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Nominations are now open until March 22nd for the May 2022 Open Pick.

Nominating guidelines:
- Fiction (original & translation, if applicable) first published between January 1, 2000 and May 1, 2021. For translations the latter date must be an English edition.
- One nomination per person (please do not nominate or vote for a book unless you are certain you can read and discuss if it wins)
- A book this group has not yet read (see the group bookshelf or the Index of all Group Reads here)
- A book that is not better suited to the wild card (genre) category

If you are nominating, please begin your post by stating "I nominate [name with hyperlink to book]"

The discussion will start on May 1st

I nominate The Exquisite by Laird Hunt.

Last chance to nominate today! I may throw one in myself this time but will need to think about that.

I nominate Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri

Hugh wrote: "Nominations are now open until March 22nd for the May 2022 Open Pick."

If eligible (not a previous pick, ....), I nominate The Island of Sea Women (2019) by Lisa See.

Thanks Linda, Dianne and Lily. Nominations are now closed, the poll will be up shortly.

The poll is now up here, and will run until the end of March.

/poll/show/2...

Lily wrote: "... I nominate The Island of Sea Women (2019) by Lisa See..."

I nominated this because it is the up-coming choice of my long-standing f2f book club, which now meets via zoom, from mid-continent US to Europe, Maine to Florida. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only member who is active on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. I am still hoping enough interest exists here to select TIoSW ?! It would certainly feed our f2f discussion. (Several good member reviews exist for the book. It was published a few years ago.)

I hope nobody minds, but because the poll ended in a tie, I reopened it for just long enough to remove my vote, which means that The Island of Sea Women has won. Lily, are you willing to lead the discussion?

Hugh wrote: "I hope nobody minds, but because the poll ended in a tie, I reopened it for just long enough to remove my vote, which means that The Island of Sea Women has won. Lily, are you willi..."

Hugh, I am in the midst of starting a lengthy medical series of treatments, so while I am glad to help the discussion along, I would appreciate help in the set-up and insuring the proper piece parts are in place at the right times. I might suggest perhaps "these are the critics reviews", initial reactions/structure (no spoilers), the portrayal of the women and other characters, the history of the region, and perhaps two for comments as proceed through the book. But totally open to other suggestions, including from others who have selected the book and/or want to participate in the discussion. That's about as far as my thoughts will take me on structuring a discussion right now....sorry, I am a little frazzled. But I look forward to the contribution I am sure the discussion will make to my face-to-face book group. I know the reader reviews already posted on goodreads have some fascinating background information.

Ok, we can probably do the basics, but I am not committing myself to reading the book at this stage.

Hugh wrote: "Ok, we can probably do the basics, but I am not committing myself to reading the book at this stage."

I'm fine with that. Thanks Hugh. Probably should have thought about the possibility of being asked to moderate when I nominated the book. Sorry, haven't been nominating here and have drastically cut back on my own reading, too, so dropped the ball on remembering the processes. But my face-to-face group is keeping going, which started here in New Jersey back in 1990 and reconstituted itself in the midst of Covid as a ZOOM group with members now scattered from Maine to Florida, Iowa to Spain -- none of whom are Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ regulars, as far as I know. (I'm sorry -- I see that I repeat myself from an earlier post. Although we as a group considered whether we wanted to read, at this time, something as "dark" as Sea Women is reputed to be, we decided to stay with it for its exploration of a unique group of women as well as periods and places of history that we felt we may even have lived through, but hold only rather vaguely in our "working minds." And not that we intend the read to be a "history lesson" per se.)

One of the reviews I will call to everyone's attention is Paul Fulcher's, although they can decide whether to read it before or after they take on the book itself:
/review/show...

Lily, I hope the treatments go ok for you! Sorry you're going through that. :(

Thanks for the link to my review and yes it probably is spoiler heavy.

My family are all on the island of Jeju, where the novel is set, this month.

Bretnie wrote: "Lily, I hope the treatments go ok for you! Sorry you're going through that. :("

Thank you, Bretnie. So am I (sorry I'm going to have to go through it all). But it is strangely reassuring that medical knowledge seems to have been progressing in some ways analogous to the information technologies in which I lived and spent so much of my life. It was a friend who set the example for me to go investigate what was going on in my body, and, if I can pass that notion of self care and awareness along to anyone else, ..., well, what can I say... me, who investigates so many things on the net, but didn't for myself as soon as I perhaps "should" have?

Look forward to the discussion here of the Sea Women. I must say I am a little dismayed by the particular dramas with which See opens the story. I think back to the couple of other novels of hers that I have read and ask myself what were her plot tactics there. But I'll have to do some "work" if I'm to answer my own question.