MobileRead June 2015 Book Club Nominations

[WT Sharpe]

Help us select the book that the MobileRead Book Club will read for June, 2015.

The nominations will run through midnight EST May 26 or until 10 books have made the list. The poll will then be posted and will remain open for five days.

Book selection category for June is: Award Winners

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 poll 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 initial poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.

The floor is open to nominations. The nominations are now closed. Please comment if you discover a nomination is not available as an ebook in your area.

Official choices with three nominations each:

(1) The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Goodreads | Amazon US

Spoiler:

Winner of the Mythopoeic Award in 2014 for Adult Literature.

(2) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Goodreads | Amazon.com / Kobo CA / Google Play / Overdrive

Spoiler:

Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

(3) A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
Goodreads | Amazon AU / Amazon CA / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Audible / Kobo

Spoiler:

Won the the British Book Awards Best Travel Book of the Year 1989 and the Prix des libraires du Québec for Lauréats hors Québec 1995. Known for its honesty, wit and humour, this short and popular book inspired several follow-ups as well as radio and television adaptations, and inspired Mayle's novel (and the later film adaptation) A Good Year.

From Goodreads:

In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs. He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious regional cuisine. A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days.

(4) Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs
Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Google Play US / Kobo US / Overdrive Audio / Overdrive eBook / Waterstones UK

Spoiler:

It is the first book in the Temperance Brennan series and this series is the basis for the TV show Bones. Her first novel, Déjà Dead, won the 1997 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. The fictional heroine in her novels, Temperance "Tempe" Brennan, is also a forensic anthropologist.

Her life is devoted to justice — for those she never even knew.

In the year since Temperance Brennan left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec. When a female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in trash bags, Tempe detects an alarming pattern — and she plunges into a harrowing search for a killer. But her investigation is about to place those closest to her — her best friend and her own daughter — in mortal danger….

(5) American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Goodreads | Amazon US / WorldCat

Spoiler:

Days before his release from prison, Shadow's wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.

Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, AMERICAN GODS takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what and who it finds there...

Awards: Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel (2001), Hugo Award for Best Novel (2002), Nebula Award for Best Novel (2002), Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel (2002), International Horror Guild Award Nominee for Best Novel (2001), World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novel (2002), SFX Award for Best Novel (2002), Geffen Award (2003), Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Nominee for Adult Literature (2002), Prix Bob Morane for roman traduit (2003)

[WT Sharpe]

Wondering if a particular book is available in your country? The following spoiler contains a list of bookstores outside the United States you can search. If you don't see a bookstore on this list for your country, find one that is, send me the link via PM, and I'll add it to the list.

Spoiler:

Australian
Angus Robertson
Booktopia
Borders
Dymocks
Fishpond
Google

Canada
Amazon. Make sure you are logged out. Then go to the Kindle Store. Search for a book. After the search results come up, in the upper right corner of the screen, change the country to Canada and search away.
Google
Sony eBookstore (Upper right corner switch to/from US/CA)

UK
BooksOnBoard (In the upper right corner is a way to switch to the UK store)
Amazon
Foyle's
Google
Penguin
Random House
Waterstones
WH Smith

*** The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker [HomeInMyShoes, Dazrin, treadlightly]
Goodreads | Amazon US

Spoiler:

Winner of the Mythopoeic Award in 2014 for Adult Literature.

*** American Gods by Neil Gaiman [Dazrin, VioletVal, WT Sharpe]
Goodreads | Amazon US / WorldCat

Spoiler:

Days before his release from prison, Shadow's wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.

Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, AMERICAN GODS takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what and who it finds there...

Awards: Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel (2001), Hugo Award for Best Novel (2002), Nebula Award for Best Novel (2002), Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel (2002), International Horror Guild Award Nominee for Best Novel (2001), World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novel (2002), SFX Award for Best Novel (2002), Geffen Award (2003), Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Nominee for Adult Literature (2002), Prix Bob Morane for roman traduit (2003)

*** A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle [sun surfer, Synamon, CRussel]
Goodreads | Amazon AU / Amazon CA / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Audible / Kobo

Spoiler:

Won the the British Book Awards Best Travel Book of the Year 1989 and the Prix des libraires du Québec for Lauréats hors Québec 1995. Known for its honesty, wit and humour, this short and popular book inspired several follow-ups as well as radio and television adaptations, and inspired Mayle's novel (and the later film adaptation) A Good Year.

From Goodreads:

In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs. He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious regional cuisine. A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days.

