If we can, yay! So far we've got 4 recs. Wolfram, do you have one you'd like to add?

I second P-C's suggestion for Remains of the Day (beautiful book!), and also throw The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant into the fray.

(Maybe we could let Wolfram have the honor of picking the very first book from our suggestions (or one of his own) so that people can get it right away, and then figure out a system to pick books 2 and 3? He had a hard proposal, and got it passed, in the face of much resistance.)

Oooh, P-C, a Lorrie Moore I haven't read! Not sure why, actually, just never got around to picking it up.

And the Hegland book sounds really interesting. This is going to be hard. There will be many lovely books to choose from, I'll wager.

Maybe email isn't necessary for collecting the recommendations? Hard to tell -- seems like we may be a smallish population, but then as Heather said we already have people making suggestions here (and yaying them!).

Wolfram, do you have one you'd like to add?

A big nope. I'm really looking forward to reading new stuff. And so far I'm 0 for 4 on the recs, so it's all working out.

Maybe email isn't necessary for collecting the recommendations?

I, for one, would rather see the recs and pimping in the thread. It's easy enough to go back and collect the recs from the posts.

Any objections to just throwing some in the hopper?

No, but I'd like to make it easier to vote if we end up consensing (or, throwing them in a hat, for that matter). That's why I think a little pimping (blurb) would be helpful. For example, aside from Remains of the Day, I don't know the other books. I'd love to know a sentence or two about what they are and, even, more, why peopel are reccing them. I figure, if we collect the title, author, blurb, then we have it all in one place whether we decide to consense, randomize or Mr. Poll.

Oooh, P-C, a Lorrie Moore I haven't read!

You know Lorrie Moore? Awesome! Anagrams was a poor attempt at writing a novella, but she really nails it with Frog Hospital.

(Maybe we could let Wolfram have the honor of picking the very first book from our suggestions (or one of his own) so that people can get it right away, and then figure out a system to pick books 2 and 3? He had a hard proposal, and got it passed, in the face of much resistance.)

I have no problem with this.

I kind of like the idea for allowing duplicates, because that shows which books would appeal, but I also like the idea of not having a pseudo-vote.

I'm remarkably mellow about how we pick, because I just want to get my teeth into this.

My recs: Jane Eyre, because most of us have at least heard of it and it's readily available, and My Name is Asher Lev, by Potok, which is also pretty well known and is an excellent tale of being faithful to one's own integrity and accepting hte pain and costs of that faith.

Oh, The Red Tent is good, and something I'd love to discuss. It's the story of Jacob/Israel's family, told from his daughter's point of view.

Haven't read any of the others, which are pluses for them.

I'm liking seeing the recommendations here, though I guess that could make for very high volume.