Goodreads Ireland discussion

This is the nominations thread for our April monthly read of 2014.

As always there is one nomination per member, and as this is the only category this month it is open to all writers and all genres.

The thread will remain open until midnight of March 24.

I look forward to seeing your nominations.

Declan. :)

Bending the Boyne by J.S. Dunn

Bending the Boyne was a previous selection, Richard. I think it December of 2012.

The discussion thread is still open if you'd like to jump in.

The Motel Life by Willy Vlautin (because it's the Vlautin I own :o)).

Allan suggested Northline by Willy Vlautin. Although The Free is one of my favorite books, he thought it might be too expensive as it's brand new. So I'll nominate Northline by Willy Vlautin. It was number 2 last month.
BTW, Richard, Bending the Boyne was a great book and I enjoyed it very much when we read it.

Two Vlautin novels? This might make things interesting.

Allan has found us an author we all like.

OK. I am going to make things really interesting if there's no rule against it.
I nominate The Free by Willy Vlautin.

Ooo well played Barbara.

Oh, I LOVE your nomination, Barbara. Is this a Willy Vlautin month?

Allan, I can't remember. Did you see Willy Vlautin when he was in Belfast?

Oh no. You're making things even harder for me Jamielynn. I really want to read that. Guess that means I'll be happy with whatever wins!

Jamie Lynn, is that the book you got with First Reads? I have it marked as wanted to read and I can't remember where I heard about it. Was it you?

This is a very vlautin oriented month!!

LOL everyone! :) I'm wondering if I should nominate Lean on Pete and make it a clean sweep of Vlautin novel nominations?! No, all three existing nominations are worthy winners so I'll pass on a nomination this month and cross my fingers that one of these gets enough votes.

Susan, I was at the Willy Vlautin event in Belfast, and have my signed copy of The Free-it was a really enjoyable night. There are a couple of short clips from it on YouTube if you are interested.

http://youtu.be/7IthzTUaopM

I've never heard of Willy Vlautin before, I'm gonna have to google him :-)

The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor.
This tells of the Addergoole parish which had 14 members aboard the Titanic.

Clare wrote: "The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor.
This tells of the Addergoole parish which had 14 members aboard the Titanic."

I read that when it first came out on my Kindle and I really loved it.

All the Willy Vlautin books look really good, so I wont nominate this month, hoping one of them might win so I will be introduced to a new author :-)

Allan wrote: "LOL everyone! :) I'm wondering if I should nominate Lean on Pete and make it a clean sweep of Vlautin novel nominations?! No, all three existing nominations are worthy winners so I'll pass on a nom..."

In this video, Willy Vlautin reminds me a bit of Bruce Springsteen though less confident. Glenn Patterson's restlessness is distracting though and may have made Vlaudin a bit nervous.

I thought he came across very well, I thought he might just be a shy maybe introverted person. I'm liking him though, he has plenty of empathy for the nurses. Lol.

I know I mentioned Hild over in the Science Fiction thread as it's been nominated for Nebula (although it isn't actually science fiction at all).

The Nebulas also cover fantasy books and other things that fall under the broader category of speculative fiction. The main character apparently (I haven't read it yet) does seem to have some supernatural powers. My friend the bookseller who has read it though, considers it to be more historical fiction than fantasy though.

Re Vlautin, I thought he came across as a really thoughtful and genuine person in the flesh-I was surprised at how he talks, with almost a catch in his voice at times, but having heard a few interviews with him recently, and having listened to the free audiobook extra from Audible, this seems to be how he talks all the time.

Seraphina, the nurse featured in The Free, Pauline Hawkins, has actually had a song written about her already, by the Drive By Truckers. Apparently Vlautin gave an early draft of the book to the band, and they were moved enough to pen the track.

http://open.spotify.com/album/1Hmks3W...

Allan wrote: "Re Vlautin, I thought he came across as a really thoughtful and genuine person in the flesh-I was surprised at how he talks, with almost a catch in his voice at times, but having heard a few interv..."

Allan, this makes me even more excited to read Vlautin. Drive By Truckers are one of my favorite bands.

For folks without a Spotify Account, here's a Youtube link to the same song.

I'm a new member, and I don't know if there are any rules against authors nominating their own books, so I apologize if I got this wrong. I'd like to nominate my ebook "Rose Of Skibbereen". It's the first in a series of novels about Rose Sullivan from County Cork, and it's based on some of my own family history. The novel starts in Ireland in 1880 and follows Rose as she moves to Philadelphia to work as a domestic servant. I learned a lot about the millions of Irish girls who emigrated and became domestic servants in the 19th century. The category for my book is historical romance. The link to Amazon is here: http://myBook.to/Rose1. It's also available in other formats on Smashwords. Thank you.

John

The reason it's a Willy Vlautin month is that we are all basically following our Pied Piper, Allan. I read The Free and just fell in love with it. It's one of my favorite books ever. You would think it's depressing, Jamie Lynn, but it wasn't. It was full of hope and wonder of the human spirit. The only reason I didn't nominate it is that it's a brand new book and might be expensive for members.
Sara, I didn't find Hild on the Science Fiction link as I don't read it. Unlike Declan, it's not my favorite genre.
Thanks, Allan, for the link. I really enjoyed it. I thought you had been there. Is that the one where the guy who reminds me of Maeve Binchey was? I'm getting old. I forgot his name.

Susan, you reckoned that David Park reminded you of Maeve Binchy-the author interviewing Vlautin was Glenn Patterson. I have been at launches for both NI writers over the last month, but Park's was a week later than Patterson's.

Sara wrote: "Ooo well played Barbara."

Funny :) I guess Willy is quite the popular guy this month. I hope he knows!

That's pretty cool about the song Alan, I don't imagine there are too many characters from books so likeable that someone would write a song about them!

JL you don't seem to have any luck with books at your library!! :(

Thank you, Allan. Right as usual. It was David Park's Light of Amsterdam. Why did they have Patterson interview Vlautin? Does that usually happen? I live in the sticks so I don't get to many author talks (2 or 3 a year).

Susan, there's been no hard and fast rules for the events I've been to in Belfast-some authors do readings, some just sign, some are interviewed. I think it's possibly whatever the author prefers.

I've seen Patterson interviewing Roddy Doyle before on tv, and in Belfast, the likes of John Banville prefers this approach, but in my experience, you never know what to expect at the Belfast launches until they start.

I'd like to nominate Strangers by Dean Koontz. It's years since I read it, and what stands out is that at the end - for some reason I can't remember - I felt incredibly uplifted. Would be interesting to see if it affects me the same way.

The deadline has expired and this thread is now closed to new comments. Thank you all for your nominations; the poll will follow shortly.

Declan. :)