Boulder Book Club discussion

Next book, please!

Ya, it seems no one is too flushed with the poker book -- straight on to the next one in hopes for a more full house at the book club meeting?

How 'bout "The Space Merchants," by Pohl and Kornbluth? I haven't read it, but it's been on my inner "to-read" list for a few years now.

"In a vastly overpopulated world, businesses have taken the place of governments and now hold all political power. States exist merely to ensure the survival of huge trans-national corporations. Advertising has become hugely aggressive and by far the best-paid profession."

Wait, this is fiction?

First appeared in 1952 as a serial called "Gravy Planet," in Galaxy Science Fiction (magazine). Pohl and Kornbluth evidently saw what was coming!

Wikipedia says: "The novel is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as the first recorded source for a number of new words, including "soyaburger", "moon suit", "tri-di" for "three-dimensional", "R and D" for "research and development", "sucker-trap" for a shop aimed at gullible tourists, and one of the first uses of "muzak" as a generic term. It is also cited as the first incidence of "survey" as a verb meaning to carry out a poll."

Sounds good to me!

I was considering suggesting one of the "Best American Science Writing of 20XX" books, but just picked up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_....

Not sure how a collection of essays would be for bookclub, but would like to try it sometime in the next few books.

Okay, we've got two suggestions. Anyone else awake out there? If we get a third suggestion in the next few days, maybe we should start the poll. If not, maybe go with The Space Merchants?

I like the idea of reading some science essays or a science book soon (written for the ordinary, untrained dweeb like me, of course!).

Only four votes so far, with ERB in the lead at the time of this writing!

The poll closes on November 19th, so if you want to have an impact, or if you hate ERB, vote soon.

Yay ERB! Which book though? Is that a whole *other* poll? IMHO whoever wanted ERB should unilaterally select the specific book as well...

Ggazic wrote: "Yay ERB! Which book though? Is that a whole *other* poll? IMHO whoever wanted ERB should unilaterally select the specific book as well..."

I don't remember who first suggested ERB. Was it Mark? And then he re-read "A Princess of Mars" and complained about how backward and sexist it was!

ERB has nothing on Ian Flemming when it comes to backwards and sexist.

That's funny: I was recently considering making the suggestion that we read an Ian Flemming book. In 2001 I "inherited" (er . . . well, "walked off with") some vintage 007 paperbacks that my father had in his collection. But I still haven't cracked a single one of them yet.

I should add: I have nothing against backward and sexist books, as long as they are otherwise of historical interest or of good quality on some level.

(Oh yeah, and the 007 books: they weren't really worth anything and I encountered no resistance to the taking.)

I promise to complain a lot if we read a sexist book. Which should be fun for everyone. :)