New around here? Register your SA Forums Account here!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
Choose wisely!
This poll is closed.
Thinking Fast and Slow 9 8.41%
Go Set a Watchman 10 9.35%
Between the World and Me 22 20.56%
Speak 6 5.61%
Apathy and Other Small Victories 4 3.74%
The Library at Mount Char 15 14.02%
Traitor's Blade 9 8.41%
The Killer Angels 2 1.87%
The Moonstone 10 9.35%
The Dinosaur Lords 20 18.69%
Total: 107 votes
[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

 
  • Locked thread
Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
CHOOOSE

Ok, here are the poll options for next month's book of the month. Vote early, vote often! You can vote for more than one book if you want. You can vote for a book you've already read if you want. As always, though, please only vote if you plan on actually participating in the discussion if that book is selected.

Doesn't have to be a witty or brilliant comment or anything, "this book was too loving long" or whatever is fine, just please if you vote for a book think of it as making some minimal commitment. I use these polls as an interest check, so don't click if you aren't interested. Thanks!

Depending on how this vote goes, since there are so many options this month, we may do a runoff with the top few vote-getters. This could go down to the wire!



1) Thinking Fast and Slow by Kahneman

quote:

The mind is a hilariously muddled compromise between incompatible modes of thought in this fascinating treatise by a giant in the field of decision research. Nobel-winning psychologist Kahneman (Attention and Effort) posits a brain governed by two clashing decision-making processes. The largely unconscious System 1, he contends, makes intuitive snap judgments based on emotion, memory, and hard-wired rules of thumb; the painfully conscious System 2 laboriously checks the facts and does the math, but is so "lazy" and distractible that it usually defers to System 1. Kahneman uses this scheme to frame a scintillating discussion of his findings in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, and of the ingenious experiments that tease out the irrational, self-contradictory logics that underlie our choices. We learn why we mistake statistical noise for coherent patterns; why the stock-picking of well-paid investment advisers and the prognostications of pundits are worthless; why businessmen tend to be both absurdly overconfident and unwisely risk-averse; and why memory affects decision making in counterintuitive ways. Kahneman's primer adds to recent challenges to economic orthodoxies about rational actors and efficient markets; more than that, it's a lucid, marvelously readable guide to spotting--and correcting--our biased misunderstandings of the world. (Publishers' Weekly (starred review))

This is one of the best pop-science books I've read and you'll learn a lot of truly useful things about how you and other people think from reading it. The science is solid and it'll help you understand why a lot of seemingly inexplicable things about the human mind, aren't. If everyone read this, we'd be living in a different world that understood itself better.


2) Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

http://www.amazon.com/Go-Set-Watchman-A-Novel/dp/0062409859

It's a new release, it's literary, it's going to be controversial regardless, even publishing it was probably inethical.

quote:

Go Set a Watchman is a novel by Harper Lee published on July 14, 2015, by HarperCollins in the United States and William Heinemann in the United Kingdom. Although publicized as a sequel, it is actually the first draft (Lee herself referred to it as the "parent")[2] of her first and only other published novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird (1960).[3][2] The title comes from Isaiah 21:6: "For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth."[4] It alludes to Jean Louise Finch's view of her father, Atticus Finch, as the moral compass ("watchman") of Maycomb,[5] and has a theme of disillusionment, as she realizes the extent of the bigotry in her home community.

http://jezebel.com/atticus-was-always-a-racist-why-go-set-a-watchman-is-n-1718996096

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/27/sweet-home-alabama

http://www.theonion.com/article/harper-lee-announces-third-novel-my-excellent-care-50840


3) Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

http://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543

quote:

