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Suggestions Wanted: Feb. & Mar. 2009 Fiction Book

Please make some quality suggestions for our February & March 2009 fiction book discussion in this thread. Post a link to where your fiction suggestion can be researched on Amazon.com. And most importantly please read about the book suggestions other members make and leave comments about these suggestions.

The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins.

This is from Wikipedia:

Quote:
Plot introduction

A poor art master, Walter Hartright, is employed to teach two young women in Cumberland, and falls in love with one of them, Laura. His feelings are returned, but she is already engaged to another. They are parted and she marries, but she and Marian, her resourceful half-sister, are then caught up in her new husband's plot to steal her fortune and identity. Laura is stripped of her name and money, and almost of her sanity, but is rescued by Marian and protected by the faithful Hartright. He and Marian battle to expose the fraud and reclaim Laura's identity, fortune and position in society. Throughout the story they encounter a mysterious woman in white, whose own sad story seems entangled with those of Laura and her husband, and who plays a crucial role in the novel's main events.

[edit] Explanation of the novel's title

The "woman in white" is Anne Catherick, an important character whose history bears greatly on the lives of the novel's protagonists. She has always worn white because of advice received in childhood from Laura's late mother, whom she loved for her kindness.

[edit] Plot summary

Poor art teacher Walter Hartright encounters a mysterious woman dressed all in white on a moonlit road in Hampstead. She is in a state of confusion and distress, and Hartright helps her to find her way back to London. In return, she warns him against a certain (unnamed) baronet, "a man of rank and title". Immediately after they part, Hartright learns that she may have escaped from an asylum.

He goes to Cumberland to take up a position as art tutor at Limmeridge House to two young women: Marian Halcombe and her wealthy half-sister, Laura Fairlie. He finds to his amazement that the story of the woman in white, Anne Catherick, may be entangled with the lives of the two sisters. Walter and Laura fall rapidly in love but she is soon to be married, by her late father's wish, to Sir Percival Glyde, a baronet. Hartright resigns and travels abroad to forget.

Marian moves in with Laura and her husband. The marriage is unhappy, and Marian soon realises that Sir Percival is attempting to gain control of Laura's fortune with the help of his Italian friend Count Fosco, a menacing yet charming and intelligent villain with an enigmatic past. She also meets the mysterious Anne Catherick, who hates and fears Sir Percival, blaming him for sending her to the asylum to keep her from revealing his "secret". Marian tries to untangle the mystery and protect her sister from Sir Percival and Fosco, but falls ill. When she recovers she is told first that Laura has gone to London, and then that she has died there. Anne Catherick, it appears, has been recaptured and is back at the asylum.

Walter returns to England and visits Limmeridge to mourn at Laura's grave, only to encounter Marian and a living Laura at the graveside. Laura's death has been faked: Anne Catherick, who greatly resembles Laura, died in London, and was buried as Laura. Laura's property has all passed to Sir Percival. Laura herself was sent to the asylum as Anne, where her protestations were dismissed as proof of insanity, and the ordeal almost destroyed her before Marian discovered the substitution and bribed a member of staff to help her escape.

The rest of the novel traces the attempts of Marian and Walter to safeguard Laura from capture and return to the asylum, to nurse her back to health, to expose the plot and to force Laura's family and friends to acknowledge her identity. In the process Walter meets Anne's strange mother and uncovers Sir Percival's dark secret: his parents were not legally married, so he is not the rightful owner of his property or title. Walter tries to obtain church registers as evidence, in order to blackmail Sir Percival into confessing, but the baronet starts a fire to destroy them and burns to death in the ensuing blaze. With his death there is some hope of proving the plot and regaining Laura's fortune, but Walter does fulfil his vow that Laura

Ophelia, where is the book title? How about some links?

Problem solved!

Hello-

I would like to suggest Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace:


Wikipedia: Infinite Jest

It's one of the most stunning achievements in late twentieth century letters, and since his recent and untimely death, it's probably about time to read it for those who haven't.

-PR

Hello Shrewdape,

Welcome to Booktalk!

Thanks for the reading suggestion.

Would you like to tell us a little about yourself by posting in the Introductions thread?

I just read Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and I would love to talk about it. It is so interesting!

We need more suggestions to create a poll. And now that we're at the end of December it might make more sense to have our next fiction discussion in February and March instead of January and February.

In fact I am going to change the title of this thread to reflect this new discussion period. But please add some suggestions soon. We should put a poll up very soon.

Drood: A Novel
by Dan Simmons

http://www.amazon.com/Drood-Novel-Dan-S ... 290&sr=1-1

Product Description
On June 9, 1865, while traveling by train to London with his secret mistress, 53-year-old Charles Dickens--at the height of his powers and popularity, the most famous and successful novelist in the world and perhaps in the history of the world--hurtled into a disaster that changed his life forever.

Did Dickens begin living a dark double life after the accident? Were his nightly forays into the worst slums of London and his deepening obsession with corpses, crypts, murder, opium dens, the use of lime pits to dissolve bodies, and a hidden subterranean London mere research . . . or something more terrifying?

Just as he did in The Terror, Dan Simmons draws impeccably from history to create a gloriously engaging and terrifying narrative. Based on the historical details of Charles Dickens's life and narrated by Wilkie Collins (Dickens's friend, frequent collaborator, and Salieri-style secret rival), DROOD explores the still-unsolved mysteries of the famous author's last years and may provide the key to Dickens's final, unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Chilling, haunting, and utterly original, DROOD is Dan Simmons at his powerful best.

Review
"A dazzling journey through a crooked, gaslit labyrinth and a tenebrous portraiture of the tortured minotaurs that dwell within. Genius is the true mystery, and at its edge--the abyss." (Guillermo del Toro, writer and director of The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth )

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Geo mentioned this book to me and I have to say it looks really good. Please look it over and let me know what you think.

What type of book do you usual or prefer to read? I'd hate to suggest a title that doesn't fit your guidelines.

Leeann Burke
www.leeannburke.com