The Long List (of Possible Book Choices)

Ray_Otus

I'm going to move over the list from Google+. Then people can add to it. My preference would be for people to simply name the book and state their case for it in a few sentences. It would be helpful for people to address what forms it is available in (audio, ebook) and whether it is part of a series.

Ray_Otus

Or, as @Apocryphal says: "I'm posting this here as a place to store suggested books, authors, or themes for future monthly picks. If you need to find it again, it's in the Book Club Discussion category. Feel free to add to it, but please only add things you feel confident it - no maybes. If you want to have a discussion around a book you aren't sure about, post it in it's own thread, then when you are sure you can come and add a comment here to recommend it.

The order in which we picks books is somewhat instinctual, but there is some method. We want to give everyone a chance to nominate a book each year, so if you suggest several here, that's probably several years of picks, not a bunch of picks in one year. We also try to mix up the genres from month to month.

Please mention only one book per comment and plus any you'd like to second or third, etc.

rossum

Hm, I think it might make more sense to have each book suggestion/nomination as its own topic in this category. That way discussion can stay focused and sorted and still be allowed to run wild.

I'm fine with a pinned list at the top, though!

Ray_Otus

I've deleted ones we already did or are doing and ranked the rest by the number of +s they got. A +name indicates who suggested it.

• +4 Hiero's Journey by Stirling Lanier, fantasy, +Richard Abbott
• +4 I'm revisiting Iain M. Banks' Culture books, and Player of Games would be a great book for us to do for the club. +Paul Mitchener. As a very quick summary of the Culture, we're talking space opera centred on the Culture, a utopian and extremely high-tech civilisation, and its interventions in less advanced societies, all for their own good.
• +4 The Future is Female. +Ray Otus. The next time we do a short story collection, maybe this one? Classic SF female authors 1920-1960. The list looks good to me.
• +3 The Amber Spyglass (Philip Pullman)? +Paul Mitchener. I've read it and the rest of the trilogy, and liked it a lot. More young adult literature, and the atheist response to C.S.Lewis' Narnia. Might be an interesting thing to after our Narnia book, and maybe a palette cleanser for some club members.
• +3 The Jungle Book, +Apocryphal Chris
• +3 George MacDonald's Phantastes - published in the 1850s, it influenced and inspired a whole truckload of later authors including Lewis and Tolkien. Worth a collective read? +Richard Abbot
• +2 Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley. +Ray Otus Or another Humorous, social commentary spec. fiction
• +2 Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era (Eiji Yoshikawa). +Paul Mitchener +Ray Otus​​
• +2 The Long Earth, by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett. +Richard Abbott. (Unclear if it was a recommendation; RA was in-progress on it.)
• +2 Dark Orbit, +Marc Caron
• +1 Infomocracy by Malka Older, +Apocryphal a speculative book about alternate societies.
• +1 Ursula Vernon's Digger (web comic), +Kirt Dankmeyer
• +1 The Enemy Papers by Barry Longyear, +Ray Otus, is a good military sci fi story and a great story of alien races coming to understand each other from first contact to ... (no spoilers). It's comprised of four short stories/novellas and progresses in a very interesting way. The first story was the basis for the movie Enemy Mine (1985).
• +1 Lisa Goldstein's The Red Magician is the only Jewish fantasy novel I'm aware of, it deals with the Shoah though so it gets real intense. +Randy Gelling

Ray_Otus

@rossum said:
Hm, I think it might make more sense to have each book suggestion/nomination as its own topic in this category. That way discussion can stay focused and sorted and still be allowed to run wild.

I'm fine with a pinned list at the top, though!

That might be a better idea. Let's leave this here as "history" and close the thread? People can resurrect these one by one or post new suggestions in a new thread.

rossum

Works for me! Let's try and see.