2025 Reading Challenge discussion
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March Group Read Nominations
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I love this interpretation of the theme, Rachel!

For those not familiar with the story, the GR blurb is here:
Vikas Swarup's spectacular debut novel opens in a jail cell in Mumbai, India, where Ram Mohammad Thomas is being held after correctly answering all twelve questions on India's biggest quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion? It is hard to believe that a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school could win such a contest. But through a series of exhilarating tales Ram explains to his lawyer how episodes in his life gave him the answer to each question.
Ram takes us on an amazing review of his own history - from the day he was found as a baby in the clothes donation box of a Delhi church to his employment by a faded Bollywood star to his adventure with a security-crazed Australian army colonel to his career as an overly creative tour guide at the Taj Mahal.
Vikas Swarup's Q & A is a beguiling blend of high comedy, drama, and romance that reveals how we know what we know - not just about trivia, but about life itself. Cutting across humanity in all its squalor and glory, Vikas Swarup presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the struggle between good and evil - and what happens when one boy has no other choice in life but to survive.

Also it is the very first book on my TBR so I would love to get it read :)

Anytime, Kara;) I'll second (or fifth?) Dune.
I nominate:
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Nicole Kidman (who has won an Oscar although not for this film) plays in the film adaptation of this novel.
Here lives an orphaned ward named Lyra Belacqua, whose carefree life among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors. First, her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, appears with evidence of mystery and danger in the far North, including photographs of a mysterious celestial phenomenon called Dust and the dim outline of a city suspended in the Aurora Borealis that he suspects is part of an alternate universe. He leaves Lyra in the care of Mrs. Coulter, an enigmatic scholar and explorer who offers to give Lyra the attention her uncle has long refused her. In this multilayered narrative, however, nothing is as it seems. Lyra sets out for the top of the world in search of her kidnapped playmate, Roger, bearing a rare truth-telling instrument, the compass of the title. All around her children are disappearing—victims of so-called "Gobblers"—and being used as subjects in terrible experiments that separate humans from their daemons, creatures that reflect each person's inner being. And somehow, both Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are involved.
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Nicole Kidman (who has won an Oscar although not for this film) plays in the film adaptation of this novel.
Here lives an orphaned ward named Lyra Belacqua, whose carefree life among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors. First, her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, appears with evidence of mystery and danger in the far North, including photographs of a mysterious celestial phenomenon called Dust and the dim outline of a city suspended in the Aurora Borealis that he suspects is part of an alternate universe. He leaves Lyra in the care of Mrs. Coulter, an enigmatic scholar and explorer who offers to give Lyra the attention her uncle has long refused her. In this multilayered narrative, however, nothing is as it seems. Lyra sets out for the top of the world in search of her kidnapped playmate, Roger, bearing a rare truth-telling instrument, the compass of the title. All around her children are disappearing—victims of so-called "Gobblers"—and being used as subjects in terrible experiments that separate humans from their daemons, creatures that reflect each person's inner being. And somehow, both Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are involved.
I nominate Oscar and Lucinda, which was also turned into a movie starring Oscar-nominated Ralph Fiennes and Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett.


Because: The Grand Budapest Hotel end-credits as partially inspired by Zweig's novels. And director claims to have "stolen" from Zweig's novels Beware of Pity and The Post-Office Girl in writing the film, and it features actors Tom Wilkinson as The Author, a character based loosely on Zweig, and Jude Law as his younger, idealised self seen in flashbacks. Director also states that the film's protagonist, the concierge Gustave H., played by Ralph Fiennes, is based on Zweig. In the film's opening sequence, a teenaged girl visits a shrine for The Author, which includes a bust of him wearing Zweig-like spectacles and celebrated as his country's "National Treasure".







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Books mentioned in this topic
American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History (other topics)Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption (other topics)
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption (other topics)
Seabiscuit: An American Legend (other topics)
No Country for Old Men (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Cormac McCarthy (other topics)Vikas Swarup (other topics)
Vladimir Nabokov (other topics)
Vladimir Nabokov (other topics)
Frank Herbert (other topics)
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Please nominate only one book and ensure you either link the book or give the name of the author as well to avoid confusion. You can second someone else's nomination, but that will count as your own. Nominations cannot have been chosen for a past group read (past buddy reads are fine).
This thread will be closed by January 22, and we will choose ten books for the poll. If there are more than ten books nominated, we will choose the ten most nominated. If there is still a tie to get into the top ten, we'll go back to the Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ average rating to see which is highest.