Adult Content Warning

This community may contain adult content that is not suitable for minors. By closing this dialog box or continuing to navigate this site, you certify that you are 18 years of age and consent to view adult content.

Book Club Book Selection Thread

Discussion in 'Books' started by Nettdata, Sep 23, 2014.

?

December 2015: Which Book? Pick 2.

  1. Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs - Johann Hari

  2. Living with a SEAL 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet

  3. Flatland by Edwin Abott Abott

  4. All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Towes

  5. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

  6. Under The Volcano - Malcolm Lowry.

Multiple votes are allowed.
Results are only viewable after voting.
  1. Kampf Trinker

    Kampf Trinker
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    324
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    4,690
    Location:
    Minnesota
    Just a reminder that the poll is set to close tonight. We currently have a tie, in which case I'm going to post the book that has been on the list longer.
     
  2. Kampf Trinker

    Kampf Trinker
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    324
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    4,690
    Location:
    Minnesota
    Go ahead and post any nominations for August. I'll put the poll up sometime around the end of the week.
     
  3. mya

    mya
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    142
    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2009
    Messages:
    2,945
    My nomination, keep The Martian on the list, it's an awesome book.
     
  4. Kampf Trinker

    Kampf Trinker
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    324
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    4,690
    Location:
    Minnesota
    Poll for August is up. It'll close on the 2nd.
     
  5. Kampf Trinker

    Kampf Trinker
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    324
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    4,690
    Location:
    Minnesota
    Go ahead and start throwing out September nominations. The poll will be up in a week or so.
     
  6. Juice

    Juice
    Expand Collapse
    Moderately Gender Fluid

    Reputation:
    1,389
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    13,429
    Location:
    Boston
    I need a good one for my honeymoon plane rides.
     
  7. Angel_1756

    Angel_1756
    Expand Collapse
    The Big Four-Oh

    Reputation:
    380
    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2009
    Messages:
    3,909
    Location:
    The T-dot O-dot one-of-a-kind
  8. Frebis

    Frebis
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    339
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    2,503
  9. Nettdata

    Nettdata
    Expand Collapse
    Mr. Toast

    Reputation:
    2,869
    Joined:
    Feb 14, 2006
    Messages:
    25,785
    Wow... that just came out last week. I can't say I'm even remotely interested.
     
  10. Kampf Trinker

    Kampf Trinker
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    324
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    4,690
    Location:
    Minnesota
    I really hope we'll get at least one nomination better than those first two. Come on guys.
     
  11. Crown Royal

    Crown Royal
    Expand Collapse
    Just call me Topher

    Reputation:
    951
    Joined:
    Oct 31, 2009
    Messages:
    22,740
    Location:
    London, Ontario
    I'll nominate Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
     
  12. Kampf Trinker

    Kampf Trinker
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    324
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    4,690
    Location:
    Minnesota
    I'll put it in the polls, but the premise just sounds too weird for me to read. A bunch of geometric shapes in different castes? Uh Ok.

    Satire is good and all, but when it's so over the top (like American Beauty for example) I just can't take it seriously or help thinking the writer is a douche.

    I don't know if Brave New World has so much to say about society either, but as a sci-fi novel it's one of my favorites.

    In that vein I'm going to add 1984 to the polls as well. It's fucking criminal if you haven't read it.
     
  13. Angel_1756

    Angel_1756
    Expand Collapse
    The Big Four-Oh

    Reputation:
    380
    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2009
    Messages:
    3,909
    Location:
    The T-dot O-dot one-of-a-kind
    Let's get sad and depressing, fuckers.

    I nominate All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews.
     
  14. Kampf Trinker

    Kampf Trinker
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    324
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    4,690
    Location:
    Minnesota
    Ok, we're getting some good nominations. I'll put the poll up Monday or Tuesday. I'm going to drop Sailing Around the World, A River Runs Through It, and Dubliners unless someone wants to renominate those books.

    As a general rule of thumb if a book gets zero votes the previous month and isn't renominated it will usually get dropped out.
     
  15. Kampf Trinker

    Kampf Trinker
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    324
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    4,690
    Location:
    Minnesota
    Poll is up for September. I'll close it on the 1st or 2nd. Yes, I actually put Kung Fu Mike's book on there because fuck it.
     
  16. mya

    mya
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    142
    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2009
    Messages:
    2,945
    Is it too late to add a nomination? Chasing the Scream: The FIrst and Last Days of the War on Drugs. It's a good read and has the potential to lead to an interesting discussion

    http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-First-Last-Drugs/dp/1620408902
    New York Times Bestseller

    It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned in the United States. On the eve of this centenary, journalist Johann Hari set off on an epic three-year, thirty-thousand-mile journey into the war on drugs. What he found is that more and more people all over the world have begun to recognize three startling truths: Drugs are not what we think they are. Addiction is not what we think it is. And the drug war has very different motives to the ones we have seen on our TV screens for so long.

    In Chasing the Scream, Hari reveals his discoveries entirely through the stories of people across the world whose lives have been transformed by this war. They range from a transsexual crack dealer in Brooklyn searching for her mother, to a teenage hit-man in Mexico searching for a way out. It begins with Hari's discovery that at the birth of the drug war, Billie Holiday was stalked and killed by the man who launched this crusade--and it ends with the story of a brave doctor who has led his country to decriminalize every drug, from cannabis to crack, with remarkable results.

    Chasing the Scream lays bare what we really have been chasing in our century of drug war--in our hunger for drugs, and in our attempt to destroy them. This book will challenge and change how you think about one of the most controversial--and consequential--questions of our time.
     
  17. Kampf Trinker

    Kampf Trinker
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    324
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    4,690
    Location:
    Minnesota
    Let's save it for next month since we already have a lot of books to choose from. I do like the idea of doing non fiction that isn't solely about sex though.

    Just to remind everyone, you can nominate anything. This doesn't have to be limited to literature and autobiographies.

    Edit: One caveat: Nominating something controversial and a little political is fine pending Nett/Juice/Binary approval but do NOT nominate some hack slanted partisan shit like Michael Moore or some other jerk off writes. It will never make it in the polls. I have no interest in reading some partisan intellectually dishonest made up stats drivel.

    If it isn't an honest take on a subject and is just political propaganda, or is just trying to make something sound as terrible as possible because the truth sells less copies we aren't discussing it in this subforum. Of course several mods can overrule me but that's going to be my stance on that.
     
    #77 Kampf Trinker, Aug 28, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 28, 2015
  18. Juice

    Juice
    Expand Collapse
    Moderately Gender Fluid

    Reputation:
    1,389
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    13,429
    Location:
    Boston
    As long as there's meaningful discussion on the book or author and it doesn't turn into a circle-jerk or extrapolated pissing-contest, Im fine with it.
     
  19. Nettdata

    Nettdata
    Expand Collapse
    Mr. Toast

    Reputation:
    2,869
    Joined:
    Feb 14, 2006
    Messages:
    25,785
    My thoughts as well.
     
  20. Kampf Trinker

    Kampf Trinker
    Expand Collapse
    Emotionally Jaded

    Reputation:
    324
    Joined:
    Oct 19, 2009
    Messages:
    4,690
    Location:
    Minnesota
    And of course a thread can always be shut down if it gets way out of hand. In the meantime we'll see if anyone actually wants to do a book like that in the first place...

    I only mentioned it because while Mya's suggestion doesn't necessarily sound super political it is getting into that territory.