I actually think random choosing is the way to go, too. All these books sound interesting and I'm sure if any Buffista likes something enough to want all of us to read it, it's probably pretty good.

There are at least 20 different things that can endear a book to me

Sing it, sister. That's actually more what I care about hearing when people rec a title ... but that'll come up in discussions, too, of course. OK, I'm outta here for a while.

This is just ... neat.

We've got 9 (I think) so far. We wanna chop that down, wait for more and chop them, not chop any and randomize?

I'm okay with compiling all of these recommendations into a list and choosing books in random order from that list. We can add recommendations to the list as they are made.

Unless someone really wants to start with some particular book. Or at any time wants to make the case that some particular book should be read next.

(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 am really, really flattered that you guys would back this, but I'm hesitant to agree. Although I wrote and polished the proposal, all of the folks who posted in LB, supporters and non-supporters alike, took part in the creation of this thread. And I didn't "get it passed," the Will of the Buffistas did. Besides the fact that the idea wasn't even mine. It was born from Heather, amidst support from a number of Buffistas, and I merely picked it up and showed it to the masses.

However, to help get the ball rolling, if the bullshit consensus wants me to pick the first book, I will happily do so. But not because I've earned it or I'm owed it in any way.

BTW, can someone explain how the randomizing method would work?

If we're throwing out suggestions, I may as well put an Aussie into the mix. I'll shortly start reading Tim Winton's Dirt Music. It was the 2002 winner of the Miles Franklin award. Dust jacket syunopsis:

"Georgie Jutland is a mess. At forty, with her career in ruins, she finds herself stranded in White Point with a fisherman she doesn't love and two kids who dead mother she can never replace. Her days have fallen into domestic tedium and social isolation. Her nights are a blur of vodka and pointless loitering in cyberspace. Leached of all confidence, Georgie has lost her way; she barely recognises herself.

"One morning in the boozy pre-dawn gloom, she looks up from the computer screen to see a shadow lurking on the beach below, and a dangerous new element enters her life. Luther Fox, the local poacher. Jinx. Outcast.

"So begins an unlikely alliance. Set in the wild landscape of Western Australia, this is a novel about the odds of breaking with the past, a love story about people stifled by grief or regret, whose dreams are lost, whose hopes have dried up. It's a journey across landscapes within and without, about the music that sometimes arises from the dust.

"In prose as haunting and beautiful as its western setting, Dirt Music confirms Tim Winton's status as the pre-eminent Australian novelist of his generation."

I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up in this thread... but I'ma gonna give it a try. Is it possible for someone to post something in Press once the title has been chosen?

I'm fine with whatever. I'm just so excited.

So far the recs are:

Remains of the Day
Red Tent
Into the Forest
Who Will RUn the Frog Hospital
My Name is Asher Lev
If Not Now When?
Louisiana Power and Light
Mariette in Ecstasy
Mary Rielly
Dirt Music

ETA suggestion

P-C, you have read Self-Help, I'm guessing?

Read it, own it, love it. And I'm going to send you "Shopping" when I get home, because I totally ripped off her style.

Randomization is fine, but I do think we should consense on a pool, because otherwise, suggestions will just keep coming, and the pool will just be getting arbitrarily larger, and people will start complaining their books aren't getting picked, etc. After a couple days of suggestions, we should narrow the list down to, say, six (for our "six-month trial period"), and then pick the first three randomly.

The list so far:

Into the Forest, by Jean Heglund

(2) The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore

If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi

The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

My Name is Asher Lev, by Chiam Potok

Mariette in Ecstasy, by Ron Hansen

Mary Reilly, by Valerie Martin

Louisiana Power and Light, by John Dufresne

Dirt Music, by Tim Winton

The Education of Henry Adams, by Henry Adams

I don't think I missed any. (eta Dirt Music)

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.

I love Potok's Chosen, so although I've never read Asher Lev, I am favorably disposed to it. I know I love Remains of the Day, and would be glad to dive into it, again. I will connie and P-C pimp those, though. Frankly, I'll be happy with any of the books mentioned, but will pimp my suggestion, to help people decide.

Earlier, I recommended The Red Tent. In Genesis there is a brief story of Jacob's (Israel's) daughter (much of Jacob's section of Genesis has to do with him and his brother Esau; or him and his wives; or his many sons, including Joseph with the fancy schmancy coat, and a Benjamin I might add, but I digress).

His daughter, Dinah (pronounced like Deena) was born of his wife Leah. Rachel was his favorite wife. Dinah only gets this very brief (violent, revenge-filled, and tragic) story, in Genesis 34. I believe she is not mentioned again, anywhere in either Testament, except in a geneology, in Genesis 46.

Diamant wrote this story from Dinah's point of view, and filled in the blanks with what is known as midrash. I believe I read once that Jewish legend and other extra-Biblical source material helped her flesh it out. Regardless of how she did it--flesh it out, she does. And how.

The story (and the language) is gorgeously rich and vivid. The story is poignant. I read it a couple of years ago, and it has never left it. It hurt when it was over.

(eta Dirt Music, and again for Henry Adams)