Global Book Selections discussion

It's that time of the month to choose the next book club book selection Since we have cycled through the globe once again with ASIA and S.A in September and then we know how October went with Europe and N.A, we have AUSTRALIA/OCEANIA and AFRICA left for November.

I hope AFRICA wins this month I want to read a few from African literature. I'm ready to read a gripping novel. It hasn't been going so well for me to get in some of the selection we've chosen so far. I think the closest I got to being completely immersed in a book was 'Wolf Totem,' but that ended up being too long, haha. This is what the book club is about, though, discovering new books, and also discovering the books you'll end up loving (even if you may stumble upon quite a few that you may not so much).

So here are my suggestions for AFRICA (remember your suggestions can either be by an African author or about Africa):
Cry, the Beloved Country
Heart of Darkness
What is What
Cutting for Stone
A Man of the People


Here are my suggestiongs for AUSTRALIA/OCEANIA, boy is it always hard to suggest books from this region. Not only do I not know very much about it, but it seems I'm not even inclined to read Australian novel. Not sure why. This is my best effort for this upcoming month.

This is a young adult novel, but stil... maybe it's worth considering Stolen
The World Beneath

that's all I got... let me know what you think and add your own suggestions. I won't start the poll until Friday or Saturday.

For Africa

Half of a Yellow Sun
Wizard of the Crow

I don't know much about Australian fiction either Elemillia. I think I have only read a few from that Australian Listopia (and I didn't like one of those much).

You and Sonja have some very good African suggestions.

For Australia I will offer Cocaine Blues

suggestions are looking good, especially for Africa. ill post the poll tomorrow to give tim for additional suggestions and feedback.

i was thinking, and this is an idea inspired by Sonja. what if we combined Australia with Asia to be Australasia so that way we're not scrambling our heads for this continnent, and if we would consider any Australian novels it would be with Asia. Plus instead of eliminating this option for a 6th continent we could make it AN ALTERNATE OF OUR CHOICE if we want to read more books from a specific continent that we choose together. What do you guys think?

Demon Hunters: Desires of the Flesh

A little bit of a selfish addition. We just finished translating and editing the title by Baku Yumemakura, one of Japan's most important modern authors. I'm extremely proud of the work and would love to hear feedback.

It's kind of an insane combination of fantasy, sci-fi, Buddhism and Martial Arts... A super fast read and part of a larger series that we are working on.

I am not sure why Australia offers such a problem to us all - I am sure they have fantastic authors, but I agree it might be a good idea to link them with Asia and solve the problem that way. I recently read The Bat (the first Harry Hole novel) which was set in Australia and, once I had overcome my bizarre reluctance to read books set there, I really enjoyed it.

Authors from Australia and New Zealand rarely get much publicity in the UK, unless they win a major literary prize, so there may be lots of them who are not as well known as they should be.
Here are a few prize winners from Australia and New Zealand I have at least heard about (I haven't read them all):
Booker Prize
True History of the Kelly Gang
Oscar and Lucinda
Schindler's Ark
The Bone People

Commonwealth Writers' Prize
Eucalyptus
Mister Pip
The Slap
That Deadman Dance
The Secret River
Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish
Jack Maggs
The Ancestor Game
The Great World
The Carpathians

Tim Winton has been shortlisted, but not won either of those awards. He has won many other prizes, including the Miles Franklin Award a record four times: for Shallows (1984), Cloudstreet (1992), Dirt Music (2002) and Breath (2009).
The Miles Franklin Award is Australia's major literary award, so I have included a link to it in the Listopia for Australia.

wow Val thanks for the extensive list im really glad you listed quite a few. im going to put up the poll today midday ... i will post the bone people as one... i need two more suggestions. im thinking three books from each... let me know on any last minute suggestions :)

so ill add Australia to Asia and we'll have an alternate continent of our choice next time

If you choose one of your YA books, Susan's crime novel and one of the literary novels, plus any three of the African ones, I think you have enough variety, Elemillia, so I don't think you need to worry.
(Someone may come up with some great recommendations in the next hour or so of course.)

Wow, these are all great choices guys, not sure which way the vote is going to go but would be happy to read any of them. Going to read Nemesis v.soon so will post my thoughts on that x

Alright guys. I'm so sorry to be posting this so late. I have been without internet since late Friday night and whenever I did manage to get to Starbucks to use their free wi-fi I never did have enough time to put together our reading for November. But here I am taking care of business now ;).

So it looks like it was quite a close vote for the winner. The top choice is Cutting for Stone. A choice that I was partial towards, but because of my internet connection I never even got a chance to vote for it. So really, in reality it should have gotten 4 votes instead of 3.

The runner-ups were all ties. As usual, I'm only going to put up the winner. Feel free to read any of the runner ups and discuss them, especially because they were all ties they could all be considered the alternates. I, personally, will possibly read The Bone People.

Let's get the month started!