slothy Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 Dear All Literati, It is so long since i started a thread (and many i am sure wish it were longer :) and i have been told for some reason my posts seem to curtial threads prematurely :( ) that i thought i would do so toot de sweet. In a post-work meeting last week fuelled by an excessive amount of Bulgarian vodka without necessary absorbent solids (on that note, if anyone saw the graffitti 'Aardvarks suck: Hillary C didnt vote for Bush Either ' sprayed over my local town hall in the early hours of the next morning and were offended i sincerely apologise) we decided to start a book club. Basically, each person puts forward 4 books each month. Then the group selects 4 (i think) that will get purchased for the 'library'. The books have to be 'Modern Classics' : that is books that have received (many) good reviews (not just off the authors granny) , popular acclaim , a wide audience and published this millenium. I have got 3 .... i want some recommendations for a 4th. Of course, the books must be in English :) Although u may think that a particular book written in Hottentot or some Venetian dialect is worthy of literary merit and should be read pls wait till some unemployed translator has time to massacre the text and produce an English transcription that bears little resemblance to its original. There is no specific genre as such. Books by Harold Robbins and Dr Seuss Spin-offs will be ignored. Any book which has a main character called Alex who is a swashbuckling superstar that saves the world from bushy(sic)-eyebrowed evil dictators and has every woman slavering all over him will be given favourable consideration. Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes. The good-hearted moron Charley gets a brain surgery and becomes a genius, but at the same time he loses parts of his good-heartedness and becomes somewhat cynic as he realized that all the people whom he perceived as his friends were actually making nasty jokes about him all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke warm Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 shogunlonesome dove Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zasanya Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 The Man-Irving WallaceSirens of Titan-Kurt Vannegoot Jr.Summer Lighning-P G Wodehouse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hrothgar Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 What do you mean by "Published this Millenium"? Do you mean since January 1st, 2002 or within the last 1,000 years. If the later holds true, I'd recommend the following (in order of preference) 1. Last Call: Tim Powers2. Use of Weapons: Iain M. Banks3. The Last Coin: James Blaylock4. Silverlock: John Meyers Meyers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdonn Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 What do you mean by "Published this Millenium"? Do you mean since January 1st, 2002 ... Don't you mean January 1st, 2001? I thought the 'debate' was whether 1999 or 2000 was the last year of the prior millenium, I didn't realize 2001 was also a possibility. I'm not trying to mock a mild error, is there really something I don't know about that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwnn Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 I thought All Quiet on the Western Front was very good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hrothgar Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 What do you mean by "Published this Millenium"? Do you mean since January 1st, 2002 ... Don't you mean January 1st, 2001? I thought the 'debate' was whether 1999 or 2000 was the last year of the prior millenium, I didn't realize 2001 was also a possibility. I'm not trying to mock a mild error, is there really something I don't know about that? you're correctshould have been 2001 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slothy Posted December 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 I thought All Quiet on the Western Front was very good. Unless Erich Maria Remarque has reincarnated himself and released an xth edition of his famous novel i think the debate between Josh and Richard has been extended to ridiculous proportions :) :) Rich, I meant since 2001 give or take a couple of years Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hrothgar Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 Rich, I meant since 2001 give or take a couple of years Slim pickings over the past 6 years. I think that my favorite "new" book was "Declare" by Tim Powers."Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville was also pretty good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 The Road by Cormac McCarthy if you mean in the last 12 months. :) The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil, 2005. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike777 Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 Fortune's Formula, William Poundstone. 2005. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helene_t Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 I doubt that anything worth reading has been published this millennium, except for what has been posted on BBF and Justin's blog. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Echognome Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 A fun and interesting read is World Without End, which is the long-awaited sequel to Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. I would definitely recommend reading Pillars of the Earth first, but the sequel just came out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gagne99 Posted December 7, 2007 Report Share Posted December 7, 2007 Atonement by Ian McEwan. Brilliant writing and compelling story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mycroft Posted December 7, 2007 Report Share Posted December 7, 2007 So I guess A Clockwork Orange is out of date, eh? - main character called Alex - check.- swashbuckling superstar - check (for proper distorted versions of...)- that saves the world - well, changes it significantly for the better (FPDVO)- from bushy(sic)-eyebrowed evil dictators - well, sort of, yeah- and has every woman slavering all over him - okay, maybe the other way around. Nobody'd notice, right? Ah well, worth a try.Michael. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjames Posted December 7, 2007 Report Share Posted December 7, 2007 The Kite Runner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rona_ Posted December 7, 2007 Report Share Posted December 7, 2007 The Omnivore's Dilemma. Michael Pollan What is the What. Dave Eggers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P_Marlowe Posted December 7, 2007 Report Share Posted December 7, 2007 Hi, Tuesday with Morrie by Mitch AlbomFor one more day by Mithc Albom A long way down by Nick Hornby With kind regardsMarlowe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y66 Posted December 7, 2007 Report Share Posted December 7, 2007 Anything by Cormac McCarthy. Maybe No Country For Old Men is good to start with. If you like movies, A Killer Life by Christine Vachon (bio), is tough to put down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeh Posted December 7, 2007 Report Share Posted December 7, 2007 Not sure if it was within the time limits, but Dream of Scipio by Ian Pears is very good... his best, I think, was An Instance of the Fingerpost, but that was definitely last century :) A recent book that I doubt many have heard of, but which is both well written and provocative (its underlying themes include the notion that consciousness is an impediment to intelligence) is Blindsight by Peter Watts.. being SF may limit its appeal, altho well-written SF has literary merit imo. And the enormous work (The Baroque Cycle) by Neal Stephenson is nothing short of brilliant in my view, but at more than 2700 pages (originally published as 3 hardcover books, but clearly a single work). It's a book I look forward to re-reading eventually.... but it may be tooooo much for any book club for sloths.. And Alex may not want to identify with the main protagonist... who has had an unfortunate injury to a certain, very important, part of his anatomy quite early in the saga. He otherwise meets most of Alex's criteria! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sallyally Posted December 7, 2007 Report Share Posted December 7, 2007 The Way the Crow Flies by Anne Marie MacDonald - my favourite book so far this season although not a selection of my book club. Sally Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keylime Posted December 7, 2007 Report Share Posted December 7, 2007 I've been reading a lot of sci-fi and post-Armageddon books lately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoAnneM Posted December 8, 2007 Report Share Posted December 8, 2007 "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini "Digging To America" by Anne Tyler - actually any book by Anne Tyler Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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