An Amazon Best Book of July 2015: Readers of his work in The Atlantic and elsewhere know Ta-Nehisi Coates for his thoughtful and influential writing on race in America. Written as a series of letters to his teenaged son, his new memoir, Between the World and Me, walks us through the course of his life, from the tough neighborhoods of Baltimore in his youth, to Howard University—which Coates dubs “The Mecca” for its revelatory community of black students and teachers—to the broader Meccas of New York and Paris. Coates describes his observations and the evolution of his thinking on race, from Malcolm X to his conclusion that race itself is a fabrication, elemental to the concept of American (white) exceptionalism. Ferguson, Trayvon Martin, and South Carolina are not bumps on the road of progress and harmony, but the results of a systemized, ubiquitous threat to “black bodies” in the form of slavery, police brutality, and mass incarceration. Coates is direct and, as usual, uncommonly insightful and original. There are no wasted words. This is a powerful and exceptional book.--Jon Foro

Coates is a brilliant writer and he's probably the most biting critic on American racial issues who still manages to speak to mainstream audiences.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/the-toxic-world-view-of-ta-nehisi-coates-120512.html#.VbGmurNVhBc (by The National Review's Rich Lowry!)


4) Speak by Louisa Hall

http://www.amazon.com/Speak-A-Novel-Louisa-Hall/dp/0062391194

quote:

Her new novel, Speak, explores what happens to humanity when machines have no trouble at all acting human. The book cuts back and forth between five characters, in five different time periods, who all contribute — some unwittingly — to the creation of an artificial intelligence.

The book starts with a character in the 17th century whose diary is later used as the transcript for an artificially intelligent doll. Computer scientist Alan Turing is one of the characters — writing about his work in the early 1900s. There's a character based on Joseph Weizenbaum, who created the first conversational computer program, and an inventor in the near future who creates an algorithm that pushes the life-like dolls into the realm of the living. The final perspective is from a young girl who has one of these dolls and talks to her, loves her and educates her.

These incredibly life-like dolls have an unimaginable effect on the girls who play with them, and the ripple effects flow through society. With a story that spans four centuries, Hall traces what happens to human memory when it relies more and more on machines.

http://www.npr.org/2015/07/04/419246275/if-robots-speak-will-we-listen-novel-imagines-a-future-changed-by-ai

It's on NPR so you know it's for smart people! This is probably a good pick if you like genre fiction and SF but want something a little more challenging.

5) Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilan

http://www.amazon.com/Apathy-Other-Small-Victories-Neilan/dp/0312352190

quote:

The only thing Shane cares about is leaving. Usually on a Greyhound bus, right before his life falls apart again. Just like he planned. But this time it's complicated: there's a sadistic corporate climber who thinks she's his girlfriend, a rent-subsidized affair with his landlord's wife, and the bizarrely appealing deaf assistant to Shane's cosmically unstable dentist. When one of the women is murdered, and Shane is the only suspect who doesn't care enough to act like he didn't do it, the question becomes just how he'll clear the good name he never had and doesn't particularly want: his own.

So, that's a protagonist most goons can identify with! Plus it sounds like it's entertaining enough:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3731408#post448008533


6) ]The Library at Mount Char

http://www.amazon.com/The-Library-at-Mount-Char/dp/0553418602

quote:

Not exactly literary, but how about The Library at Mount Char? It got a bit of a buzz in the fantasy and horror threads: basically it's modern fantasy that starts off weirdly nonsensical, becomes a page-turner thrillerthingamajig around the midway point and ends on a pretty crazy note while being very enjoyable all the way through. I'd think it's a good summer read.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3731408#post447974072

This comes highly recommended and looks like a great entry if we want to do more urban fantasy, but it's a little off the beaten track it seems, despite lots of great reviews.

7) Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Casell

quote:

When fantasy has gotten so grim and dark that the term "grimdark" has been coined to describe certain authors, things may have gone slightly overboard. With Traitor's Blade, the first installment of a new fantasy series called the Greatcoat Quartet, author Sebastien de Castell seems to be taking a stand against the grimdark wave. Unlike the bleak, bloody work of George R.R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie, Traitor's Blade is a swashbuckling romp packed with charisma, camaraderie, quick wit and even quicker swordplay. That said, it's far from candy-coated — and it packs some serious substance.

