~Unfaithful~

Allright it's that time again. Time to start book nominations.


I nominate: The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards

Star21

I nominate: Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

wanderer78

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. It seems like a lot of people have read it.

Merlin_Bodhi

What other books have you guys done already?

~Unfaithful~

Um. I am not sure. We need to keep a list of them. The first one I remember was The Five People You Meet in Heaven and that's the only one I remember

TheAngel

I just put a list of the books of the month in the master thread list and that's where it will be kept and updated, but for your reference the books are:
August: A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
July: A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
June: The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

SoSaysI81

Ash Wednesday - Ethan Hawke

~Unfaithful~

Okay I am going to post the choices so far and we can vote from there.

The Memory Keepers Daughter -1
Eat, Pray Love-1
Prep-1
Ash Wednesday-1

I will post a short dexcriptio of each book from Amazon.com

The Memory Keepers Daughter
When Dr. David Henry's wife goes into labor during a paralyzing winter storm he is forced to deliver his child. His wife, Nora, is under heavy sedation and he is assisted by Caroline, his nurse. Henry's joy is boundless when he delivers a healthy son and also discovers that he is to be the father of twins. With the birth of his second child, a daughter, he makes an immediate and fateful decision. The child is born with Down's Syndrome so believing that he will spare his wife pain he tells Caroline to immediately take the child to an institution and never reveal what she has done. He tells Nora that their son's fraternal twin died at birth.

Caroline is far too kind hearted to obey Henry's orders, so she flees to another city where she raises the daughter, Phoebe.

We can never know whether some decisions we make are for good or ill or what effect they will have upon the future lives of those we love. Author Edwards traces the story of this particular family over 25 years as Nora mourns the loss of her baby girl, and a long kept secret is revealed.

Eat, Pray Love
At the age of thirty-one, Gilbert moved with her husband to the suburbs of New York and began trying to get pregnant, only to realize that she wanted neither a child nor a husband. Three years later, after a protracted divorce, she embarked on a yearlong trip of recovery, with three main stops: Rome, for pleasure (mostly gustatory, with a special emphasis on gelato); an ashram outside of Mumbai, for spiritual searching; and Bali, for "balancing." These destinations are all on the beaten track, but Gilbert's exuberance and her self-deprecating humor enliven the proceedings: recalling the first time she attempted to speak directly to God, she says, "It was all I could do to stop myself from saying, 'I've always been a big fan of your work.'"

Prep
Curtis Sittenfeld's poignant and occassionally angst-ridden debut novel Prep is the story of Lee Fiora, a South Bend, Indiana, teenager who wins a scholarship to the prestigious Ault school, an East Coast institution where "money was everywhere on campus, but it was usually invisible." As we follow Lee through boarding school, we witness firsthand the triumphs and tragedies that shape our heroine's coming-of-age. Yet while Sittenfeld may be a skilled storyteller, her real gift lies in her ability to expertly give voice to what is often described as the most alienating period in a young person's life: high school.

True to its genre, Prep is filled with boarding school stereotypes--from the alienated gay student to the picture perfect blond girl; the achingly earnest first-year English teacher and the dreamy star basketball player who never mentions the fact that he's Jewish. Lee's status as an outsider is further affirmed after her parents drive 18 hours in their beat-up Datsun to attend Parent's Weekend, where most of the kids "got trashed and ended up skinny-dipping in the indoor pool" at their parents' fancy hotel. Yet even as the weekend deteriorates into disaster and ends with a heartbreaking slap across the face, Sittenfeld never blames or excuses anyone; rather, she simply incorporates the experience into Lee's sense of self. ("How was I supposed to understand, when I applied at the age of thirteen, that you have your whole life to leave your family?")

By the time Lee graduates from Ault, some readers may tire of her constant worrying and self-doubting obsessions. However, every time we feel close to giving up on her, Sittenfeld reels us back in and makes us root for Lee. In doing so, perhaps we are rooting for every high school student who's ever wanted nothing more than to belong.

Ash Wednesday
Jimmy Heartsock, AWOL from the army, and his pregnant girlfriend, Christy, are the young couple caught between love and disillusionment whose path to self-discovery is punctuated by passion ("This girl had a friggin' fireball for a heart") as well as endearing quirkiness. Jimmy is posted in Albany, N.Y., and waffling in his affections, when Christy gives him an ultimatum: she's going home to Texas and he can either come with her or forget about seeing her again. Taking the biggest gamble of his life, he decides to make the drive with her in his old Chevy Nova, risking dishonorable discharge. Christy, who is afraid to face who she is ("Good morning, fear.... You are my oldest friend") and only feels calm when she is moving, steps on her own path to self-renewal after meeting a blind man on a bus who speaks of change and the possibility of transcendence through God. The two protagonists must each learn to step out of themselves, find "gratitude in the face of loss or suffering" and submit to a love that is attuned to reality before they can find a home with and for each other.

Okay, let voting begin!!!

wanderer78

The Time Traveler's Wife was January's. The Catcher in the Rye, and In Her Shoes were others. I can't remember what month's though.

All the books sound interesting. I look foward to reading any of them.

shutterbug579

~Unfaithful~

The Memory Keepers Daughter -2
Eat, Pray Love-1
Prep-1
Ash Wednesday-1

ilovemuffin

~Unfaithful~

The Memory Keepers Daughter -3
Eat, Pray Love-1
Prep-1
Ash Wednesday-1

I'll leave voting up through tomorrow, and Sunday the winner will be posted!