CP LITERATURE DRAFT - (Rapid Fire Free For All Round)

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Aeneas

I will pick "The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde.

Which category does this book belong? I'm guessing Fiction-Wildcard?

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Aeneas

I'll trade you my World Literature...or bio/memoir?

Sorry those are the ones I need to unload.

[Aeneas]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Which category does this book belong? I'm guessing Fiction-Wildcard?

Sorry, yes, you have the truth of it.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

A trade to announce:

To Burninator:
Children's Literature
Nonfiction-Scientific

To Iowa_Flames_Fan:
Fantasy
Nonfiction-memoir

[rogermexico]

Originally Posted by icarus

Hmmm... maybe we were in the same class. I remember in one of my university classes Robert Kroetsch came into our class of about 20 one day and just chilled out and chatted. I had a pretty good chat with him actually and honestly I totally forgot about it until I saw his name on this list.

That would have been about ... let me think... 98 or 99.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by rogermexico

That would have been about ... let me think... 98 or 99.

Hmmm could have been... I think 2000-01 is more likely though. What class?

[rogermexico]

Aretha's fiction writing.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by rogermexico

Aretha's fiction writing.

I took that class too--only for me it would have been around 95.

I'm an oldster!

[troutman]

Away for Spring Break - carry on without me.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

I know I have a couple of picks to make up and seeing as though it is to miserable to go outside I guess I can do that this morning...

First in the category of Autobiography/Memoir
Scouting Thrills: The Memoir of a Scout Officer in the Great War - George B. McKean

Just a real interesting book regarding world war I and Lt McKean, a Victoria Cross recipient and his actions in the war. It is interesting that the book was marketed towards youth when it was originally published and it contains some of the most gruesome descriptions of combat that I have ever encountered.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

I know I have a couple of picks to make up and seeing as though it is to miserable to go outside I guess I can do that this morning...

First in the category of Autobiography/Memoir
Scouting Thrills: The Memoir of a Scout Officer in the Great War - George B. McKean

Just a real interesting book regarding world war I and Lt McKean, a Victoria Cross recipient and his actions in the war. It is interesting that the book was marketed towards youth when it was originally published and it contains some of the most gruesome descriptions of combat that I have ever encountered.

That would be your 10th rd pick, so we still need 11, 12 & 13 to fully catch you up.

[Eastern Girl]

I picked up a couple of the books mentioned in this thread, I am looking forward to reading them.

Question about the Dark Materials trilogy from Phillip Pullman, are they actually dark because I saw them in Chapters today in the kids section? I thought they were supposed to be more adult scary type books.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Eastern Girl

I picked up a couple of the books mentioned in this thread, I am looking forward to reading them.

Question about the Dark Materials trilogy from Phillip Pullman, are they actually dark because I saw them in Chapters today in the kids section? I thought they were supposed to be more adult scary type books.

They're more like kids' books--though slightly dark-ish. Certainly darker than C.S. Lewis, but considerably less dark than, say, Lemony Snicket.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by Eastern Girl

Question about the Dark Materials trilogy from Phillip Pullman, are they actually dark because I saw them in Chapters today in the kids section? I thought they were supposed to be more adult scary type books.

They are definitely written with the young-adult audience in mind, even though they deal with some pretty grown-up themes (such as faith and the nature of God and Sin).

The title of the series "His Dark Materials" comes from Milton's Paradise Lost and is a reference to the materials with which God formed the universe.

These books are so, so good. I can't say enough good things about them. I am so glad I got them on my team.

[RougeUnderoos]

Whoah, it's been about a week since a book was picked. I'll pick one when I get home in a few hours. Octothorp can go ahead in the meantime if he wants.

[octothorp]

In the World Literature category, I'm going to pick French Algerian novelist Albert Camus' The Stranger (or The Outsider, depending on translation). (Given that Camus was born, raised, and educated in Algiers, was a passionate Algerian nationalist, and wrote this in part while in France and in part while in Algiers, I think it fits the World Lit category, though the book is part european philosophical novel, as well as being part colonial literature.)
Set in Algiers, this story follows Meursault, a man who seems emotionally detached from those around him to an extreme degree. When he murders the friend of the brother of an ex-girlfriend of a friend of his, the authorities are outraged at this seeming emotional detachment, or remorselessness. In the end he is sentenced to death, but the time for introspection allows him to gain an understanding of the absoluteness of death and thus the meaninglessness of life.

I find it a sort of sad novel in that in a lot of ways, Meursault's perspective that he reaches by the end of the novel makes a lot of sense, but despite its rationality, it's impossible to actually live like Meursault. The best we can do is be aware of how often we're guilty of these absurd associations that Meursault sees around him. It's often lumped into the existentialist category, but in some ways the viewpoint that Camus presents is very different: life and action have no meaning to the individual leading them; instead, it is society that attempts to attach meaning to them.

[RougeUnderoos]

Fiction Wildcard

Originally Posted by wikipedia

Mother Night is a novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut, first published in 1961. The title of the book is taken from Goethe's Faust.
It is the story of Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American, who moved to Germany directly after World War I and then later became alternately a well-known German language playwright and a Nazi propagandist. The action of the novel is narrated (through the use of metafiction) by Campbell himself. The premise is that he is writing his memoirs while awaiting trial for war crimes in an Israeli prison. Howard W. Campbell also appears briefly in Vonnegut's later novel Slaughterhouse-Five.

Slaughterhouse 5 is the most famous one for a reason (and it's already been taken) but this is a great book as well. There is a character named "Krapptauer", and I think that is just great.

[octothorp]

Good choice! Slaughterhouse 5 is my favorite and I picked it because I needed a Sci Fi pick, but Mother Night deserves to be equally well known. Glad to see it get picked up.

[troutman]

Bobblehead, who are the next three picks?

[Bobblehead]

Octothorp
Circa89
EasternGirl