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.

Could we also, when we decide on the book, could the person who recommended it give a brief description (nothing too spoilery) about it? I guess I'd just like to know, vaguely, what it's about and its tone before I plunge into it. This could be whitefonted.

Also? I'm not wedded to anything I suggest for structure. I'm just going by ... well, how lazy I am, basically.

I do like seeing the recs here, too.

I linked to a brief review of mine, but I'll copy and paste.

If Not Now, When? is rooted in historical events and draws on Levi's own experiences in Auschwitz and as a displaced person after the war, on the stories of partisans he met, and on secondary sources. It gives us a feel for the broad spaces and the marshes and forests, the scattered skirmishes of a spread-out war, and the uneasy relationships between civilians and different partisan groups, with trade and exchange persisting even in desperate conditions, but with Russians and Poles not always friendly to Jews.

Levi is a novelist, however, not a historian. It is individuals who are at the core of his work -- Mendel first and foremost, but others are also given substance -- and their relationships as they seek companionship, romance and fleeting happiness. Some struggle with doubt and despair, and in Mendel's more ruminative moments we see the philosophical quandry facing those who have lost everything and must find new goals, new purposes. But this doesn't dominate the story. If Not Now, When? exhibits Levi's familiar restraint, his disdain for the flamboyant or dramatised, but it is a fast-moving novel, a simple but powerful story of human endurance and struggle in a hostile world.

Yeah, if it's random, I don't care whether I know anything about the book, but if we're consensing, then I'm more interested.

Thanks, Heather. I saw your link, but I hadn't had a chance to click it yet. And, probably would've forgotten to go back.

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 like this idea.