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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

The Barbelith Big Read Project

  
  

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Quantum
12:14 / 24.10.03
Sparrowhawk, a young goatherd from Gont (an island famed for wizardry), discovers a talent for magic and gets initiated, goes to the Wizards college on Roke, suffers from Hubris, has various adventures and becomes Archmage. In a nutshell.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
16:02 / 24.10.03
Does he get chased by a shadow-y thing?

It sounds pretty dead on so far. Except for the shadow-y thing. I specifically remember that. And a boat.

I need this book.
 
 
Mourne Kransky
17:56 / 24.10.03
Quantum, books four and five (Tehanu and The Other Wind) of the Earthsea "trilogy" are even better than what went before. Well maybe not better than the Tombs of Atuan but bloody good.

Of her oeuvre, I would prefer Left Hand or The Dispossessed but Earthsea is great "comfort" reading, as Illmatic saith and that quality of wanting to envelope yourself in a book, reading it over and over, is crucial to a "Big Read" nominations, I think.

Just pleased she's got two nominations thus far. Hoping Lurid Archive might nominate The Dispossessed but he has probably gone all hispanic these days.
 
 
Jack Denfeld
06:09 / 25.10.03
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. It's the book I've read the most.
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
06:52 / 25.10.03
An almost impossible choice, but for sheer furious energy and its ability to keep you reading, I'd have to vote for Dostoyevsky's The Gambler. However, as the rules state that the choice must be a novel, and given that there is some argument over whether The Gambler counts as a short novel or a long short story, I'll put in a second bid for Joseph Heller's Catch 22.
 
 
Wombat
09:59 / 25.10.03
Nominating `The man who was Thursday` by GK Chesterton.
 
 
Shrug
12:32 / 25.10.03
Could I nominate Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller? Admittedly it isn't choc block full of emotional revelations which I normally savour like the purple ones in fruit pastilles but I couldn't tear myself away from it. It just left me with a "brilliant book" impression.
Catch 22 should definitely be in there too. Likewise Donna Tart's The Secret History but both of these were in The Big Read anyway, weren't they?
 
 
gingerbop
14:51 / 25.10.03
If its comfort/muliple readings, then Matilda it has to be.
I've read all the Adrian Moles many-a-time, but couldn't choose just one of them. And Matilda reigns supreme above those. I just love the idea of little people gaining power over big people. Inspired me to put a spider in my dad's box of bran flakes once.
 
 
The Strobe
17:16 / 25.10.03
God, I can barely begin to choose. There are so many excellent books I could suggest - and some have been suggested already. However, to toss in something epic that one day I can't wait to read again and that really probably does having something for almost anyone in, I recommend The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay by Michael Chabon. It's very, very good.
 
 
Olulabelle
16:24 / 30.10.03
Roll up, roll up, come and place your votes here...

I think we need a few more yet.
 
 
bigsunnydavros
17:20 / 30.10.03
I'd like to nominate the Third Policeman, by Flann O'Brien. It is very, very funny (in an imaginatively illogical way), and it also stands as one of the weirdest morality tales that I've ever read.

Actually, it's a tough call between this one and At Swim-Two-Birds, also by O'Brien... Ideally, I'd nominate both, but the Third Policeman is my first choice, so there you go.
 
 
iconoplast
20:20 / 30.10.03
The Once and Future King
By T.H.White.

It's like David Eddings, but with the 'suck' button turned to 'off'.
 
 
Colonel Kadmon
01:38 / 31.10.03
Someone should mention Salinger, I suppose... was "Catcher" in the Big Read? I always prefered Franny & Zooey.

I wanted to vote for "Ulysses", but it's just so... psued. "1984", although so simple, it's just too obvious.

"The Third Poiceman" is great - have people noticed the similarity with "The 6th Sense"? - but I don't know...

It's going to have to be "Catch 22". It's brilliant in every way.
 
 
straylight
02:29 / 31.10.03
I nominate Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, though even I admit that the first half is better than the second. I love it for Elphaba more than anything.

And Chollister, it makes me grin every time you bring up Robin Hobb.
 
 
Squirmelia
08:20 / 31.10.03
My favourite comfort read is Douglas Coupland's Generation X, which I've read way too many times, so would like to nominate. It features end of the world stories, conversations with the sun, the desert, story-telling picnics, reinventing yourself, etc.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
08:41 / 31.10.03
Yes! The Once and Future King for me too please. Only, I prefer the separate versions of the books (where they are available). Some of the best bits are in the stand-alone The Sword in the Stone.

Actually I am almost tempted to go for The Sword in the Stone on its own...

I have been racking my brains all week trying to think of the perfect nomination and iconoplast has beaten me to it. And it is nothing like David Eddings! It is completely sui generis, and that is a rarity.
 
 
illmatic
08:47 / 31.10.03
Suedehead: Earthsea is indeed the book you are thinking of with boat and shadowy terror. My first copy of this had the most amazing seventies cover, a ink drawing of Sparrowhawk looking menaced by clouds of gloom wi' one of them hippy typefaces. God, I love that book.
 
 
Rain
12:59 / 31.10.03
"The Dharma Bums" for making nomadism a viable prospect again...
Love you all...
 
 
Krug
14:49 / 31.10.03
Slaughterhouse Five or the Children's Crusade.

or

Breakfast of Champions

or

anything by Vonnegut.

I'd say Breakfast because it's my favourite but you'll like it best if you've read the previous five or six novels he wrote before it.

Kilgore Trout is the greatest character in all of fiction.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
18:02 / 31.10.03
Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace

Come on, y'all! Step up!
 
 
Lee
18:28 / 31.10.03
I'm going to throw in with Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay; a book I read at least once a year to get to one of the most perfect endings ever.
 
 
HCE
23:40 / 31.10.03
enough voting, let's pick something
 
 
Olulabelle
08:41 / 06.11.03
Right.

So, I'll post a list of all the nominations up including the number of votes each book has so far (if it's more than one) and then what I propose is that everybody votes in this new thread I shall make, using a format I will explain in the post, which will make it easer to keep track of voting numbers.

I'm going to post the voting list in Conversation, purely because if I post it here what will probably happen is that we'll all vote for the book we nominated and we'll be no further forward. If it goes in Conversation, more people will vote and some of them won't have submitted nominations.

And just because I can, I'm going to make a last minute change to my nomination and say The Secret History, by Donna Tarrt, because I really think it should be in there.
 
 
Olulabelle
10:13 / 06.11.03
OK. So the voting list is up in Conversation, ready for the flurry of votes that I am sure is inevitable.

If anyone has any big objections to in being in Conversation, we can always get it moved over to here, but I think it will get more votes there.

Also, I've dropped the final list down to ten books because the total number of books nominated was 38. If anyone wants that final list upped to say 15 or something, that's fine with me.

I hope I've included everyone's books in the nominations, I checked and double checked to make sure I had everything, I promise.
 
 
illmatic
10:51 / 06.11.03
Cheers, O Lady, yer a star.
 
 
Captain Zoom
18:34 / 06.11.03
I'd like to nominate "Shadow of Ashland" by Terence M. Green.

'Cause it's the best book I've read in a couple of months.

Zoom.
 
  

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