New Leaf Nominations for April 2019 • The Way I Heard It: Retellings

[issybird]

It's time for us select the book that the New Leaf Book Club will read in April 2019. The theme is The Way I Heard It: Retellings.

Everyone is welcome to join the nomination process even if they'd rather lurk during the voting and discussion; if that is still a little too much commitment, please feel free to suggest titles without making a formal nomination. Also, don't sweat the links. It's helpful to check availability and prices before nominating in order to eliminate anything that's out of the question, but ultimately our global members with different gadgets and preferences will have to check for themselves.

The nominations will run through 7 AM EST, March 7, 2019. Each nomination requires a second and a third to make it to the poll, which will remain open for three days. The discussion of the selection will start on April 15, 2019. Don't forget to show up for the discussion of the February selection, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, on March 15.

Any questions? See below, or just ask!

FAQs for the Nomination, Selection and Discussion process

General Guidelines for the New Leaf Book Club

Official choices with three nominations:

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey [Bookpossum, gmw, CRussel]
Public domain in Life+50 and Australia | Kobo: $US1.99, $NZ0.99, ￡2.02.

Spoiler:

Josephine Tey's classic novel about Richard III, the hunchback king, whose remains were recently discovered. The Daughter of Time investigates his role in the death of his nephews, the princes in the Tower, and his own death on the battlefield.

Richard III reigned for only two years, and for centuries he was villified as the hunch-backed wicked uncle, murderer of the princes in the Tower. Josephine Tey's novel The Daughter of Time is an investigation into the real facts behind the last Plantagenet king's reign, and an attempt to right what many believe to be the terrible injustice done to him by the Tudor dynasty.

Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world's most heinous villains - a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother's children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the the Tudors?

Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard III really was and who killed the Princes in the Tower.

190 pp.

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett [stuartjmz, Dazrin, gmw]
Kobo $9.62CDN, $11.99AUD, £4.99 | Kindle: AU $11.99, £4.99GBP, CDN$8.99, $8.99US

Spoiler:

Every town on Discworld knows the stories about rats and pipers, and Maurice - a streetwise tomcat - leads a band of educated ratty friends (and a stupid kid) on a nice little earner. Piper plus rats equals lots and lots of money.

Until they run across someone playing a different tune.

Now he and his rats must learn a new concept: evil . . .

368 pp.

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston [gmw, issybird, Victoria]
Amazon US $9.49 | Amazon UK £6.64 | Amazon CA $12.79 | Amazon AU $12.99 | Kobo US $10.59 | Kobo UK £7.19 | Kobo CA $12.79 | Kobo AU $12.99 | Kobo NZ $13.99

Spoiler:

Goodreads and Wikipedia

272 pp.

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather[/B] [issybird, bfisher, CRussel]
Public domain in Life+70. MobileRead Library epub: Free | Faded Page all formats: Free | Feedbooks: Free | Kindle US: $9.99 | OverDrive, Audible

Spoiler:

There is something epic—and almost mythic—about this sparsely beautiful novel by Willa Cather, although the story it tells is that of a single human life, lived simply in the silence of the desert. In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour comes as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows—gently, although he must contend with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. One of these events Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.

300 pp.

House of Names by Colm Tóibín [Bookpossum, Bookworm_Girl, bfisher]
Kobo: $US11.99, $C13.99, ￡9.99, $A9.99, $NZ10.99.

Spoiler:

From the thrilling imagination of bestselling, award-winning Colm Tóibín comes this ambitious, violent and modern retelling of one of our oldest and most enduring stories.

I HAVE BEEN ACQUAINTED WITH THE SMELL OF DEATH.
Judged, despised, cursed by gods she has long since lost faith in, the murderess Clytemnestra tells of the deception of Agamemnon, how he sacrificed her eldest daughter - her beloved Iphigenia - to the Trojan campaign; how Clytemnestra used what power she had, seducing the prisoner Aegisthus, turning the government against its lord; plotting the many long years until her beacon fires announce the king's return ...

Electra, daughter of a murdered father, loyal subject of the rightful king, studies Clytemnestra and her lover with cold anger and slow-burning cunning. She watches as they walk the gardens and corridors of the palace. She waits for the traitors to become complacent, to believe they are finally safe; she waits for her exiled brother, Orestes, for the boy to become a warrior, for fate to follow him home. She watches and she waits, until her spies announce her brother's return ...

