Hey- when I looked over the list I remembered that last night I never posted a snippet on my rec for y'all to link to- I pulled the only unspoilery description off Amazon:

Into the Forest- Jean Hegland: Over 30 miles from the nearest town, and several miles away from their nearest neighbor, Nell and Eva struggle to survive as society begins to decay and collapse around them. No single event precedes society's fall. ...Their arrival into adulthood, however, forces them to reexamine their place in the world and their relationship to the land and each other.

Reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, Into the Forest is a mesmerizing and thought-provoking novel of hope and despair set in a frighteningly plausible near-future America.

ETA- Because, in re-reading it gave away more than I'd like it to.

I would suggest that for the first couple, go for classics or older books.

I like this idea. Glancing over the list, how 'bout Persuasion, Hard Times, and Brave New World/1984 for our first three months? All classics that should be in any library or bookstore, with a decent variety of style and theme.

(If we're not supposed to be making specific suggestions like this yet, please ignore me. I did some skimming to catch up.)

Incidentally, Girl in Landscape is a western... in space!

Since I think some of y'all are partial to those.

just my 50pworth, but Brave New World/1984 isn't actually a particularly illuminating comparison - you basically go "yeah, different" and then stop.

just my 50pworth, but Brave New World/1984 isn't actually a particularly illuminating comparison - you basically go "yeah, different" and then stop.

I did my senior thesis in high school on the two of them, so I beg to differ. They're an obvious pairing, in any case, as you almost never mention one without mentioning the other in the same breath.

I did my senior thesis in high school on the two of them, so I beg to differ.

By an odd co-incidence, so did I, along with Neuromancer. They're lazily lumped together in that they're both mid-20th century dystopias, but that's it. They come from utterly different places, use utterly different techniques and are satirising completely different things. Aside from the fact of being dystopian, what's the commonality?

That wasn't meant to sound grumpy, BTW.

Aside from the fact of being dystopian, what's the commonality?

My paper focused on the dehumanization that occurs in dystopian societies, and how each book used various aspects of the culture (sex, politics, language, etc.) to achieve this.

I'd argue (I didn't at the time, but would now) that BNW isn't a dystopia at all - it's an utopia. It's just that we recoil from utopia.

While I certainly like the idea of starting with a classic, I'm iffy on making the first three months such. Maybe we'd be best to mix things up for a few months, classic to contemporary to non-fiction to something else new- just to keep everybody in? I like the diversity of this list, and I think showcasing that in our first few months could keep everyone happy.

Two cents inserted.