Central Market Book Club
Member of
a Non-Profit Educational Organization
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Central Market Book Club candidates - Ballot for August 14, 2006
(Those attending will each have 6 votes to choose from this list.)
===Submitted by Esther===
- THE INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison (publ 1952) 608 pages ***
Received a National Book Award and has appeared high on every list of the canon of 20th-century literature written in English. Chronicles the travels of its narrator, a young, nameless black man, as he moves through the hellish levels of American intolerance and cultural blindness.
*** Because of the length of this selection, it will count as TWO VOTES - Text will be split. If elected, first 12 chapters (about 300 pages)will be covered by one discussion followed by discussion of remaining text (about 300 pages) at subsequent meeting.
- First part of INVISIBLE MAN - first 12 chapters - about 300 pages
- Second part of INVISIBLE MAN - last 300 pages
===Submitted by Connie===
- DEATH IN VENICE by Thomas Mann (publ 1915) approx 100 pages
Author is 1929 Nobel Prize Winner
Tells the story of a successful but aging writer who follows his wanderlust to Venice in search of spiritual fulfillment that instead leads to his erotic doom.
- BABBITT by Sinclair Lewis (publ 1922) approx 320 pages
Author is 1930 Nobel Prize (first American)
Classic commentary on middle-class society - about a businessman who mistakes commercial success for an understanding of the world at large - dissatisfied and lonely, questions the conformity, consumerism, and competitiveness of his conservative, and ultimately cultureless community. Available online at:
etext.library.adelaide.edu.au
===Submitted by Alice===
- THE ETERNAL HUSBAND by Dostoevsky (written 1870) approx 200 pages
Suspenseful tale..A man answers a late-night knock on the door to find himself in tense and puzzling confrontation with the husband of a former lover, but it is not clear if the husband knows about the affair.
- A SIMPLE HEART by Gustave Flaubert (written 1876) approx 100 pages
Deceptively simple story of a housemaid and her approach to a lifetime of servitude renders her mundane life with great beauty and psychological integrity,
Available online at: http://www.bibliomania.com/0/5/136/344/8571/frameset.html
===Submitted by Jerry===
- HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow (publ 1959) 352 pages
Author is 1976 Nobel Prize Winner
Comic fable about an eccentric American millionaire who finds his soul among primitive tribesmen in Africa..also a profound look at the forces that drive a man through life.
===Submitted by Mary C.===
- LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM by Heinrich Boll (first publ 1974) 144 pages
Author is 1972 Nobel Prize Winner
A timeless and universal lesson about the dangers of a security state and an irresponsible press and their capacity to destroy innocent individuals. An invasive tabloid rporter and a police investigation try to ruin the life of an innocent housekeeper because of her relationship with a radical bank robber.
- KRIK? KRAK! by Edwidge Danticat (publ 1995)
Finalist for the National Book Award. .A collection of stories using a style which is both poetic and passionate detailing daily life under dictatorship in Haiti. Written about the common people from their point of view
Specific two short stories to be discussed if elected:
- NINETEEN THIRTY-SEVEN (20 pages)
- A WALL OF FIRE RISING (30 pages)
===Submitted by Penny===
- IDENTITY by Milan Kundera (first published 1996) 176 pages
Author is a nominee for the Man Booker International Prize and has won the highest literary award in the CSSR (Czech Republic) as well as numerous other international literary awards.
IDENTITY explores the question of human identity and whether its possible for lovers to understand each other in a world that is forever trapped on the level of the physical and the shallow.
===Submitted by Emma===
- SATURDAY by Ian McEwan (2004) 300 pages
MAN Booker Prize shortlist 2005
"We follow an ordinary man, Perowne - a neurosurgeon, urbane, privileged...- through a Saturday whose high promise gradually turns nightmarish".."a significant portion of the book involves the doctor's musings triggered by the events of 9/11, the incipient war with Iraq and a massive anti-war demonstration in London.".."a minor traffic accident leads to an unsettling confrontation, Perowne must ... summon a strength greater than he knew he had." "suspenseful"
===Submitted by Sylvie===
- LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding (1959) 200 pages
Author is 1983 Nobel Prize winner
Story about a group of young boys stranded on a desert island who must negotiate cooperation and self-government without adult supervision... An investigation of what happens to civilized people when the structures of civilization disappear.
===Submitted by Lynessa===
- A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster (224 pages) publ 1908
Included in list of 100 best novels by Modern Library.
Author's most romantic, optimistic book; a romance and a critique of English society; about a young woman in the sexually repressed culture of early 20th-century; two main male characters have very different life-styles, one is conservative, the other is free-spirited..
Available online at:
www.hti.umich.edu
- HEAT AND DUST by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (192 pages) publ 1975
1975 Booker Prize Winner
a love story about Angl-Indian relationships that contrasts the 1920's and 1970's through the lives of two English women living fifty years apart; "enough romance, political intrigue, history, drama, and scandal to satisfy most readers."
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