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Taking nominations for the next chunky read. Remember these are books 750+ pages.

Meg, do you have any you would enjoy doing? If so,would you like to just give us some you might have in mind, and let us pick from your selections?

Or would you prefer some nominations? :o)

Or maybe both. :o)

How about both, but I think I put this in the wrong section if you can move it please.

A Dangerous Fortune - Ken Follett

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

I nominate The Memoirs Of Cleopatra or Infinite Jest.

When would this start? Our next classic read is The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights which is a chunky itself. We're going to read it from the 1st of July to the 1st of September. Anyone is, of course, welcome to join us.

I'm just mentioning it because depending on when the next "official" chunky started, it might be overwhelming for people who want to do both.

I'd like to nominate The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

and

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

I usually wait a month between chunky reads, so I am thinking of late July if everyone wants that date.

I can't believe no one wants to reread Ulysses!

Forever Amber By Kathleen Winsor

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53...

Meg wrote: "I can't believe no one wants to reread Ulysses!"

Oh, definitely....sign me up, I love to be tortured.

Meg wrote: "I can't believe no one wants to reread Ulysses!"

LOL! I have to say I will NEVER re-read Ulysses.

There are some great suggestions being made.
The Bronze Horseman was a group read about a year ago though, so probably shouldn't do that one over.

What about "A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth?

There are so many great books!!!
I will have to say this will be the last day for nominations. Sheila can you make a poll for the books on Saturday with a closing date of Thursday???
Thank you!

I'd be happy to. :o)

Thank you!

Ok, it is time to vote!
Just as a recap, here are the nominations (with brief synopsis copied from the Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ book pages):

A Dangerous Fortune In 1866, tragedy strikes at the exclusive Windfield School. A young student drowns in a mysterious accident involving a small circle of boys. The drowning and its aftermath initiates a spiraling circle of treachery that will span three decades and entwine many loves... From the exclusive men's club and brothels that cater to every dark desire of London's upper classes to the dazzling ballrooms and mahogany-paneled suites of the manipulators of the world's wealth, Ken Follett conjures up a stunning array of contrasts. This breathtaking novel portrays a family splintered by lust, bound by a shared legacy... men and women swept toward a perilous climax where greed, fed by the shocking truth of a boy's death, must be stopped, or not just one man's dreams, but those of a nation, will die...

The Memoirs Of Cleopatra Bestselling novelist Margaret George brings to life the glittering kingdom of Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, in this luch, sweeping, and richly detailed saga. Told in Cleopatra's own voice, this is a mesmerizing tale of ambition, passion, and betrayl, which begins when the twenty-year-old queen seeks out the most powerful man in the world, Julius Caesar, and does not end until, having survived the assassination of Caesar and the defeat of the second man she loves, Marc Antony, she plots her own death rather than be paraded in triumph through the streets of Rome. Most of all, in its richness and authenticity, it is an irresistible story that reveals why Margaret George's work has been widely acclaimed as "the best kind of historical novel, one the reader can't wait to get lost in."

Infinite Jest Somewhere in the not-so-distant future, the screwed-up residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the Enfield Tennis Academy search for the master copy of a movie so dangerously entertaining that its viewers die in a state of catatonic bliss. Explores essential questions about what entertainment is, why we need it, and what it says about who we are.

The Executioner's Song In what is arguably his greatest book, America's most heroically ambitious writer follows the short, blighted career of Gary Gilmore, an intractably violent product of America's prisons who became notorious for two reasons: first, for robbing two men in 1976, then killing them in cold blood; and, second, after being tried and convicted, for insisting on dying for his crime. To do so, he had to fight a system that seemed paradoxically intent on keeping him alive long after it had sentenced him to death. Norman Mailer tells Gilmore's story--and those of the men and women caught up in his procession toward the firing squad--with implacable authority, steely compassion, and a restraint that evokes the parched landscapes and stern theology of Gilmore's Utah. The Executioner's Song is a trip down the wrong side of the tracks to the deepest sources of American loneliness and violence. It is a towering achievement--impossible to put down, impossible to forget.

