Book of the Month - Merged

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Himeo

Vyemm Raider
3,260
2,799
Rules from the book club thread:

1. Make thread, 1 week notice ahead of time when the reading will officially start.
2. Poster creates poll, 5 book options. Highest vote is the book to be read. The 2nd and 3rd most popular voted books may be included in next RBCT poll perhaps.
3. Sony you have 14 days.... Posters establish reading length time. Spoilers obv need to be in just about every post. Format would be "Im on page XXX: Spoiler"
4. After the established time has passed, people can being posts without spoiler tags, and a new thread could be proposed.
5. The most requested books of last months book thread will be included in the next month's poll.
Archangel criteria:

1) Fantasy/Sci-fi (obvious choice for a gamer forum, we seem to all like this from these genres.) I group them together not just because it's become the traditional allocation, but because I don't want to overbalance the choices with what may or not be the Selector of the Month's preference,

2) Non-Fiction. Biography, documentary, memoir, etc,

3) General Fiction/Popular Fiction. Anything that cannot be pigeon-holed as a particular genre. Difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it.

4) Genre Fiction: crime, thriller, legal, supernatural, historical, comedy, mystery, detective, pulp, dime-store, you get the picture. I would like to include pure Romance here, too, even though most genre-specific fiction will have an element of Romance in it. (Willing to consider it a separate option, as well; these are just thoughts...)

5) Young Adult/Teen/Children's (both Fiction and Non): I would put Happry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, Ranger's Apprentice, Percy Jackson, City of Glass, etc into here, even though they have fantastical or sci fi, or adventure plots, they are written towards a younger audience.

6) Pot-Luck: Whether it's a book making news, an oddball author, or just something that the Selector of the Month really likes and really wants other people to read. Can be any kind of book.

---the book needs to be in print, and/or easily available through resources such asthebookdepositoryorabebooks, where you can get incredibly cheap and out-of-print/ out-of-circulation titles.

--Electronic copies of the selected book should be sourced (if possible) for anyone who can't afford the selected title. Which brings me to....

--Cost. We should consider setting some kind of limit. For example, a book that might cost $8.99 in the US can be as high as $33 in Australia. Working through the book depository eliminates that difference in many, many cases, but it's still worth thinking about.

--Restrictions. I would like to think we are all reasonable adults (filtered through the internet of course,) but I wonder if we should prohibit books that advocate violence, racial hatred, rape, torture, etc. obviously, these issues are usually found in most adult fiction books, but there's a difference between a plot device and an instructional manifesto.
Second runner-up from April was Blood Song. Shogun, Idlewild, and Sandstorm were suggestions. For the rest of the list I'm filling it out based on the criteria posted by Archangel. Ff you have any book suggestions send me a private message and I'll include it in future months.

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1) Fantasy/Sci-fi: Blood Song by Anthony Ryan

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An epic fantasy exploring themes of conflict, loyalty and religious faith. Vaelin Al Sorna, Brother of the Sixth Order, has been trained from childhood to fight and kill in service to the Faith. He has earned many names and almost as many scars, acquiring an ugly dog and a bad-tempered horse in the process. Ensnared in an unjust war by a king possessed of either madness or genius, Vaelin seeks to answer the question that will decide the fate of the Realm: ?who is the one who waits?

Raven's Shadow is the first volume in a new epic fantasy of war, intrigue and tested faith.

2) Non-Fiction: Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

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When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. Eggers?s riveting nonfiction book, three years in the making, explores Zeitoun?s roots in Syria, his marriage to Kathy ? an American who converted to Islam ? and their children, and the surreal atmosphere (in New Orleans and the United States generally) in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun was possible. Like What Is the What, Zeitoun was written in close collaboration with its subjects and involved vast research ? in this case, in the United States, Spain, and Syria.

3) General Fiction/Popular Fiction: Shogun by James Clavell

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A bold English adventuer. An invincible Japanese warlord. A beautiful woman torn between two ways of life, two ways of love. All brought together in a mighty saga of a time and place aflame with conflict, passion, ambition, lust and the struggle for power.
"Superbly crafted. . .grips the reader like a riptide. . .gets the juices flowing!"--Washington Star.

