The Backlist Book Club: It's Time to Vote for our August 2013 read!

-
Can y'all believe it's the middle of July already? I'm currently devouring our July Backlist Book Club pick, Affinity by Sarah Waters. Look for my review later this week! It's time to start voting for our August pick. The theme I've selected for August 2013 is Orange Prize winners. I'm still (slowly) working my way through all of the winners, shortlists and longlists, and this pick will help me with that ongoing project. I'm excited about the prospect of all four of these much-beloved modern classics, so I'm eager to see which one y'all most want to read! As always, voting will be open until noon (Central time) on July 31, and I'll announce the winner on August 1. I'll review the title in mid-August and host a discussion on August 31. Without further ado, here are the options:






As an affiliate, I receive a small commission when you make a purchase through any of the above links. Thank you for helping to support my book habits that bring more content to this blog!

Comments

  1. raidergirl3July 15, 2013 at 4:47 PM

    Cool - I've read 2 of those this year, Small Island, Idea of Perfection. Both are great, but I liked Small Island (with it's wrong title) better. Half a Yellow Sun is the class of that crowd though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. BethJuly 16, 2013 at 10:10 AM

    I may not finish Affinity in time but I'm certainly going to try! My vote is for Small Island just because I've had it on my shelf for years and really need something to push me to finally pick it up. I've liked Levy's other work so I'm sure it's pretty good. We'll see... May the best title WIN!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AudraJuly 16, 2013 at 11:10 AM

    Oooooooooooooh, can't wait to see what gets picked! All are titles that kind of intimidate me!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Melissa (Avid Reader)July 16, 2013 at 4:24 PM

    I have been meaning to read Small Island for sooo long!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment. Happy reading!

Popular posts from this blog

book review: A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear

-
Image
The backstory: A Dangerous Place  is the eleventh historical mystery featuring Maisie Dobbs. My reviews of the other eleven (plus Winspear's stand alone historical novel) are in my Book Review Database . The basics: Set four years after the last Maisie Dobbs novel, Leaving Everything Most Loved , in A Dangerous Place , we meet up with Maisie in Gibraltar in 1927 during the Spanish Civil War. She gets off her England-bound ship in Gibraltar because she's not quite ready to return. Note: this review contains spoilers about what happened in those four years of Maisie's life between books, all of which are revealed in this novel's first thirty pages.  My thoughts: Sunday I wrote about the Maisie Mail I received. These postcards appear in the book itself, along with many others. After setting the stage in Gibraltar in the opening pages (Maisie stumbles upon a dead body), Winspear recounts the last four years of Maisie's life in the form of postcards, letters, an...
Read more

book review: Run by Ann Patchett

-
Image
The backstory: After loving State of Wonder  ( my review ), I set out to read all of Ann Patchett's books. The basics: Run  is the story of the Doyle family: Bernard, an Irish Catholic ex-mayor of Boston, his deceased wife Bernadette, their adult son Sullivan, and their two adopted college ages sons, Tip and Teddy, who are biological brothers. My thoughts: I'm beginning to think Ann Patchett is my soul sister. Her writing reaches me deeply, and I've adored everything she's written. It was a special treat to read Run , the novel of hers I knew the least about going in. Although I had the framework of two of her novels and one memoir, I didn't know what to expect. Run  isn't as universally loved as some of her other works, so I was particularly curious to see how it measured up. Admittedly, Run  started off slowly for me. It took two chapters to really get into the heart of the story, but once it happened, I was hooked. One of the things I love most about ...
Read more

book review: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

-
Image
The backstory: Gilead  won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2004, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize in 2006. The basics: As Rev. Ames nears the end of his life in the 1950's, he begins a letter to his young son because Ames realizes his son is too young to really know him. Gilead  is that letter. My thoughts: Gilead  is a novel I'm been meaning to read for years. It's a character-driven, Midwestern narrative by one of our best contemporary writers. It should be a novel I love, yet I struggled to finish it and admit I was wowed by neither the story nor the writing. Gilead  seemed almost stream-of-consciousness at first. I appreciated that Robinson jumped right in: this novel is a letter from father to son; the reader's ignorance of these two characters is not the focus. As the novel progressed, more details began to be filled in, and the reader begins to understand the characters, setting and purpose. I enjoyed the ...
Read more