BookTalk.org

Suggestions are needed for our group fiction discussion beginning in June, 2013. All members with at least 10 posts are eligible to suggest a novel. Each suggested novel must have a link which describes the book. Each members can suggest up to three novels.

Feedback on the suggested novels is crucial to the selection process. Please read the descriptions of the novels when they are posted and comment on those that appeal to you. The novels with the most positive feedback will be placed in a poll in which members who have at least 10 posts can vote for their favorites.

Our next fiction discussion will begin June 1, 2012 and will last for two months. So, what novel would you like to read and discuss in our next fiction group discussion?

Hi Suzanne
I am reading The Divine Comedy by Dante.
I found a good free online translation by Tony Kline at http://www.poetryintranslation.com/klineasdante.htm

It would be interesting to ask Tony to participate, if a few people wanted to read it.
Previous translations that I have tried to read have been hard to follow. This one is good. The Divine Comedy is known as the book that created the Italian language by using the vernacular in a major work for the first time instead of Latin. It is 700 years old, dating from well before the European discovery of America. Dante goes with Virgil on an amazing Jules Verne type adventure, descending through the nine circles of hell to the centre of the earth and then out to Mount Purgatory at the antipode of Jerusalem, before accompanying his unrequited childhood sweetheart Beatrice through the nine circles of heaven.

"A new complete English prose translation of Dante's "Divine Comedy" providing extensive hyper-linked reference material. The Adobe .pdf download is enriched by Gustave Doré illustrations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy

That would be great if Tony Kline would agree to participate. I have only read "Inferno" so I would be interested in reading the other two parts. Having someone involved like the translator would make Dante's work a little less intimadating. I think we are ready for a new free book discussion. I will ask Chris about contacting Tony Kline, I think if he were to participate the discussion would be successful.

I'm partial, but I would be honored if you would consider "The Man Who Watched The World End."

http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Watched-W ... 695&sr=1-1

It's a very easy read and had been getting incredible reviews.

If you are willing to consider sci-fi I would suggest "The Un-incorporated Man" by the Kollin brothers.

http://www.amazon.com/Unincorporated-Ma ... orated+man

It is the first book in a futuristic series and in addition to the usual mind numbing technological predictions, it has a lot of social commentary which is very insightful. Reminded me a lot of Heinlein's work. The rest of the series is very good, but the first one is a real stand out.

I wanted to get more involved on the forums so I would love to join in on the fiction discussion.

I have a few suggestions. I've read these two novels previously and loved them. I highly recommend them and think they would be interesting to read and discuss here.

1. Constantly Constance by Constance Carmona. http://www.sarahbookpublishing.com/shop ... constance/. The novel is very funny while also being drama-filled. Very fun read.

2. Demons Walk Among Us by Joann Harris. http://www.sarahbookpublishing.com/shop ... -among-us/.

Please consider these wonderful works of literature for June/July discussion.
Thank you.

I also think that Chris Dietzel's "The Man Who Watched The World Burn" would be a great read! I also highly recommend this novel up for discussion. http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Watched-W ... +world+end.

Thank you for your consideration. It is a great read!

Any more suggestions? Feedback on the current book suggestions is important. Which would you read?

Busygirlbooks wrote:If you are willing to consider sci-fi I would suggest "The Un-incorporated Man" by the Kollin brothers.

A suggestion can be from any genre.


The Box Man
Kobo Abe

Kobo Abe, the internationally acclaimed author of Woman in the Dunes, combines wildly imaginative fantasies and naturalistic prose to create narratives reminiscent of the work of Kafka and Beckett.

In this eerie and evocative masterpiece, the nameless protagonist gives up his identity and the trappings of a normal life to live in a large cardboard box he wears over his head. Wandering the streets of Tokyo and scribbling madly on the interior walls of his box, he describes the world outside as he sees or perhaps imagines it, a tenuous reality that seems to include a mysterious rifleman determined to shoot him, a seductive young nurse, and a doctor who wants to become a box man himself. The Box Man is a marvel of sheer originality and a bizarrely fascinating fable about the very nature of identity.

Translated from the Japanese by E. Dale Saunders.

New York Times

A stunning addition to the literature of eccentricity, those bitter, crying voices of Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener and Dostoyevsky's Underground Man . . . funny, sad and destructive, an ontological thriller.

http://www.amazon.com/Box-Man-Novel-Kob ... 0375726519

The Inferno is a part of The Divine Comedy right? Great book.