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)
Is it possible for someone to post something in Press once the title has been chosen?
I'd do it if nobody else did. We want all the Buffistas to know what we're reading and to feel comfortable to drop in and share their thoughts.
I don't think we have an operational randomization process, at least, I've been assuming it's more of a black box.
And it occurs to me that this thread has been open for about 2 hours. More people with different opinions on everything may yet drop in.
And I'm just fine with Wolfram picking the first book, too. We could just let the book chooser position rotate, for that matter.
Randomization off the top of my head:
Make the list, post the list, use whatever number post comes up and add the numbers together, pick that number book?
Louisiana Power and Light, by ?
John Dufresne
I'll go with whatever- though it does seem that we should figger out how to limit the pool. Maybe up to 10(something) suggestions then weeding and randomizing with the weeded getting to be part of the 10(something next time?
I'mma go smoke.
Question about Mary Reilly - Do you think we should read the original Jekyll/Hyde story before reading the re-telling? Is it something we might want to try as a pairing?
How about this time, either someone (Wolfram, Heather, whomever) just pick from the suggestions, and then we work on a process. I'm inclined to keep an ongoing list, and let people pick from it, rather than do something mathy. But in the long run, I don't really care, because if we're not happy with the process, we can change it.
For randomizing purposes we could trust a human to pull a name out of a hat.