Similarly to Martin's and Abercrombie's books, Traitor's Blade is set in a fictional, pseudo-European world. The big difference is the timeframe. De Castell skips past the trappings of medieval brutality and lands his story in a less hopeless realm, one that resembles a cross between Renaissance France and Italy. The world is in political turmoil thanks to petty, warring dukes, and life is none too easy. But the most recent king extolled the virtues of enlightenment and the rule of law. Granted, those virtues got him deposed and murdered, but they at least exist. And the enlightened ideal lives on, albeit with plenty of faults, in the form of Falcio val Mond.

flosofl posted:

I just finished Traitor's Blade about 20 minutes ago (which I got because of this thread), and I haven't been so amped by a fantasy book since Lies of Lock Lamora. I immediately purchased Knight's Shadow.

There was talk of a "twist", and about half-way through I'm thinking "feh, some twist. I've already figured it out."

Nope. He walloped me with not one, but two twists in the plot I hadn't seen coming. And I love that he rope-a-doped me by dangling the obvious in front of me.

I can't wait to start on the next one.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3554972&pagenumber=265&perpage=40#post448027470

http://www.npr.org/2014/07/15/325491349/review-traitors-blade

This is a relatively new series that's supposed to be all that and a bag of chips, very lies-of-locke-lamora-esque. Plus, it's also on NPR! It can't be completely for stupids then, right?


8) The Killer Angels by Michael Sharra

quote:

“My favorite historical novel . . . a superb re-creation of the Battle of Gettysburg, but its real importance is its insight into what the war was about, and what it meant.”—James M. McPherson

quote:

The late Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (1974) concerns the battle of Gettysburg and was the basis for the 1993 film Gettysburg. The events immediately before and during the battle are seen through the eyes of Confederate Generals Lee, Longstreet, and Armistead and Federal General Buford, Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain, and a host of others. The author's ability to convey the thoughts of men in war as well as their confusion-the so-called "fog of battle"-is outstanding. This unabridged version is read clearly by award-winning actor George Hearn, who gives each character a different voice and effectively conveys their personalities; chapters and beginnings and ends of sides are announced. Music from the movie version adds to the drama. All this comes in a beautiful package with a battle map.

esn2500 posted:

So any novel past or present that we really liked reading?

Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels. Really brought the American Civil War to life through all the many character's perspectives, union and confederate, and spanned only the three day long conflict that was the Battle of Gettsyburg. A+ historical fiction

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3731408#post448014153

9) The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

quote:

The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century British epistolary novel, generally considered the first detective novel in the English language. The story was originally serialised in Charles Dickens' magazine All the Year Round. The Moonstone and The Woman in White are considered Wilkie Collins' best novels. Besides creating many of the ground rules of the detective novel, The Moonstone also reflected Collins' enlightened social attitudes in his treatment of the servants in the novel. Collins adapted The Moonstone for the stage in 1877, but the production was performed for only two months. . . . .

Rachel Verinder, a young English woman, inherits a large Indian diamond on her eighteenth birthday. It is a legacy from her uncle, a corrupt British army officer who served in India. The diamond is of great religious significance as well as being extremely valuable, and three Hindu priests have dedicated their lives to recovering it. The story incorporates elements of the legendary origins of the Hope Diamond (or perhaps the Orloff Diamond). Rachel's eighteenth birthday is celebrated with a large party, whose guests include her cousin Franklin Blake. She wears the Moonstone on her dress that evening for all to see, including some Indian jugglers who have called at the house. Later that night, the diamond is stolen from Rachel's bedroom, and a period of turmoil, unhappiness, misunderstandings and ill-luck ensues. Told by a series of narratives from some of the main characters, the complex plot traces the subsequent efforts to explain the theft, identify the thief, trace the stone and recover it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moonstone

I'm including this one because I wanted to make sure we had an option for at least one free book. I've read an absurd amount of out-of-copyright fiction on my kindle and this is my personal pick for the best "forgotten favorite" of the lot. It's genre fiction which people are asking for, it's literary (at least in that it has a patina of age, if nothing else), it's classy, it's a great story, there's a lot of social subtext and implicit commentary on British colonialism, etc.

