March 2026 book nominations > Likes and Comments

This topic is for March book nominations and the choice is wide open. Nominations will run from today through February 5th, with the poll immediately following. I will fill in nominations up to four if we do not get enough from our members.

How about Memoirs from Beyond the Grave: 1768-1800

The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton

The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Álvaro Mutis

Today is the last day for nominations. We have several good ones already and I am going suggest that if a nomination that is over 500 pages wins the poll that we extend the reading time to two months to allow slower readers to complete the book.

Sounds like a good plan, thanks Sam!

Agreed, thanks!

That's a great idea, Sam.

whatever

The poll is up. I added Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A. by Eve Babitz for variety and I think we have an interesting selection from which to choose. I tried to invite members to vote the poll but I am not sure invites when out. The poll will run from today through 2/11/2026. Please come and vote if you are interested. I will not vote unless a tie needs breaking.

I got an invite!

The poll was won by The Slaves of Solitude byPatrick Hamilton with 16 votes. Memoirs from Beyond the Grave: 1768-1800 finished second with an admirable 13 votes. This was an improvement from the 4 votes the book received in the poll the prior month so I expect we will see this book chosen as a group read soon or later. The other nominees had 8 votes each. I will have a book topic for the winner and the topic for next month's up soon.

I’ve wanted to read Slaves of Solitude, so even though March is my Ancient Greek month and I’m going to try to read this as well.

WndyJW wrote: "I’ve wanted to read Slaves of Solitude, so even though March is my Ancient Greek month and I’m going to try to read this as well."

Great! I love your additions to the conversations.

I would be happy to book both books in consecutively if people are interested in that.

Memoirs from Beyond the Grave: 1768-1800

I thought it would be cool to quote the following from Anka Muhlstein’s introduction:

Baudelaire was one of Chateaubriand’s first admirers and considered him “a master when it came to language and style “; Proust recognized his debt to the “marvelous and transcendent” artist who was the first to recognize the power of involuntary memory. Closer to us in time, General de Gaulle, after his resignation in 1946 confessed: “I don’t care about anything, I am immersed in the Memoirs from Beyond the Grave.”

🙂

Emmeline and Paula, I was thinking the same as both of you about Chateaubriand but feared that another thick history based book might be too much of the same thing for members after Effingers but since you are both contributing members and you think it would be a good idea, I think we should try it. The first volume is only 571 pages and could be read in a month though I think two months allows a more leisurely pace. Any thoughts?

It is next up on my book stack. Thoughts, I do better when a book reading schedule is established, e.g. Week 1…Week 2. That way we all get to talk about that week’s reading. For me, there is more interaction using that method. And I’ve noticed book groups doing it get more posts.

I can probably manage one month but am also happy to do two, as other reading commitments do tend to pile up.

I agree with Paula about a reading schedule, though of course it would be more work for you. I read large books with this method in some of my 19th-century groups and it's remarkably effective for keeping me on track.

Emmeline wrote: "I can probably manage one month but am also happy to do two, as other reading commitments do tend to pile up.

I agree with Paula about a reading schedule, though of course it would be more work fo..."

The book has 12 chapters and if we do two months, I will probably just do set it up as a chapter or two a week with the two chapter weeks being made of the shorter chapters hopefully. I have not read the book so I can't divide it up based on difficulty or intensity, but we should be good. The schedule will mainly be related to the discussion so reading ahead will be fine but discussions will be limited to the material established in the schedule at that week or earlier.

Exactly what I was thinking, Sam 🙂