290 pp.

All The President’s Men by Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward [Victoria, Catlady, Bookpossum]
Kobo: £6.99 UK, $12.99 Cdn; $4.99 Aud; $4.99 NZD | Kindle: $13.99 US; $4.99 Aud; £4.99 UK

Spoiler:

All the President's Men is a 1974 non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two of the journalists who investigated the first Watergate break-in and ensuing scandal for The Washington Post. The book chronicles the investigative reporting of Woodward and Bernstein from Woodward's initial report on the Watergate break-in through the resignations of H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, and the revelation of the Nixon tapes by Alexander Butterfield in 1973. It relates the events behind the major stories the duo wrote for the Post, naming some sources who had previously refused to be identified for their initial articles, notably Hugh Sloan. It also gives detailed accounts of Woodward's secret meetings with his source Deep Throat, whose identity was kept hidden for over 30 years.[1] Gene Roberts, the former executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and former managing editor of The New York Times, has called the work of Woodward and Bernstein "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time."

368 pp.

The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth [Catlady, Bookworm_Girl, bfisher]
Amazon US, $7.99 | Kobo US, $7.99 | Kobo CA $8.99 | Kobo AU $10.99 | Kobo NZ $10.99 | Kobo UK £5.63 | OverDrive, Hoopla

Spoiler:

One of six sisters, Dortchen Wild lives in the small German kingdom of Hesse-Cassel in the early 19th century. She finds herself irresistibly drawn to the boy next door, the handsome but very poor fairy-tale scholar Wilhelm Grimm.

It is a time of tyranny and terror. Napoleon Bonaparte wants to conquer all of Europe, and Hesse-Cassel is one of the first kingdoms to fall. Forced to live under oppressive French rule, Wilhelm and his brothers quietly rebel by preserving old, half-forgotten tales that had once been told by firesides of houses grand and small all over the land.

As Dortchen tells Wilhelm some of the most powerful and compelling stories in what will one day become his and Jacob's famous fairy-tale collection, their love blossoms. But Dortchen's father will not give his consent for them to marry, and war, death, and poverty also conspire to keep the lovers apart. Yet Dortchen is determined to find a way.

Evocative and richly detailed, Kate Forsyth's The Wild Girl masterfully captures one young woman's enduring faith in love and the power of storytelling.

496 pp.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie [Victoria, CRussel, Dazrin]
Kobo: $11.99 AUD; £5.49 UK; $7.99 US | Kindle: $7.99 US; £5.49UK; $10.99 AUD

Spoiler:

Christie’s method of telling was considered controversial, but saying any more would be a spoiler. In 2013, the British Crime Writers' Association voted it the best crime novel ever, and it’s usually placed near the top in similar polls. However, in fairness, other reviewers have considered the praise quite overblown.

Poirot retires to a village near the home of a friend he met in London, Roger Ackroyd, who agrees to keep him anonymous, as he pursues his retirement project of perfecting vegetable marrows. He is not long at this pursuit when his friend is murdered. Ackroyd's niece calls Poirot in to ensure that the guilt does not fall on Ackroyd's stepson; Poirot promises to find the truth, which she accepts.

256 pp.

[issybird]

Choices with one or two nominations:

**Compulsion by Meyer Levin [Catlady, issybird]
Amazon US, $9.00 | Kobo US $11.99 | Kobo CA $15.19 | Kobo AU, $19.35 | Kobo NZ $19.08 | Kobo UK £8.63 | OverDrive, Scribd, Hoopla, Audible

Spoiler:

Judd Steiner and Artie Straus have it all: wealth, intelligence, and the world at their feet as part of the elite, upper-crust Jewish community of 1920s Chicago. Artie is handsome, athletic, and popular, but he possesses a hidden, powerful sadistic streak and a desire to dominate. Judd is a weedy introvert, a genius who longs for a companion whom he can idolize and worship. Obsessed with Nietzsche's idea of the superhuman, both boys decide to prove that they are above the laws of man by arbitrarily picking and murdering a Jewish boy in their neighborhood.

This new edition of Meyer Levin's classic literary thriller Compulsion reintroduces the fictionalized case of Leopold and Loeb - once considered the "crime of the century" - to a new generation. This incisive psychological portrait of two young murderers seized the imagination of an era and is generally recognized as paving the way for the first non-fiction novel. Compulsion forces us to ask what drives some further into darkness, and some to seek redemption.

