Book Club Lobbying: November

GWC Community GWC Book Club
#1

All,

Welcome to our second installment of Book Club Lobbying. The idea is simple: the first half of the month is dedicated to rallying around the book(s) that you want the book club to take on. The following books are up for your consideration in November. You will note that we have scaled back to 15 as not many new suggestions were made…people more focused on reading the current book!

Adams, Douglas - “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
Asimov, Isaac - “Foundation”
Brooks, Max - “World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War”
Chabon, Michael - “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union”
Dick, Philip - “A Scanner Darkly”
Gibson, William - “Neuromancer”
Heinlein, Robert A. - “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress”
Lem, Stanislaw - “Solaris”
Martin , George R. R. - “A Game of Thrones”
Niffenegger, Audrey - “The Time Traveler’s Wife”
Robinson, Kim Stanley - “The Years of Rice and Salt”
Scalzi, John - “Old Man’s War”
Shelley, Mary - “Frankenstein”
Simmons, Dan - “Hyperion”
Zahn, Timothy - “Dark Force Rising” (Thrawn Trilogy #2)

#2

Oooh, Neuromancer could be a fun follow-up to Snow Crash. Foundation remains an interesting choice, and I’ve always wanted to read A Game Of Thrones again.

Hrm. I like Neuromancer. Game of Thrones sounds like a December book, when I have plenty of time to read.

#3

Yeah. It should be the other way 'round, actually, but Neuromancer is a good, and important, read (although, Count Zero is still my favorite of that series.)

#4

Screw Neuromancer

Scalzi, John - “Old Man’s War”

Trust me on this. I’ve read a ton of books over the years. This is bar none the best modern science fiction book I’ve read. I’d put it up there with Starship Troopers. Put it above Snow Crash. Way above Neuromancer. Slightly above WWZ. Somewhat above Moon (If only because Moon is lible to mess with your grammer after reading it)

#5

hi,

do i nominate the book titles in this thread ? And do they have to be science fiction? Here are my nominations :

[ol]
[li]The Devil and Miss Prym, by Paulo Coelho
[/li][li]Freakanomics, by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
[/li][li]The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
[/li][li]The Lusiads, by Luiz Vaz de Camoes
[/li][li]The Trachtenberg Speed System of basic mathmatics, translated by Ann Cutler and Rudolph McShane
[/li][li]How life imitates art, by Garry Kasparov
[/li][li]Game of Kings : A year among the oddballs and geniuses who make up America’s top high school chess team, by Michael Weinreb
[/li][/ol]

#6

A classic. I also believe that we have yet to read any Asimov in the Book Club. To be fair, my favorite Asimov is The Gods Themselves, but I think it could be fun to do Foundation as a group.

Last year’s Nebula AND Hugo winner for Best Novel! Let’s get up on what’s coming out right now :slight_smile: Besides which, I like detective stories.

It would go well with Snow Crash. Especially given that (a) I already have a copy of Neuromancer and (b) after reading Snow Crash, I am willing to give more cyberpunk a chance.

GR convinced me (me! The literary-critic-in-training!) that this would be worthwhile to read. And there’s even an online study guide to read along with.

I would also like to encourage us NOT to repeat authors… because there is so much greatness out there to read, let’s try to get more than just the biggest name.

Well, that and I just really dislike Heinlein. I read Starship Troopers for you guys. You won’t get another Heinlein novel into my hands to read. Seriously.

#7

Even if I’m in danger of repeating myself:

Anyway, I’m gonna repeat myself here, call me the prayer mill, but we need to make more people familiar with Lem and this would be an awesome opportunity.

Forget what you know about the two movies, go vote “Solaris” and here is why:

This is basically a copy of what I wrote in the Solaris thread:

                I stumbled over my copy of The Invincible this morning and once again, I just have to make a case for Lem and beg everyone who hasn't done so yet to go out and read at least one book by Lem. The best bet is "Solaris", but it doesn't really matter, it could also be "Fiasco" or "Eden" or "The Invincible", his central theme stays mostly the same, he merely explores different facets in those books.

So, honestly, please, go and read one of those books TODAY, it will broaden your horizon SO DAMN MUCH and here’s why:

Lem has a totally unique way of thinking about science fiction, about the human mind and possible contacts with alien life-forms. It’s very unlike anything Western SciFi has produced and it’s so totally worth it to go out and listen to what Lem has to say about human-alien interaction, because his basic idea is - there is no interaction, the chances that humans could ever, EVER, communicate with alien life are absolutely zero and his ways of explaining this, of twisting our minds around the thought processes behind this thinking are so damn enlightening, it will make you look at scifi and actually our world, in different terms.

So mark my words, go out and read one Lem book, I don’t care if it’s the only one by him that you ever read, but you need to have read one. And I’m damn serious about this.

#8

Since they will start the serie in november on TV I’d suggest (sorry if it was in old lists I didn’t check them)

Terry Goodkind - First wizard rule.

Its one of my favorite book but its mature fantasy so I wouldn’t recommend it for a younger audience its pretty rough (below 16 or 18 at least). Its about the same level of gore than the game of throne (for those who’ve read it). But the story is awesome and uplifting.

#9

Given the recent podcast discussions re: time travel (and the fabulous “point of reference” debacle that would invariably leave half of us stuck at a point in the Earth’s recent orbit – d’oh!), I have to pitch two pennies in for Niffenegger’s book…also seeing as how it is in post-production for feature film release, it may be great to not only dissect this fantastic book’s haphazard chronology, but also to see how they take a very uniquely stylized book and try to convey it in film. Hoo-ah!