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling A foundling of mysterious parentage brought up by Mr. Allworthy on his country estate, Tom Jones is deeply in love with the seemingly unattainable Sophia Western, the beautiful daughter of the neighboring squire—though he sometimes succumbs to the charms of the local girls. When Tom is banished to make his own fortune and Sophia follows him to London to escape an arranged marriage, the adventure begins. A vivid Hogarthian panorama of eighteenth-century life, spiced with danger and intrigue, bawdy exuberance and good-natured authorial interjections, Tom Jones is one of the greatest and most ambitious comic novels in English literature.
Includes a chronology, suggestions for further reading, notes, glossary, and an appendix of Fielding's revisions Introduction discusses narrative tecniques and themes, the context of eighteenth-century fiction and satire, and the historical and political background of the Jacobite revolution.

Forever Amber Abandoned pregnant and penniless on the teeming streets of London, 16-year-old Amber St. Clare manages, by using her wits, beauty, and courage, to climb to the highest position a woman could achieve in Restoration England-that of favorite mistress of the Merry Monarch, Charles II. From whores and highwaymen to courtiers and noblemen, from events such as the Great Plague and the Fire of London to the intimate passions of ordinary-and extraordinary-men and women, Amber experiences it all. But throughout her trials and escapades, she remains, in her heart, true to the one man she really loves, the one man she can never have. Frequently compared to Gone with the Wind, Forever Amber is the other great historical romance, outselling every other American novel of the 1940s-despite being banned in Boston for its sheer sexiness. A book to read and reread, this edition brings back to print an unforgettable romance and a timeless masterpiece.

A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth's novel is, at its core, a love story: Lata and her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, are both trying to find -- through love or through exacting maternal appraisal -- a suitable boy for Lata to marry. Set in the early 1950s, in an India newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis, A Suitable Boy takes us into the richly imagined world of four large extended families and spins a compulsively readable tale of their lives and loves. A sweeping panoramic portrait of a complex, multi ethnic society in flux, A Suitable Boy remains the story of ordinary people caught up in a web of love and ambition, humor and sadness, prejudice and reconciliation, the most delicate social etiquette and the most appalling violence.

***
To vote in this poll, go here:

http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/67...

This poll is also featured at the bottom of our group home page, or can be reached from the "polls" link on the right. Poll runs until Thursday, June 28th. :o)

Thank you Sheila! It is so hard to vote, I think I will be happy with all of them.

I know Meg, these are some great selections. I don't know what to pick, I'd read all of them (not at once, though! LOL).

You should keep this list in mind for future chunky read selections. :o)

I agree, they all look good!

I usually pick the top four, and go in no particular order. This is such a great list though we might do more depending on the group.

It is a very tough decision.

Marialyce, I loved your comment about being tortured. I have been skimming the "Fifty Shades" discussion. So, do you think long passages of Ulysses are ever read instead of beatings in an S&M encounter? "Fifty Shades of Ulysses"?

Irene, that would be a very creative way of "enduring" both books. I can just see it now, the next college lit course Fifty Shades of......a vivid delving into the rites of torture in texts too long and writing too horrific.

LOL, I think we may be on our way to a grant proposal to create a new course of study.

I love 50 Shades of Ulysses in 100,000 words or more

Meg wrote: "I love 50 Shades of Ulysses in 100,000 words or more"

...written in Stream of Consciousness narration! LOL

As a graphic novel? One person just reading into a comma wile the other screams for help in submission?

BTW, I tried to vote for "A Suitable Boy" but not sure it worked, nothing showed up.

I think it should be a 100,word sentence without any punctuation whatsoever so we are assured that Sheila will read it because that is her favorite prose.

Irene wrote: "BTW, I tried to vote for "A Suitable Boy" but not sure it worked, nothing showed up."

I just checked the poll, Irene, and your vote is there for A Suitable Boy. So whatever you did, it worked!

Meg wrote: "I think it should be a 100,word sentence without any punctuation whatsoever so we are assured that Sheila will read it because that is her favorite prose."

Yes, definately no punctuation! I LOVE no punctuation! LOL

Thanks Sheila!

It looks like a tie! What happens now? Run-off? I didn't vote since it seems I never make it through chunkys...didn't think it would be fair!

It's up to Meg, but I would imagine we will end up doing both..not at the same time though! LOL

Shoot I missed the vote :( that's what I get for being away from my computer. I wanted to vote, oh-well I'll vote next time.

what would you have voted for Tyler?

Infinite Jest, but that's okay I guess it'll be the next chunky after the summer one?

Yes, I think so. Will you join us in this one?

I am going to lift weights for a while in preparation.

I'll try, if I can find a copy :)

How's that weightlifting coming, Meg?

I am getting buff!

lol! Go, Meg, go!