10) Comedy Option:

The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milan



http://grrm.livejournal.com/388192.html

I can't think of anything I could say that would add to that cover. Comes out July 28th. You wanted more new releases, right?


Those are the options for August. As above, there may be a runoff, maybe not.

EDIT: Because I cannot see who voted for what, only votes made in the actual poll by clicking on the vote button will be counted. Votes made by posting "I vote for X" won't count.

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Jul 24, 2015

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

Traitor's Blade gets my vote.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Ornamented Death posted:

Traitor's Blade gets my vote.

You have to click the button for it to count!

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Jul 24, 2015

Ornamented Death
Jan 25, 2006

Pew pew!

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

You have to click the button for it to count!

Huh, the poll doesn't show up on the mobile app. Or at least the version I'm using.

I'll cast an official vote next time I'm at a computer.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Ornamented Death posted:

Huh, the poll doesn't show up on the mobile app. Or at least the version I'm using.

I'll cast an official vote next time I'm at a computer.

Yeah for some reason the mobile app doesn't handle the polls well.

Great suggestions all around, I want to read all of these.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer
I vote for Thinking Fast and Slow, Library at Mount Char, and Apathy.

Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Jul 24, 2015

thehomemaster
Jul 16, 2014

by Ralp
Dang, I would vote for four but I felt I should vote for the one I suggested!

Carteret
Nov 10, 2012


thehomemaster posted:

Dang, I would vote for four but I felt I should vote for the one I suggested!

I hope it's Dinosaur Lords. I work at a bookstore and this motherfucker is just sitting in the backroom screaming for me to check it out. One of the only perks to working here.

That loving cover.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

thehomemaster posted:

Dang, I would vote for four but I felt I should vote for the one I suggested!

You *should* be able to vote for more than one option, unless I hosed up the poll settings, which is perfectly possible.

edit: nevermind yeah sorry that one's my bad

Carteret
Nov 10, 2012


Hieronymous Alloy posted:

You *should* be able to vote for more than one option, unless I hosed up the poll settings, which is perfectly possible.

I could only vote once.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Carteret posted:

I could only vote once.

Yeah, I hosed up the settings somehow. I'll see if I can fix it but may not be possible w/out a new thread which would be a pain.

thehomemaster
Jul 16, 2014

by Ralp
I wouldn't worry about it, just go with the flow!

Strong Mouse
Jun 11, 2012

You disrespect us. You drag corpses around. You steal, and you hurt feelings!

RRRRRRRAAAAARGH!

Prepare to die!
It's been a few months since I've done one of these, but The Traitor's Blade is on my to-read list, and The Dinosaur Lords just made my list with that cover.

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
The moonstone is real cool though

thehomemaster
Jul 16, 2014

by Ralp
Guess it's going to be Dinosaur Lords.

Not like anyone wasn't going to read this!

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!

thehomemaster posted:

Guess it's going to be Dinosaur Lords.

Not like anyone wasn't going to read this!

I hate genre fiction.

less laughter
May 7, 2012

Accelerock & Roll

Ornamented Death posted:

Traitor's Blade gets my vote.

Ditto

Khizan
Jul 30, 2013


Had to vote Dinosaur Lords because I know absolutely nothing about it and I'm going to read it purely based on that cover.

