at least a small chance I'd read Tender is the night.

On the other hand, even though there is approximately zero chance I'll ever read Outlander, it would be very interesting to follow a discussion about it.

Oh well, I'll vote for the one I might read...

[Spacechik]

OUTLANDER looks interesting to me. I cast my vote for that.

This is a tough choice, in fact I am still debating whether or not to even vote. When I saw the initial list of ten nominees I thought, as I believe did Orlok, that none of the nominees were what I thought of when thinking of a romance novel. I was expecting a book with a picture of a bare-chested hunk holding a beautiful woman on the cover.


Well so anyway looking more into Outlander it seems like a potentially entertaining science fiction/fantasy time travel novel. If, as write ups on it suggest, the author went to great care to accurately describe the reality of life in mid-18th Century Scotland I might enjoy this as a real change of pace. It sure does not strike me as a romance novel though. It is actually available as an ebook from my local library, but with a long waiting list.

The other possibility is Tender Is the Night. I have not read it, but also I would call it more another in the classics genre rather than a romance.

I will have to think about how to, or even if to, vote.

[issybird]

Sounds as if the guys need the excuse of a book club to explore the realm of muscled chests and heaving bosoms.

Having read Outlander, I can assure you that there's some of that, although proportionally much less than in a typical bodice-ripper, but it's definitely a romance in the traditional swashbuckling sense. On the other hand, I found that Gabaldon's much-vaunted research left a lot to be desired. I started finding errors in the first page or two--in fact, I was sufficiently annoyed that I abandoned it the first time I tried it. I tried it again when I was in the mood for something mindless and it turned out to be an entertaining read. It was a freebie a ways back, I think when RH released the digital editions of the books.

I'm staying with Tender is the Night. I think I was too young to appreciate it the first time I read it and I've always meant to revisit.

Originally Posted by issybird

Sounds as if the guys need the excuse of a book club to explore the realm of muscled chests and heaving bosoms.

Well anytime I feel like looking at such book covers all I have to do is browse the new ebooks section in my local library system as there are always a few of those. I gather it is part of what fans of such type of romance novel expect to assure them that the book is what they expect it to be.

It is disappointing to hear that I was wrong about the historical accuracy of Outlander. I really like reading about the Jacobite Rebellion.

♫ By yon bonnie banks an' by yon bonnie braes
Whaur the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond
Whaur me an' my true love will ne-er meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomon'. ♪

Oh well, I will want to read Tender Is the Night at some point.

[drofgnal]

I voted for Outlander. Gets great reviews at amazon and goodreads.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

This is a tough choice, in fact I am still debating whether or not to even vote. When I saw the initial list of ten nominees I thought, as I believe did Orlok, that none of the nominees were what I thought of when thinking of a romance novel. I was expecting a book with a picture of a bare-chested hunk holding a beautiful woman on the cover.


Well so anyway looking more into Outlander it seems like a potentially entertaining science fiction/fantasy time travel novel. If, as write ups on it suggest, the author went to great care to accurately describe the reality of life in mid-18th Century Scotland I might enjoy this as a real change of pace. It sure does not strike me as a romance novel though. It is actually available as an ebook from my local library, but with a long waiting list.

The other possibility is Tender Is the Night. I have not read it, but also I would call it more another in the classics genre rather than a romance.

I will have to think about how to, or even if to, vote.

in every respect.

Still haven't decided, though I'm leaning towards Outlander - I agree that the Fitzgerald falls more squarely into the Classics category.

[Elfwreck]

Diana Gabaldon's reaction to fanfiction and the way she spoke to her fans guaranteed I'd never willingly read anything by her.

[WT Sharpe]

I can understand authors wanting to protect their intellectual property, and I can also understand authors not wanting to see their characters being developed in ways contrary to their wishes.

[JaneD]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Diana Gabaldon's reaction to fanfiction and the way she spoke to her fans guaranteed I'd never willingly read anything by her.

Wish I'd known that before I voted for her book. Oh well.

[jgaiser]

Though comparing FanFic to breaking into a house is a bit overboard. I suspect if she was a little bit less self-righteous there wouldn't be the stink.

[ATDrake]

She also based her main male character in the Outlander books on a mashup of her favourite actor and the character he played on Doctor Who. The irony, it tickles!

(ETA: I should warn for minor spoilers for a character outcome in that link above. But not a particularly important one, and something you might want to know about if you are sensitive to certain kinds of violence in your reading.)

And in unrelated "author stunts I don't care for", she went and promoted her own son's book as though it were coming from a totally brand-new mega-talented writer whom she came across fortuitously and her readers all should go out and try rather than disclosing their mother-son relationship.

Plus, there's her mildly problematic "understanding" of how plagiarism actually works.

This would not actually keep me from trying her books for the lulz, but it would certainly keep me from paying for them with anything more personal than the usual public library subsidy from my taxes and booksale purchases/overdue fines, much less mentioning or suggesting them for others to read without the aforementioned caveats.