*** All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr [treadlightly, JSWolf, HomeInMyShoes]
Goodreads | Amazon.com / Kobo CA / Google Play / Overdrive

Spoiler:

Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

** Downbelow Station by Cherryh [drofgnal, CRussel]
Amazon CA / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Audible / Barnes & Noble / Kobo CA

Spoiler:

From Amazon:

The Hugo Award-winning classic, now available in a trade edition for the first time.

Pell's Station, orbiting the alien world simply called Downbelow, had always managed to remain neutral in the ever escalating conflict between 'The Company,' whose fleets from Earth had colonized space, and its increasingly independent and rebellious colony worlds. But Pell's location?on the outer edge of Earth's defensive perimeter? makes her the focal point in the titanic battle of colony worlds fighting for independence?

* Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel [sun surfer]
Goodreads | Amazon AU / Amazon CA / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Kobo /
Audible AU / Audible UK / Audible US

Spoiler:

Winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize, 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, 2010 Walter Scott Prize, 2010 The Morning News Tournament of Books, made into a play and with a brand new (released this year) and highly praised television adaptation.

From Goodreads:

Tudor England. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is charged with securing his divorce. Into this atmosphere of distrust comes Thomas Cromwell - a man as ruthlessly ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages.

** Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay [sun surfer, Synamon]
Goodreads | Amazon AU / Amazon CA / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Kobo

Spoiler:

Wwinner of the inaugural 1954 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

From Goodreads:

Suicide or murder? Newly arrived in Papua, where even the luscious vegetation seems to conspire with the bureaucrats to bewilder her, Stella Warwick is determined to prove her husband did not take his own life. Defying the patronising concern of officials, she ventures deep into the jungle, striding ever closer to the horrifying heart of the mystery.

*** Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs [JSWolf, WT Sharpe, treadlightly]
Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Google Play US / Kobo US / Overdrive Audio / Overdrive eBook / Waterstones UK

Spoiler:

It is the first book in the Temperance Brennan series and this series is the basis for the TV show Bones. Her first novel, Déjà Dead, won the 1997 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. The fictional heroine in her novels, Temperance "Tempe" Brennan, is also a forensic anthropologist.

Her life is devoted to justice — for those she never even knew.

In the year since Temperance Brennan left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec. When a female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in trash bags, Tempe detects an alarming pattern — and she plunges into a harrowing search for a killer. But her investigation is about to place those closest to her — her best friend and her own daughter — in mortal danger….

* Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan [caleb72]
Amazon (AU) / Amazon (CA) / Amazon (UK) / Amazon (US) / Google Play / Kobo

Spoiler:

Awards include:
Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction (2002)
Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction (2002)
Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (2002)
Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book Overall (2002)

Once upon a time that was called 1828, before all the living things on the land and the fishes in the sea were destroyed, there was a man named William Buelow Gould, a convict in Van Dieman's Land who fell in love with a black woman and discovered too late that to love is not safe. Silly Billy Gould, invader of Australia, liar, murderer, forger, fantasist, condemned to live in the most brutal penal colony in the British Empire, and there ordered to paint a book of fish. Once upon a time, miraculous things happened...

The nominations are now closed.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I'm going to nominate The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker, winner of the Mythopoeic Award in 2014 for Adult Literature.

Goodreads
amazon.com

It's been on my potential read list since someone mentioned it.

[Dazrin]

I will second The Golem and the Jinni, excellent book.

I will nominate American Gods by Neil Gaiman which won several best novel awards including the 2001 Bram Stoker Award, 2001 Hugo Award, and 2002 Nebula Award.

Spoiler:

Days before his release from prison, Shadow's wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.

Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, AMERICAN GODS takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what and who it finds there...

Awards: Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel (2001), Hugo Award for Best Novel (2002), Nebula Award for Best Novel (2002), Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel (2002), International Horror Guild Award Nominee for Best Novel (2001), World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novel (2002), SFX Award for Best Novel (2002), Geffen Award (2003), Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Nominee for Adult Literature (2002), Prix Bob Morane for roman traduit (2003)

Goodreads
Amazon US
Also available from many libraries

[sun surfer]

I nominate A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, which won the the British Book Awards Best Travel Book of the Year 1989 and the Prix des libraires du Québec for Lauréats hors Québec 1995. Known for its honesty, wit and humour, this short and popular book inspired several follow-ups as well as radio and television adaptations, and inspired Mayle's novel (and the later film adaptation) A Good Year.

