21st Century Literature discussion

It's that time again! Time to nominate your thoughts for what to read in April 2012! Nominate one book written between 2000-Now, and from March 8th to the 15th, we'll hold TWO polls for you to make your first and second selections.

Also remember we've created a listopia list to help us remember any potentially great books we might have neglected thus far, which you can access/vote on/add to at http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/17...

So to kick things off, I'll nominate what's at #1 of that list, which is:

1Q84 written by Haruki Murakami

Although I was tempted to lead off with franzen's corrections!

Embassytown by China Miéville

Why? Because I want an excuse to buy it.

I'd like to nominate

Put simply, it's the best book I've read in a long, long time!

I've read both 1Q84 and The Corrections already, so I'm going to re-nominate Aura's pick from last month - Unaccustomed Earth - because I haven't read that one, yet!

Oo, in that case I'll give Lahiri another chance. I'd really like to read it... and dad would like me to read it too, I bet, seeing that it's his book and I've had it in my shelf for some 6 months now. :)

I can imagine :)

Hey everybody, I'm noticing that there's only 4 books nominated so far, and remember we'll have TWO votes this month, so rather than the 2nd place book winning, it's two separate polls, so don't be shy about nominating books!

Then that's it. I'm nominating Paperboy! Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel

instead of Embassy town?

Yes.

I'd like to nominate this one: The Cave

Is it cheating to request that a Listopia book be included and not count it as my vote?
If allowed, I'd like to add
Seven Types of Ambiguity
But if not allowed, I'll stick with my first vote.

you mean two nominations? No, sorry! I'd like to fill the entire thing up with like 5 nominations myself. I'll always let people change their nominations as many times as they like right up to when I make the poll though, so if you change your mind, just post. Til then, I'll assume the Cave is your choice.

Will wrote: "you mean two nominations? No, sorry! I'd like to fill the entire thing up with like 5 nominations myself. "
I was trying to get away with one. Oh well, The Cave it is.

Well, if you're going to get more nominations in, you have about 12-14 hours or so to get them in. At the moment, we've got 5 books (7 listed, but two are changes by their nominators)
We've got:
1Q84
The Wilderness. Samantha Harvey
Unaccustomed Earth
Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel
The Cave
AND we'll have TWO polls this month, so people will be able to cast votes for each pick, instead of the 2nd place book being the second pick. Unlike before, the polls will not be anonymous, to prevent people double voting for the same book. So if you're a person who nominated a book then didn't vote for your own book because somebody totally nominated something awesome, people COULD notice...and by the way, I've done that already, so you'll get no criticism from me anyway....and PS, no, I did vote for Blankets...so don't tell Mr. Rushdie I voted for Skippy....

Sophia wrote: "I've read several but still think Midnight's Children is his best book."

That's okay too - you can switch the nomination. Just went onto our Listopia and took from there but either book works for me.

Yikes, I think just deleted my post with the nomination of Shalimar the Clown. I'm really going to have to watch which buttons I hit as yesterday I deleted my 2012 book challenge, then when I signed up again accidently upped it by 20 books. Man, I think I'm losing it.

It happens. LOL!

@Sophia - I've heard that, and desperately want to nominate it, but of course it's not 21st century, and considering the philosophical content in relation to the events occurring in India during the 80's and 90's it is very much a child of it's times...but Shalimar the Clown, which I, and now Mikela have nominated looks to be very much a child of our somewhat borderless and confusing times as well.

@Mikela - Oh man, yet another great nomination, I don't know what two I want to vote for now.

ok, nominations closed! polls available at:
1st vote - http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/62...

2nd vote - http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/62...

@Will All is not lost!

A review in the Observer said 'Shalimar the Clown' ... is Rushdie's most engaging book since 'Midnight's Children'. It is a lament. It is a revenge story. It is a love story. And it is a warning - to Muslims and to secular pluralists alike. For so long a celebrant of post-colonial hybridity and diversity, of cultural fusion and mergings, Rushdie is here grappling imaginatively with the shock of 11 September 2001 and the wars that have followed. 'Everywhere was now a part of everywhere else,' he writes. 'Russia, America, London, Kashmir. Our lives, our stories, flowed into one another's.' This fine book reminds us that we forget this at our peril.

I don't know about the rest of you but I'm feeling a panic attack coming on...too many books left to read that I'm dying to delve into and too few eyes or time to read them. Not sure how all you people with thousands of books on your "read shelf" do it. I'm going to have to find a book on speed reading...yikes...not another book!!