Pachinko and * The Burning Girl * are my top two.
I’ve liked some of Jane Green’s books, but not sure they provide enough material for a good discussion.
Pachinko and * The Burning Girl * are my top two.
I’ve liked some of Jane Green’s books, but not sure they provide enough material for a good discussion.
Correction to post 99:
I’ll stay on the sidelines and see what you pick, and join in on the book if I can.
No overlap in @ignatius and @Bromfield2’s lists, but it does allow me to narrow the selection to six choices by eliminating the two books that neither chose. We need more voters! Lurkers who silently read along with us are also (always!) welcome to list their top choices.
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti (optional pairing with the myth “The Twelve Labors of Hercules”)
The Strangler Vine by M.J. Carter
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (nonfiction)
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
The Burning Girl by Claire Messud
Just posting an observation about the interest generated by “A Gentleman in Moscow”. Obviously, best seller, many had already read it, knew about it, and
Liked it.
Many may be like me right now, completely unfamiliar with the suggestions, and not sure what to suggest.
Perhaps it will help to have some description of each suggestion-
The Essex serpent
"Winner of the British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year and overall Book of the Year, selected as the Waterstones Book of the Year, and a Costa Book Award Finalist
"When Cora Seaborne’s brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one. Wed at nineteen, this woman of exceptional intelligence and curiosity was ill-suited for the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space in the wake of the funeral, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive eleven-year old son, Francis, and the boy’s nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend.
While admiring the sites, Cora learns of an intriguing rumor that has arisen further up the estuary, of a fearsome creature said to roam the marshes claiming human lives. After nearly 300 years, the mythical Essex Serpent is said to have returned, taking the life of a young man on New Year’s Eve. A keen amateur naturalist with no patience for religion or superstition, Cora is immediately enthralled, and certain that what the local people think is a magical sea beast may be a previously undiscovered species. Eager to investigate, she is introduced to local vicar William Ransome. Will, too, is suspicious of the rumors. But unlike Cora, this man of faith is convinced the rumors are caused by moral panic, a flight from true belief.
These seeming opposites who agree on nothing soon find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart—an intense relationship that will change both of their lives in ways entirely unexpected.
Hailed by Sarah Waters as “a work of great intelligence and charm, by a hugely talented author,” The Essex Serpent is “irresistible . . . you can feel the influences of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and Hilary Mantel channeled by Perry in some sort of Victorian séance. This is the best new novel I’ve read in years” (Daily Telegraph)."
The strangler vine
"
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KIRKUS REVIEW
Exotically detailed and sprinkled with derring-do, Carter’s historical novel follows an inscrutable old hand and a well-intentioned rookie on a quest that takes them deep into the heart of colonial India.
Part manhunt for a controversial poet who has disappeared in feared Thuggee bandit country, part panorama of early Victorian India under the rule of the Honorable East India Company, British journalist Carter’s debut is rooted in an impressively evoked period setting. The year is 1837, and the Indian subcontinent, ruled for profit by the British, is beginning to show signs of the discontent that will boil over as mutiny a couple of decades later. Ensign William Avery, an officer in the company’s army, is in Calcutta waiting for his summons to a cavalry regiment when he is given an alternative mission: to support Jeremiah Blake, a company man who has gone native, on a secret mission to find Xavier Mountstuart, the famous Scottish writer whose latest book has fed into the mood of unrest and who has broken an agreement to leave India. Avery and Blake’s journey is Carter’s chance to unroll a swathe of colorful background detail, from bazaars and tiger hunts to spectacular feasts. And along the way, as Blake questions Avery’s assumptions about company policy and the natives, a light is shed on the corrupt, exploitative core of colonialism. Action is intermittent until the book’s later chapters, when an assassination attempt is followed by a capture, a chase, a double cross and a fight to the death. Avery and Blake are simultaneously transformed into “the toast of India” and given a tough lesson in political expediency.
Making pleasing use of the developing bromance/adventure formula and a wealth of research, Carter delivers an engaging, skeptical, modern take on empire."
Pachinko
"In this bestselling, page-turning saga, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan, exiled from a home they never knew.
“There could only be a few winners, and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones.”
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant-and that her lover is married-she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son’s powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan’s finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee’s complex and passionate characters-strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis-survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history. "
The twelve lives of Samuel Hawley
"
Product Description
A coming-of-age novel and a literary thrill ride about the price we pay to protect the people we love most.
“A father-daughter road trip you won’t soon forget.”—Richard Russo
Samuel Hawley isn’t like the other fathers in Olympus, Massachusetts. A loner who spent years living on the run, he raised his beloved daughter, Loo, on the road, moving from motel to motel, always watching his back. Now that Loo’s a teenager, Hawley wants only to give her a normal life. In his late wife’s hometown, he finds work as a fisherman, while Loo struggles to fit in at the local high school.