"Exciting, totally absorbing. . .be prepared for late nights, meals unlasting, buisness unattended. . ."--Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Adventure and action, the suspense of danger, shocking, touching human relationships. . .a climactic human story."--Los Angeles Times. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

4) Genre Fiction (Mystery): The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zaf?n

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Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer?s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Juli?n Carax. But when he sets out to find the author?s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax?s books in existence. Soon Daniel?s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona?s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

5) Young Adult/Teen/Children's (both Fiction and Non): Idlewild by Nick Sagan

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The tension is palpable from the first page as a young man recovering from a powerful electrical shock realizes that all he knows is that he's about 18 and a student of some kind--and that Lazarus is dead. Halloween, as he is known, becomes certain that someone wants him dead, too. He is one of 10 students attending an exclusive Immersive Virtual Reality boarding school while their bodies lie in a hospital attached to IVs and virtual-reality equipment. Add to the mix a hard-nosed virtual schoolmaster, virtual nannies, and sophisticated computer hacking as the teens try to manipulate the system. In his first novel, the son of Carl Sagan captures perfectly the voice and actions of a rebellious, extremely intelligent teenager. Though its appeal is much wider, recommend this mesmerizing, multilayered futuristic tale to fans of Card's Ender novels.

6) Pot-Luck: Sandstorm by James Rollins

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Nationally bestselling author James Rollins has transported readers to the dark heart of the Amazon, the bowels of the earth, far below the ocean, and the top of the world. Now he embarks upon his most gripping and terrifying adventure yet: to a nightmare buried beneath a treacherous desert wasteland.

An inexplicable explosion rocks the antiquities collection of a London museum?a devastating blast that sets off alarms in clandestine organizations around the world, as the race begins to determine how it happened, why it happened, and what it means.

Lady Kara Kensington's family paid a high price in money and blood to found the gallery that now lies in ruins. And her search for answers is about to lead Kara and her friend Safia al-Maaz, the gallery's brilliant and beautiful curator, into a world they never dreamed actually existed. For new evidence exposed by the tragedy suggests that Ubar, a lost city buried beneath the Arabian desert, is more than mere legend . . . and that something astonishing is waiting there.

Two extraordinary women and their guide, the international adventurer Omaha Dunn, are not the only ones being drawn to the desert. Former U.S. Navy SEAL Painter Crowe, a covert government operative and head of an elite counterespionage team, is hunting down a dangerous turncoat, Crowe's onetime partner, to retrieve the vital information she has stolen. And the trail is pointing him toward Ubar.

But the many perils inherent in a death-defying trek deep into the savage heart of the Arabian Peninsula pale before the nightmarish secrets to be unearthed at journey's end. What is hidden below the sand is more than a valuable relic of ancient history. It is an ageless power that lives and breathes?an awesome force that could create a utopia or tear down everything humankind has built during millennia of civilization. Many lives have already been destroyed by ruthless agencies dedicated to guarding its mysteries and harnessing its might. And now the end may be at hand for Safia, for Kara, for Crowe, and for all the interlopers who wish to expose its mysteries, as it prepares to unleash the most terrible storm of all . . .

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Lusiphur

Peasant
595
47
Hrmm, Shogun? Really? I read that 25 years ago and it wasn't that great then. I still think the General category (in fact all categories bar pot luck) should be restricted to books published in the last year.
I would have voted for Blood Song but I literally just finished it on Thursday night (its pretty good btw). I doubt what I have voted for will get picked but props to Himeo for the consistent effort.
 

chaos

Buzzfeed Editor
17,324
4,839
I'm hoping for Shadow of the Wind but Blood Song sounds ok too. I know Blood Song wasn't available as an e-book before, is it now?
 

Himeo

Vyemm Raider
3,260
2,799
I'm hoping for Shadow of the Wind but Blood Song sounds ok too. I know Blood Song wasn't available as an e-book before, is it now?
Blood Song was released as an e-book. The print version is due out sometime later this year.
 

Lusiphur

Peasant
595
47
Shadow of the Wind needs moar votes. I will be reading it anyway though once I get through Debt: The First 5000 Years.
 

Himeo

Vyemm Raider
3,260
2,799
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Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer?s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Juli?n Carax. But when he sets out to find the author?s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax?s books in existence. Soon Daniel?s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona?s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

Posting schedule:

Book thread posted 1st of the month.
Reading begins 8th of the month.
Spoilers lifted 22nd of the month and next month's poll opens.

No posts from 1st-7th about the book or plot, can only post that you're participating.


 

chaos

Buzzfeed Editor
17,324
4,839
a_skeleton_03's a true bro. I'll start reading, god knows it takes me forever. This book sounds pretty cool.
 

Himeo

Vyemm Raider
3,260
2,799
Definitely reading this one. Everyone I've talked to has said it was one of the best books they've read.
 

Lusiphur

Peasant
595
47
Yay, the best choice won
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Looking forward to is.

EDIT : Ok, which mod is the joker playing with my avatar?
wink.png
 

Cor_sl

shitlord
487
0
I read this book about 3-4 years ago. Loved it. By the end of the book, you'll want to visit Barcelona, guaranteed. Enjoy the book, folks.
 

Ilum_sl

shitlord
30
1
This book is all kinds of awesome, especially if you have ever been to Barcelona, what an amazing city!