21st Century Literature discussion
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
Archived General Discussions
>
What to Read: October Special! - General discussion
date
newest »
newest »
I'm really excited about this special event! I think it would be exhausting to do all the time, but for just this October, it will rock!
I'm looking forward to seeing what members come up with. Should be a fun reading month!
For the Sci-Fi catagory would works of dystopia count?
I'm struggling with whether the intent here is to nominate literary novels that lean genre (i.e. it's got a space-y, magick-y feel to it), or if we're looking at recognized genre novels that are of such quality that they lean towards literature proper...
Daniel wrote: "I'm struggling with whether the intent here is to nominate literary novels that lean genre (i.e. it's got a space-y, magick-y feel to it), or if we're looking at recognized genre novels that are of..."The mods would know better than I, but the impression I get, is that the idea is to nominate genre that is still quality literature.
I think we can go either way, or ideally end up in the place where both points meet .
Dystopia would be sci-fi, yes. And the intent is...well...both. Surprise our fellow members, and I recommend convincing others to vote for your selection. Convince us that YOUR selection is worthy to transcend it's current label towards literature. Or, just nominate something you think is cool, but otherwise not good enough. Or nominate your fav vampire YA sexy sci-fi pop-up romance western mystery.
Silver wrote: "Daniel wrote: "I get, is that the idea is to nominate genre that is still quality literature."I'm a literary snob (!), so I would say hope so. But, hey, this is about FUN and I'm willing to be surprised by whatever is nominated. Who knows? I might learn a thing or two. Grin!
Ok, here's the schedule:Nominations Sept 1st-10th
Voting Sept 10th-17th
Acquire books, assign leaders Sept 17th-30th
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
Instead of our usual method for selecting books, for ONE MONTH ONLY we're going to celebrate the Spooky Month of October by having a special event:
It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving onto the next world.... Many books we deny entry to polls each and every month are wronged by us in keeping to the direction of the group, so before the spirits of all this genre lit bring their vengeance upon us, we shall disguise ourselves in their trappings, as did 12th Century Christians....er, but with books. SO, that said, we'll be reading not 1, not 2, 3, 4, 5, but SIX BOOKS in October (don't panic, keep reading) from specially selected categories. We'll have a nomination process and polls as usual, selecting one book each from the following (seriously, don't panic, keep reading):
All books written 2000-Present..and ALL books must be selected on the basis of their quality, aspiring to the highest level of art please!
Pick One: Moderator Pick (can't avoid it)
Pick Two: Non-Fiction (that's right, ANY non-fiction)
Pick Three: Young Adult (or Children's..but on the strength of writing, not illustrations)
Pick Four: Paranormal (yes, a vampire would be paranormal *sigh*)
Pick Five: Sci-Fi and Fantasy (no vampires..unless they are in space)
Pick Six: Mystery OR Western (I suppose a brilliant book could also be both)
So that's six books for October. Ok, the panic stuff...I don't really expect each of you to read all six books. Some of you might though. Hell, I might. But many of you might well read 3-5 of them. I expect some of these picks will end up being somewhat shorter than say some giant Roth or Franzen novel, so I wouldn't be shocked if the total number of pages wasn't THAT much higher. Also, some of you will simply hate some of the picks, so that will cut it down a bit as well.
Again, this is just a special surprise we're springing on you, and in November we'll get back to normal....or only read books with Turkeys in them...or about Turkey (Pamuk?)...just kidding, we'll be normal after October, trust me. You can nominate ONE book per category. I'll be opening threads to just talk about each category, but if you have general questions and comments (like how much you hate me) then post those here.