Heartbreaking as it is gripping, Compulsion is written with a tense and penetrating force that led the Los Angeles Times to call Levin, "the most significant Jewish writer of his times."

482 pp.

*The Robe by Lloyd C Douglas [drofgnal]
Amazon US $3.99

Spoiler:

Marcellus, a Roman soldier, ends up with the task of participating first hand in the crucifixion of Jesus. In order to numb himself from the reality of what he is doing, he gets drunk, gambles for and wins Christ's Robe. This is the story of where the Robe and his involvement in this event lead him. Through his eyes we experience the era and the full effect of Christ's crucifixion, bringing us to the heart of Christianity. The Robe is a timeless classic. It is a story filled with adventure, love, faith, spirituality and redemption. "This faith, is not like a deed to a house in which one may live with full rights of possession. It is more like a kit of tools with which a man may build himself a house. The tools will be worth just what he does with them. When he lays them down, they will have no value until he takes them up again." - Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe

528 pp.

**The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King [Bookworm_Girl, Dazrin]
US$9.99

Spoiler:

[QUOTE] From New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King comes the book that introduced us to the ingenious Mary Russell - Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees when a young woman literally stumbles into him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes - and match him wit for wit. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern 20th-century woman proves a deft protégée and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective.

In their first case together, they must track down a kidnapped American senator's daughter and confront a truly cunning adversary: a bomber who has set trip wires for the sleuths and who will stop at nothing to end their partnership.

Full of brilliant deductions, disguises, and dangers, this first book of the Mary Russell - Sherlock Holmes mysteries is "wonderfully original and entertaining...absorbing from beginning to end." (Booklist). Named "One of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries" by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.

341 pp.

[Bookpossum]

Rather than a retelling of a Greek myth or a Shakespearean play, I decided on a retelling of some English history, treated as a mystery to be solved. I would like to nominate The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.

Josephine Tey's classic novel about Richard III, the hunchback king, whose remains were recently discovered. The Daughter of Time investigates his role in the death of his nephews, the princes in the Tower, and his own death on the battlefield.

Richard III reigned for only two years, and for centuries he was villified as the hunch-backed wicked uncle, murderer of the princes in the Tower. Josephine Tey's novel The Daughter of Time is an investigation into the real facts behind the last Plantagenet king's reign, and an attempt to right what many believe to be the terrible injustice done to him by the Tudor dynasty.

Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world's most heinous villains - a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother's children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the the Tudors?

Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard III really was and who killed the Princes in the Tower.

I read this book many years ago, and became an ardent supporter of Richard III from then on. The book's title comes from a saying that Truth is the Daughter of Time.

The book is public domain in Australia and I think also in Canada. I'm not sure of the rules in other countries, but it seems to be available cheaply from Kobo if it isn't PD:

$US1.99, $NZ0.99, ￡2.02.

190 pages

[gmw]

I second The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. (This was already on my list of things I'd been wanting to read.)

I haven't yet decided what I'm nominating.

[CRussel]

It's been forever since I read The Daughter of Time. Time for a re-read. I'll third it.

[issybird]

I'm going to nominate what is considered to be Willa Cather's masterpiece, Death Comes for the Archbishop, a retelling of the life of Jean-Baptiste Lamy, the first archbishop of Santa Fe. It is on the Modern Library list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century and Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.

There is something epic—and almost mythic—about this sparsely beautiful novel by Willa Cather, although the story it tells is that of a single human life, lived simply in the silence of the desert. In 1851 Father Jean Marie Latour comes as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. What he finds is a vast territory of red hills and tortuous arroyos, American by law but Mexican and Indian in custom and belief. In the almost forty years that follow, Latour spreads his faith in the only way he knows—gently, although he must contend with an unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. One of these events Cather gives us an indelible vision of life unfolding in a place where time itself seems suspended.

Public domain in Life+70 countries and shorter.

MobileRead Library epub: Free |Feedbooks: Free | Kindle US: $9.99 | OverDrive, Audible

300 pp.

[bfisher]

I second Death Comes for the Archbishop

[Dazrin]

Well, I'm not going to go for a fairy tale but I will go with a legend.

There are so many good takes on some legends but there are two that really stand out to me, at least in English.

