Time to Vote! Books for March and April

Hello All!

I have been extremely lax in my management of polls and I apologize to the group for the lack of communication. I have set up a poll for March and April - the objective is to select 2 books for the next 2 months so we have plenty of time to read them.

Please vote in the poll this week - I will close it on Sunday. Those of you who will be attending this week's meetup can submit your votes (or new suggestions) at the meeting. Those books that do not make the cut for March or April will stay on the list for 2 more months but then they drop off.

Find the book reviews enclosed below. Thanks to all who contributed. If you have technical difficulties, can't find the poll, don't know what I'm talking about, please contact me via the 'contact organizer' link for 'Shannon'.

Cheers & Thanks,
Shannon

Book Reviews
1)"The Golden Notebook" by Doris Lessing
as she is winner if the Nobel Prize For Literature 2007 I think
it would be a good idea.

covertext says: First published in 1962 and now considered one of the major works of the twentieth-century literature, The Golden Notebook is the story of Anna Wulf, divorced single mother and novelist, labouring against writer's block in 1950s London. Fearful of going mad, she records her experiences in four coloured notebooks. The black notebook records her writing life, the red her political views, the yellow notebook her emotional life and the blue everyday events. But it is the fith notebook - the golden notebook - that brings the strands of her life together and holds the key to her recovery. Bold illuminating and indispensable, The Golden Notebook is a powerful account of a woman searching for her personal and political identity, negotiating the trauma of emotionla rejection and sexual betrayal, professional anxieties, and the tensions of friendship and family.

2) "So Many Ways to Begin" by Jon McGregor
covertext says: David Carter cannot help but wish for more:
that his wife Eleanor could be the sparkling girl he once found
so irresistible; that his job as a museaum curator could live
up to the promise it once held; that his daughter's arrival
could have brought him closer to Eleanor. But a few careless
words spoken by his mother's friend have left David restless
with the knowledge that his whole life has been constructed
around a lie.


3) "After You'd Gone" Maggie O'Farrell
covertext says: Alice Raikes boards a train at Kings Cross to
visit her sisters in Scotland. Hours later, she steps into the
traffic on a busy London road and is taken to hospital in a
coma. Who or what did she see in Edinburgh that made her return so suddenly? Whas the accident a suicide attempt? And what exactly do her family, waiting at her bedside, have to hide? Sliding between different levels on consciousness, Alice listens to the conversations around her,and begins sifting through recollections of her past, and of a recently curtailed love affair.

4) Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.
An interesting twist on the Anansi folk tale.
Fat Charlie Nancy is not actually fat. He was fat once but he is definitely not fat now. No, right now Fat Charlie Nancy is angry, confused and more than a little scared - right now his life is spinning out of control, and it is all his dad's fault. If his rotter of an estranged father hadn't dropped dead at a karaoke night, Charlie would still be blissfully unaware that his dad was Anansi, the spider god. He would have no idea that he has a brother called Spider, who is also a god. And there would be no chance that said brother would be trying to take over his life, flat and fiancee, or, to make matters worse, be doing a much better job of it than him. Desperate to reclaim his life, Charlie enlists the help of four more-than-slightly eccentric old ladies and their unique brand of voodoo - and between them they unleash a bitter and twisted force to get rid of Spider. But as darkness descends and badness begins, is Fat Charlie Nancy going to get his life back in one piece or is he about to enter a whole netherworld of pain?

5) The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Book Description
Set in Italy in the Middle Ages, this is not only a narrative of a murder investigation in a monastery in 1327, but also a chronicle of the 14th century religious wars, a history of monastic orders, and a compendium of heretical movements.

Synopsis
The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, "The Name of the Rose" is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.

6) The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Families have secrets they hide even from themselves...

It should have been an ordinary birth, the start of an ordinary happy family. But the night Dr David Henry delivers his wife's twins is a night that will haunt five lives forever. For though David's son is a healthy boy, his daughter has Down's syndrome. And, in a shocking act of betrayal whose consequences only time will reveal, he tells his wife their daughter died while secretly entrusting her care to a nurse. As grief quietly tears apart David's family, so a little girl must make her own way in the world as best she can.

Thanks for the opportunity to vote; but I think that the time-frame is extremely short. If we are going to make use of the available virtual platform, I would suggest that Polls last for at least 2 weeks to give every interested member enough time to visit and vote. This is not a site one visits often.

Cheers

A good point has been made though I was wondering if it would be worth members checking in around the 12-17th of the month knowing that the poll is likely to be up then.

In my positive thinking I've already bought the Golden Notebook so keeping my fingers crossed for that one. My mum has the Memory Keepers daughter and so many people have said good things about that, that I have voted that for April.