21st Century Literature discussion

Weekends are the perfect time to nominate books for our September 2016 Open Pick. We'll accept nominations through July 23rd.

The usual rules: 21st Century work of literature, one nomination per person. Please see the How Things Work post if you are new to the group or need a refresher.

Ready? Set? Go!

All the Living by C.E. Morgan. I love this author. This novel is her first, published in 2009. Her second was published this year - The Sport of Kings: A Novel - and it is amazing. But it is too new I think - the paperback is not yet available. So I am nominating her first novel, which is much narrower in perspective but the prose is quite amazing. One of the guys who works at a local, independent bookstore went to college with Morgan - Berea College in Kentucky. He has only good things to say about her! She was one of the New Yorkers 40 under 40 authors recognized in 2010. I've read at least one book by all of them and hers my be the best of the best.

I love it when you can get that excited about a new (or-new-to-you) author!

I won't be nominating this time since my choice (Stonemouth from Iain Banks) won for August and I want to read some books that I would never have found by myself as well. Linda's option looks very good to me already!

Linda's choice looks good so I am tempted not to nominate this time

Well I nominated sport of kings last round, so I'd be happy with Linda's pick as well, but just in the spirit of competition and because I really want to read it I am going to nominate The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth Mckenzie. I hear it is smart, funny and a bit bizarre.

I like the cover on the Mckenzie book, Dianne :D

Looks like we're off to another intriguing round of nominations.

The Portable Veblen was shortlisted for the Baileys Womens Prize for Fiction too, which is usually a pretty good indication of quality. I'm planning to read all the shortlisted books, so I'd second that nomination!

Yes, that one looks good too, though I am unlikely to vote for anything that won't be available in paperback at the time of the discussion. I was considering nominating another personal favourite Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam, but maybe I'll save that one for October or later.

I was expecting to see more nominations. So, I'll add one that I've had my eye on:

The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/boo...

I nominate The Making of Zombie Wars by Aleksander Hemon. I waited for it to come out in paperback, and now I'd like to read it.

I would like to nominate Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. It might be too new - it just came out in June - but I really want to read this one.

There's a GR giveaway right now for Homegoing with 1 day left to enter.

Some great nominations, everyone!

I love to see so much talent "out there" getting recognized "in here!"

Thanks for all the great nominations. The poll is up here and from the homepage. It will be open until the end of the month.

Please remember that if you nominate or vote for the winning book, you are agreeing to read it and participate in the discussion.

The moderator pick for September is In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin.

And it was a tie for the Open Pick - The Portable Veblen and All the Living at 6 votes each. So its silicon versus bluegrass in the runoff poll posted here: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1... !

Voting will be open until this Friday, August 5th.

After a tight race and a run-off vote, the winner is The Portable Veblen! Discussion will start beginning of September. Thanks for voting, everyone. See you there.

Whitney wrote: "After a tight race and a run-off vote, the winner is The Portable Veblen! Discussion will start beginning of September. Thanks for voting, everyone. See you there."

OOPs. I'm sorry I missed the run-off vote. Not that it would have made any difference. But if one other of us had voted again, it might have been a second tie!