Growing more and more curious about the mother she never knew, Loo begins to investigate. Soon, everywhere she turns, she encounters the mysteries of her parents’ lives before she was born. This hidden past is made all the more real by the twelve scars her father carries on his body. Each scar is from a bullet Hawley took over the course of his criminal career. Each is a memory: of another place on the map, another thrilling close call, another moment of love lost and found. As Loo uncovers a history that’s darker than she could have known, the demons of her father’s past spill over into the present—and together both Hawley and Loo must face a reckoning yet to come. "
Killers of Flower Moon
"Product Description
“Disturbing and riveting…Grann has proved himself a master of spinning delicious, many-layered mysteries that also happen to be true…It will sear your soul.” —Dave Eggers, New York Times Book Review
From New Yorker staff writer David Grann, #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Lost City of Z, a twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances.
In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes like Al Spencer, the “Phantom Terror,” roamed—many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll climbed to more than twenty-four, the FBI took up the case. It was one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations and the bureau badly bungled the case. In desperation, the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only American Indian agents in the bureau. The agents infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. Based on years of research and startling new evidence, the book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward American Indians that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly compelling, but also emotionally devastating."
“The burning girl”
"A bracing, hypnotic coming-of-age story about the bond of best friends, from the New York Times best-selling author of The Emperor’s Children.
Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship. The Burning Girl is a complex examination of the stories we tell ourselves about youth and friendship, and straddles, expertly, childhood’s imaginary worlds and painful adult reality―crafting a true, immediate portrait of female adolescence.
Claire Messud, one of our finest novelists, is as accomplished at weaving a compelling fictional world as she is at asking the big questions: To what extent can we know ourselves and others? What are the stories we create to comprehend our lives and relationships? Brilliantly mixing fable and coming-of-age tale, The Burning Girl gets to the heart of these matters in an absolutely irresistible way."
Leaning towards the father daughter saga
“The twelve lives of Samuel Hawley”
Or the "best selling page turner "
Pachinko
Has anyone read these or have any insights ?
Gosh, thanks, @SouthJerseyChessMom, I haven’t had the time to look each of these up but that really helped.
My top two picks are “The Twelve lives of Samuel Hawley” and “The Burning Girl”. (I already read “Killers of the Flower Moon”.)
The “Essex Serpent” is my first choice, then “12 lives of Samuel Hawley”. I am in the middle of reading Ken Follett’s “Century Trilogy”, so I am not sure I want another 750+ page sweeping saga in Pachinko, although it sounds wonderful.
Redo:
In other words, I’d read any (and would like to read all - later). However, the three books I listed in #1 and #2 hit me as more what I’m in the mood for at the moment.
@Bromfield2, would you read The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley? It’s not in your top two – not sure where it falls on your interest chart.
I’d be happy to read The Strangler Vine (anything Indian fascinates me and I finally, finally finished A Suitable Boy, it only took two years I think!). The Essex Serpent and Burning Girl also sound promising. I’m also happy to read “Lab Lit”. I don’t think I’m in the mood for “emotionally devasting” nonfiction.
We’re down to three choices. The Strangler Vine was a close fourth, but these are the three mentioned most above:
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti (optional pairing with the myth “The Twelve Labors of Hercules”)
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
The Burning Girl by Claire Messud
The Burning Girl will not be released until August 29th, if that makes any difference to anyone.
It might help to peek at samples of Twelve Lives and The Essex Serpent – they are very different from each other in style.
I got a kick out of the epigraph on the first page of The Essex Serpent: It’s a quote by the Count’s old friend Montaigne. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad one.
Not weighing in on this one because I’m not sure I’ll get to read whatever is picked! D is getting married September 23; a weekend event at the family camp we’ve gone to for 26 years. (Meaning there are many, many logistics!) AND, a week later we’re off to Italy with good friends – so my opportunities to participate in a “discussion” will be limited. Carry on …
Congrats @CBBBlinker on upcoming wedding. Wishing you good weather !
The Twleve Lives and Essex Serpent are very different choices!
The Essex Serpent- lush, lyrical love story, winner of many awards, perhaps a slower read, but an escape from all the horrid things going on in our country and world right now.
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley , gun filled, violent page turner, dysfunctional relationship ( probably a good book for discussion, and already optioned to become a tv series.
Would we want to wait until the tv series is released to pair them ?
Leaning toward “the Essex Serpent” …but would like to appeal to more cc discussion participants, so I’m flexible.
@Mary - Every once in a while you make your preference known. Now would be a good time. I don’t think we’re having trouble because we don’t like our choices but rather that we do. I stick with my original top two: The Essex Serpent and The Twelve Lives … but would happily read The Burning Girl.
FWIW … I really like the cover of The Essex Serpent … and would get a hard copy for that reason.