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Friday, May 27, 2011

Let's put it to a vote

Here are a few books that I would be interested in reading/re reading. For description, I'm just going to write what's on the book jacket.

Please leave a comment and let me know which one appeals to you most.

I wanted it to be a round number of 5, but then The Trial would have been nixed. It made me think too hard.

1. Middlesex (won a Pulitzer) Jeffery Eugenides (also wrote Virgin Suicides)

Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition -era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of 1967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

2. Hunger Games (part 1 of a trilogy) Suzanne Collins
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. 

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love

3. One Hundred Years of Solitude    Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Nobel Prize Winner)

Tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family.

4. The Great Divorce      C.S. Lewis   (We've all probably read this)

The writer, in a dream, boards a bus on a drizzly afternoon and embarks on an incredible voyage through Heaven and Hell. He meets a host of supernatural beings far removed from his expectations and comes to significant realizations about the ultimate consequences of everyday behavior.

5. The Trial      Franz Kafka

The Trial tells the terrifying tale of Joseph K, a respectable functionary in a bank who is suddenly arrested and must defend his innocence against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, parable, or a prophecy, this hauntingly believable story stands out as one of the great novels of our times. Kafka's unsurpassed nightmare vision rings with chilling truth as it foreshadows the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the mad agendas of the twentieth century totalitarian regimes.


6. Wicked    Gregory Macguire

When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

6 comments:

S-B said...

I have read Wicked but it's been several years ago.....I would LOVE to re-read it and then discuss...I think it would be great!!

I have never read Hunger Games, but the brief description absolutely peaked my interest. I vote for either book!!

Christy Ross said...

I've read and loved Wicked and The Great Divorce and would definitely read either again.

Middlesex and Hundred Years of Solitude are on my "indefinite to read list"

and the other two sound like something I'd enjoy.

I'm clearly no help at all.

Kim said...

I've read solitude,, hunger games trilogy and most of wicked.

Would re-read solitude or at least skim over again.

Hunger games is one of my most fav in the world EVER but it is coming to the bigscreeen soon so IM not sure if we want to read it as a book club. But I do love love love Katniss.

Hated Wicked.

Any of the others sound great.

Mandy Mc said...

Okay, I think I'm the odd one out here. I haven't read any of these. Yep, you read that right. I haven't even read The Great Divorce. Wow, I'm embarrassed even typing that. Oh well, it's the truth.

That being said, I feel the need to fill that hole so my vote goes to The Great Divorce. My second choice would be Wicked. The only one I don't really want to read is Hunger Games because it's a trilogy. I'm just not up for starting a series right now. I already have The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo taunting me from my bookshelf.

S-B said...

I've never read "The Great Divorce"....I'm cool with it....getting excited!!! Now we just need a few more people to answer the Mennonite Discussion questions!!

Rita Bird said...

I answered almost all questions Ms. Roberson.