Robin Hood and King Arthur

We have SO many good options with these that it's hard to choose, some new, some old. T.H. White? Bernard Cornwell? Mary Stewart? Marion Zimmer Bradley? Howard Pyle? Stephen Lawhead? I'm having some analysis paralysis, so, I'm just going to nominate my favorite: The...

Well, crud, no Kindle version available in the US. That stinks. Why does this seem to happen every month?

I'll be back...

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

I'm having some analysis paralysis, so, I'm just going to nominate my favorite: The...

Well, don't leave us on tenterhooks! Which is your favorite?

I do feel your frustration. It happens to me all the time, either available here and nowhere else, or the reverse. Or else it's something ridiculously expensive.

ETA: I bet it's The Sword in the Stone.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Well, I'm not going to go for a fairy tale but I will go with a legend.

There are so many good takes on some legends but there are two that really stand out to me, at least in English.

Robin Hood and King Arthur

We have SO many good options with these that it's hard to choose, some new, some old. T.H. White? Bernard Cornwell? Mary Stewart? Marion Zimmer Bradley? Howard Pyle? Stephen Lawhead? I'm having some analysis paralysis, so, I'm just going to nominate my favorite: The...

Well, crud, no Kindle version available in the US. That stinks. Why does this seem to happen every month?

I'll be back...

If it's The Sword In The Stone, it may be available in the U.S. in the collected novels - The Once and Future King.

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Kobo blurb
Every town on Discworld knows the stories about rats and pipers, and Maurice - a streetwise tomcat - leads a band of educated ratty friends (and a stupid kid) on a nice little earner. Piper plus rats equals lots and lots of money.

Until they run across someone playing a different tune.

Now he and his rats must learn a new concept: evil . . .

I really loved this story for being a kids' story that didn't condescend. I found it as edgy as Dahl, but without the malicious edge that often seems part of his work. And as someone who is constantly irked by the brothers Grimm being remembered as "tale tellers" instead of "painstaking, ground-breaking linguistic researchers", I loved the Grim sisters. A fun retelling of the Hameln story, with Pratchett's trademark humour, but (possibly because of its target age group) less overtly political than many of his works of the same era.

Kobo $9.62CDN, $11.99AUD, £4.99GBP, unable to find US price
Kindle: AU $11.99 (possibly USD), £4.99GBP, CDN$8.99 - may be unavailable at Amazon US?

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Well, I'm not going to go for a fairy tale but I will go with a legend.

There are so many good takes on some legends but there are two that really stand out to me, at least in English.

Robin Hood and King Arthur

We have SO many good options with these that it's hard to choose, some new, some old. T.H. White? Bernard Cornwell? Mary Stewart? Marion Zimmer Bradley? Howard Pyle? Stephen Lawhead? I'm having some analysis paralysis, so, I'm just going to nominate my favorite: The...

Well, crud, no Kindle version available in the US. That stinks. Why does this seem to happen every month?

I'll be back...

Don't forget John Steinbeck's and Thomas Berger's versions!

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by issybird

Well, don't leave us on tenterhooks! Which is your favorite?

I do feel your frustration. It happens to me all the time, either available here and nowhere else, or the reverse. Or else it's something ridiculously expensive.

ETA: I bet it's The Sword in the Stone.

Originally Posted by bfisher

If it's The Sword In The Stone, it may be available in the U.S. in the collected novels - The Once and Future King.

It is not The Sword in the Stone, although I was considering it until I saw that The Once and Future King is over 600 pages. I'm not sure if the Sword is available separately or not. I plan on reading it this year because I never have before (although I really like the Disney movie).

I was going to nominate The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart which, of the ones I have read, is my favorite of the Arthur (or specifically Merlin) retellings.

I think I am going to look for some non-US/UK stories instead though. My eldest is in an all day competition tomorrow which means I have a full day of sitting in the bleachers to look forward to and I will try to find something then.

For now, I am going to second The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by stuartjmz

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Kobo $9.62CDN, $11.99AUD, £4.99GBP, unable to find US price
Kindle: AU $11.99 (possibly USD), £4.99GBP, CDN$8.99 - may be unavailable at Amazon US?

AmazonUS: $8.99

[gmw]

I third The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents


Dazrin, you remind me that I could re-nominate Victor Canning's re-telling of King Arthur in The Crimson Chalice (I love this being such a primitive take on the story) ... but I seem to remember there being availability problems, and anyway, I am still exploring a few other options. There are almost too many options and I have a decision making disorder