Possible second fiction book

[Theomanic]

Bleacheden: I did not say anywhere that this idea was bad or "affecting me negatively". I discussed some thoughts. I genuinely wanted to know why it one would not want to read "one of those Japanese books". Is there some reputation I don't know about? I didn't criticize anyone, least of all you. I wish you would stop taking everything I say as a personal attack - it's really exhausting. I would respond to your points, but I feel you would just take that as more aggressive action, so no worries.

[meliamom]

I'm a newbie, and just wanted to give my two cents. I think that this thread started from the overwhelming majority of books from the same genre. It's not an attack on any culture, but there seemed to be a lack of variety in the choices. That being said, if the book I want, The Help, does not get voted in, I would be okay reading one of the other books.

On the other hand, what about the novel Little Bee by Christopher Cleave? Here's a summary:

"Little Bee" deserves a warning label: "Do not judge this book by its cover. Contents under pressure." Despite the cutesy title (the book was more sensibly published in Britain as "The Other Hand") and the coy book-flap description ("It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it"), "Little Bee" will blow you away.

Like Ian McEwan's propulsive novel "Enduring Love," in which a fatal hot-air balloon accident binds together two strangers who witness it, "Little Bee," by Guardian columnist Chris Cleave, hinges on a single horrific encounter. On a beach in Nigeria, the lives of Little Bee, a teenager from a small village, and Sarah O'Rourke, editor of a posh British women's magazine, are brought into brutal conjunction. Little Bee and her older sister have the misfortune to live on valuable Nigerian oil deposits, for which their family pays a deadly price. Sarah and her husband, heedless tourists out for a walk in the sand, are confronted in an instant with a choice: Save the girls at great personal cost or ignore them.

Though the scene doesn't come until later in the book, it casts a queasy spell over the novel from the beginning, which finds Little Bee in a casually dehumanizing British immigrant detention center two years later. She's plotting her suicide if "the men" ever come for her again. (Her Nigerian enemies and the interests they work for are never explicitly identified because Little Bee herself understands only that they were paid to remove her people.) Little Bee is a young woman with a past so damaging that it seems to negate the possibility of a future, but her tensile stubbornness keeps her going. "Take it from me," she says at the outset, "a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived." Her very name is a mechanism for survival: On the run from their pursuers after the rest of their village was destroyed, she and her sister plucked new names from the air to replace their true ones, "which spoke so loudly of their tribe and of their region." Little Bee has taught herself English from newspapers during her detainment, but her reference points are still in Nigeria. The voice Cleave has created for her illustrates the forcible dislocations of a globalized world.

Sarah, meanwhile, has a life that invites envy: a whip-smart husband, an adorable son, a satisfying adulterous affair and a glamorous career; the full story is more complex, though, and Cleave gives it to us with unpitying sympathy. When Sarah's husband spirals into depression after their crisis on the Nigerian beach and commits suicide, Sarah is left to reckon with her own moral culpability and a bereft 3-year-old. Then Little Bee, for whom she feels a powerful and naive responsibility, appears at her door, sprung under dubious circumstances from the detention facility.

In restrained, diamond-hard prose, Cleave alternates between these two characters' points of view as he pulls the threads of their dark -- but often funny -- story tight. What unfolds between them in a few short weeks as they struggle to right worlds turned upside down is both surprising and inevitable, thoroughly satisfying if also heart-rending.

Nearly four years ago Cleave's first novel, "Incendiary," about an al-Qaeda bomb attack at a London soccer match, was published in Britain on the very day that suicide bombers killed 52 people in London's transit system. This gruesome coincidence called into question whether Cleave's talent was responsible for the attention the novel received. "Little Bee" leaves little doubt that Cleave deserves the praise. He has carved two indelible characters whose choices in even the most straitened circumstances permit them dignity -- if they are willing to sacrifice for it. "Little Bee" is the best kind of political novel: You're almost entirely unaware of its politics because the book doesn't deal in abstractions but in human beings

I think its important that most people like the next book since it's summer (yeah!) and there's more opportunity for people to join in.

[bleachededen]

I would be up for Fight Club or Good Omens.

If it has to come down to one, let's say Good Omens.

Theomanic, sorry for seeming hostile and taking your posts too personally. I feel the same way meliamom does about the lack of variety in the official poll, and that was all I meant by not wanting to read "one of those Japanese books." It doesn't mean I would never want to read them or any in that genre, but I feel that now is not the time for them, for me, and that any of the books that will win the official poll are too similar in nature and none of them are appealing to me. No specific culture or genre was being hated, just the lack of variety and the fear of not having a fiction discussion I can participate in without reading something I'm really not in the mood for. Again, sorry for getting so defensive. I'm still working on that.

[Suzanne]

It's common for the fiction poll to have some sort of "theme". We picked a classic one time, and a book of short stories once.

The books that go up into the poll are the books that get the most feedback. This is why feedback on the suggested books is so important. There really was not an "Asian" theme to this poll, these were just the books that were recommended and the ones people responded to. People have different tastes in books, I for instance, generally don't read those "fantasy" books. "The Wind up Bird" is right up my alley, and in my comfort zone, this is why I was excited about it, along with the "Kafka" selection.

This has been a good discussion about the books we choose and read. Maybe we should add a second selection. I do agree with bleach, readers should be encouraged to participate in the discussions. But, I also agree with Theomanic, it can be refreshing to read something that is new to us. But the bottom line is, we want a good discussion, this requires readers. We selected "The Sound and the Fury" months back, I think there may have been four active participants because the book was unpopular.

If it has to come down to one, let's say Good Omens.

I would like to read this one as well. Like I said, I typically do not read this type of book, but with the tremendous excitement readers feel about this genre, I am reading a bit more. "Good Omens" comes very highly recommended, and I think it will generate a good discussion.

[Chris OConnor]

Those of you that voted on The Wind Up Bird Chronicle please make a few quick posts in that forum to get the ball rolling. And even if you didn't vote on that book please consider joining the discussion. It is always helpful to make some quick posts so the forum is not sitting empty.

[bleachededen]

So...what's the second book going to be?

[Suzanne]

"Good Omens"

http://www.amazon.com/Good-Omens-Neil-G ... 0441003257

Who would like to join in?

[bleachededen]

Me, definitely!! I'll start rereading (again) tomorrow!! I just wasn't sure whether or not we'd come to a conclusion. Is there a thread for this topic? I started one in the "What are you reading?" forum a week or so ago, with no responses, but we could always start a new one. I'm game for whatever.

[Suzanne]

There should be a forum for "Good Omens" soon, as a second selection.

[Chris OConnor]

I'll create it now!