From Goodreads:

In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs. He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious regional cuisine. A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days.

Goodreads / Amazon AU / Amazon CA / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Kobo / Audible US Search

[treadlightly]

I will nominate All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When Marie-Laure is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

Amazon.com
Kobo CA
Google Play
Overdrive
Goodreads

[treadlightly]

I will third The Golem and the Jinni

[drofgnal]

I'd like to nominate Downbelow Station by Cherryh. A Hugo Award winning classic. It's available as an ebook from amazon.

It was a choice between this and Ringworld, both on my TBR list. I'd be ok with Ringworld too if someone wants to nominate it.

Spoiler:

From Amazon:

The Hugo Award-winning classic, now available in a trade edition for the first time.

Pell?s Station, orbiting the alien world simply called Downbelow, had always managed to remain neutral in the ever escalating conflict between ?The Company,? whose fleets from Earth had colonized space, and its increasingly independent and rebellious colony worlds. But Pell?s location?on the outer edge of Earth?s defensive perimeter? makes her the focal point in the titanic battle of colony worlds fighting for independence?

[JSWolf]

I am going to second All the Light We Cannot See.

[sun surfer]

Not a lot of options so far, so I'll add two more to the mix:


-Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize, 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, 2010 Walter Scott Prize, 2010 The Morning News Tournament of Books, made into a play and with a brand new (released this year) and highly praised television adaptation.

From Goodreads:

Tudor England. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is charged with securing his divorce. Into this atmosphere of distrust comes Thomas Cromwell - a man as ruthlessly ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages.

Goodreads / Amazon AU / Amazon CA / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Kobo / Audible AU / Audible UK / Audible US


-Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay, an Australian writing about New Guinea; winner of the inaugural 1954 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

From Goodreads:

Suicide or murder? Newly arrived in Papua, where even the luscious vegetation seems to conspire with the bureaucrats to bewilder her, Stella Warwick is determined to prove her husband did not take his own life. Defying the patronising concern of officials, she ventures deep into the jungle, striding ever closer to the horrifying heart of the mystery.

Goodreads / Amazon AU / Amazon CA / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Kobo

[JSWolf]

I'd like to nominate Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs. It is the first book in the Temperance Brennan series and this series is the basis for the TV show Bones.

Her first novel, Déjà Dead, won the 1997 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. The fictional heroine in her novels, Temperance "Tempe" Brennan, is also a forensic anthropologist.

Her life is devoted to justice — for those she never even knew.

In the year since Temperance Brennan left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work has often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec. When a female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in trash bags, Tempe detects an alarming pattern — and she plunges into a harrowing search for a killer. But her investigation is about to place those closest to her — her best friend and her own daughter — in mortal danger….

Overdrive eBook: https://www.overdrive.com/media/13843/deja-dead
Overdrive Audiobook: https://www.overdrive.com/media/143621/deja-dead
Waterstones UK: https://www.waterstones.com/ebook/de.../9781448106592
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Deja-Dead-Te...ords=deja+dead
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Deja-Dead-Nove...ords=deja+dead
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/deja...usri=deja+dead
Kobo US: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/deja-dead-1
Google Play US: https://play.google.com/store/books/...d=EViUtnCaLRwC

[WT Sharpe]

Second Déjà Dead.

[caleb72]

I'm going to nominate yet another - now that I've finally sat down and had a think about it.

I will nominate Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan. Awards include:
Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction (2002)
Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction (2002)
Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (2002)
Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book Overall (2002)

Once upon a time that was called 1828, before all the living things on the land and the fishes in the sea were destroyed, there was a man named William Buelow Gould, a convict in Van Dieman's Land who fell in love with a black woman and discovered too late that to love is not safe. Silly Billy Gould, invader of Australia, liar, murderer, forger, fantasist, condemned to live in the most brutal penal colony in the British Empire, and there ordered to paint a book of fish. Once upon a time, miraculous things happened...

Amazon (US): Link
Amazon (UK): Link
Amazon (AU): Link
Amazon (CA): Link

Google Play (AU): Link

Kobo: Link

Looks like in Overdrive it's only available in UK, Ireland, Germany and Austria.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I will third All the Light We Cannot See. While I was not that excited about seeing another book set with war as the backdrop, my mom picked it up on the weekend at the library (yes I bump into my mom at the library) and is really liking it.

So I'll trust mom on this.

[JSWolf]

in order to move things along, can someone please give Déjà Dead a nod? Thanks.