Mel Mudkiper
Jan 19, 2012

At this point, Mudman abruptly ends the conversation. He usually insists on the last word.
Between the World and Me you group of absolute children

ulvir
Jan 2, 2005

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Between the World and Me you group of absolute children

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Between the World and Me you group of absolute children

What's wrong with the Moonstone

esn2500
Mar 2, 2015

Some asshole told me to get fucked and eat shit so I got fucked and ate shit
Can't beat knights riding dinosaurs lol

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

esn2500 posted:

Can't beat knights riding dinosaurs lol

This seems inevitable. :(

CountFosco
Jan 9, 2012

Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.
I voted for The Moonstone because Wilkie Collins owns loving bones and if there were any justice in this world he'd be as well known as Dickens.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Mel Mudkiper posted:

Between the World and Me you group of absolute children

I voted for this too because barring anything else it is an important book on race and the discussion that is going to come out of it is going to be much more engaging than a few pages of "that part where he rode the triceratops tho!"

Not trying to take away anything from your dino books tho fellas.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

CountFosco posted:

I voted for The Moonstone because Wilkie Collins owns loving bones and if there were any justice in this world he'd be as well known as Dickens.

He really does. For what it's worth, of the nominees that I've read, Moonstone is the best read.

Also I'm somewhat regretting listing Traitor's Blades. It's very entertaining but also very pulpy and somewhat lacking in "realism." -- reminded me a lot of the first Dresden book entertaining but obviously a first novel. probably should have gone to the source and just listed The Three Musketeers, except that I'm still scarred from reading Louise de Vallerie & The Man in the Iron Mask is so sad.

Peel
Dec 3, 2007

Dinos has a great cover but the novelty could wear off pretty quickly in text. It's also a fairly long book.

Franchescanado
Feb 23, 2013

If it wasn't for disappointment
I wouldn't have any appointment

Grimey Drawer

Peel posted:

Dinos has a great cover but the novelty could wear off pretty quickly in text. It's also a fairly long book.

This. Also, it's the first part of a planned series, so it may just devolve into loose ends.

Rusty
Sep 28, 2001
Dinosaur Gum
I wish I could switch my vote to defeat the Dinosaur book. I wanted to read "The Killer Angels" but that's going to lose, and "The Library at Mount Char" sounds interesting. I also bought both, so please vote for those!
The Moonstone also sounds really good.

Quinton
Apr 25, 2004

Clearly I am a heretic for being unexcited about the Dinosaur book.

Voted for Traitor's Blade, but The Library at Mount Char sounds intriguing too.

CountFosco
Jan 9, 2012

Welcome back to the Liturgigoon thread, friend.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

He really does. For what it's worth, of the nominees that I've read, Moonstone is the best read.


The Woman In White had me staying up at night to just keep reading so I could find out what came next in the story in a manner that I hadn't experienced since blazing through Tom Jones not long before it. He was able to produce that sort of "and then what happened?" curiosity that was what got me to love books in the first place.

dogcrash truther
Nov 2, 2013
Voted for moonstone. Doesn't look like it's going to win, but I'll be reading it regardless.

Srice
Sep 11, 2011

I voted Between the World and Me because it sounds interesting and because that the cover is probably the high point of that dinosaur book so I think we should appreciate it like that.

thehomemaster
Jul 16, 2014

by Ralp
Can I change my vote from Speak to Between the World and Me?

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
There will (very likely) be a runoff vote from the 28th to the 31st, so don't be afraid to vote for entries you think "won't win."

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Jul 25, 2015

Paper With Lines
Aug 21, 2013

The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

There will be a runoff vote from the 28th to the 31st, so don't be afraid to vote for entries you think "won't win."

Murica.

I'm about a third of the way through the Coates book. IMO, most people could read it in an afternoon. I'm a very slow reader and it took about an hour and a half to get a third of the way though it.

shrug.

Strong Mouse
Jun 11, 2012

You disrespect us. You drag corpses around. You steal, and you hurt feelings!

RRRRRRRAAAAARGH!

Prepare to die!
Yeah, after reading the descriptions of some of the books, there are other books that I'd enjoy doing a group read of than Traitor's Blade of The Dinosaur Lords. I actually really want to read The Library at Char.

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!
I was in Italy once, in this little backwater town out in the middle of nowhere, and the bookstore had exactly one book in English, which was Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound
ROUND TWO: FIGHT!

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3733422

  • Locked thread