This list comes from several sources, including suggestions by LAVA members, favorites of other book clubs, and various lists of “The Year’s Best Books.”  Some are carried over from the previous vote.  

Here is the voting procedure: first review our guidelines for choosing LAVA discussion books,” which reflect some of the things we have learned about choosing LAVA books over the years.  Then rate each book on a scale of 1 to 10, using 10 to indicate books that you think would generate the best Lava discussions.  You can rate them all 10s if you want, or all 1s, or any combination.  Return to Bill Fugate.  You are encouraged to do your own research; most of these books can be examined at libraries and bookstores.

Our general practice is to read books with 200-350 pages for regular sessions and a heftier book during the summer break.  For the upcoming vote, I propose that we choose six regular books and one summer book, which together will last us for exactly one year.  (We meet nine times a year, but we don’t read a book in January and we read the “Book that all Rochester is reading” in March, which means that we must choose seven books per year.) 

I divided the candidates into three groups:  regular fiction, regular non-fiction, and summer books.  People seem to like the idea of at least an occasional work of non-fiction, so if there are no non-fiction books in the top seven vote-getters, which was the case the last time, I propose to include the most popular non-fiction book in the final reading list of seven (unless, of course, all the non-fiction books receive very low scores).  This is not intended to limit the number of non-fiction books that could be chosen; if the top seven vote-getters include more than one non-fiction book, so be it.

Because there are so many candidate books, there will probably be more acceptable entries in this voting list than we can read in one year.  We don't want to needlessly discard any interesting books, so I will include this year's most popular runners-up in next year’s voting list.  Perhaps we can develop the practice of conducting a vote once per year for another round of seven books.

Candidates for Regular Meetings (fiction)

Arabian Nights and Days, by Naguib Mahfouz.  228 pages, 1982.  Considered the first great Arab novelist, Mahfouz is a Nobel Prize winner who lives in Cairo.  The Library Journal describes this book as, “a clever, witty concoction that begins on the day following the Thousand and One Nights, when the vizier Dandan learns that his daughter, Shahrzad, has succeeded in saving her life by enthralling the sultan with wondrous tales.  But Shahrzad is miserable and distrusts her husband, who, she suspects, is still capable of bloody doings.”  This story, like all of Mahfouz’s work, reflects contemporary issues in the Arab world.  Mahfouz survived a knife attack by religious fundamentalists in 1994, and his books are still banned in some Arab countries.  (There are only six copies in the Monroe Library system.  Is this enough?)

By the Lake, by John McGahern, who was described by one reviewer as “beyond doubt the most important living Irish novelist.”  384 pages, 2003.  The Economist ranked it one of the ten best books of the year, saying, “Gentleness and warmth infuse this novel, which is a memorial to a rapidly vanishing way of life was well as a testament to the enduring connections, both among men and with the land, which have shaped the Irish character and spawned its traditions.”  The Yale Review of Books says, “The almost invisible plot purls peacefully, like an ancient steam aware that it does not need to hurry to get where it's going.  The relationships among the characters form the core of the novel.” 

Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner.  341 pages, 1987.  Two young couples, one wealthy and one struggling to make ends meet, form a life-long bond at a university during the Depression.  Decades later, they come together at a family cottage in Vermont to deal with an impending death.  The Library Journal called it, “A wonderfully rich, warm, and affecting book. . . highly recommended.”  A reviewer for The Washington Post described it as, “A magnificently crafted story. . . A novel brimming with wisdom. . . with page after page of the superb descriptive writing that been a hallmark of his work.”  Stegner’s Angle of Repose, which LAVA read in 2000, won the Pulitzer Prize.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon.  236 pages, 2003.  This is a murder mystery with a twist:  the murder victim is the neighbor’s poodle, and the narrator-detective is a 15-year-old autistic boy who must also deal with the mysteries of communicating with other people who experience something called “emotion.”  This best-seller is heartily recommended by three authors that LAVA has read: Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha), Myla Goldberg (Bee Season), and Ian McEwan (Atonement).  Oliver Sacks, noted neurologist and author, said, “I found it very moving, very plausible — and very funny.”

The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman.  368 pages, 1997.  A 12-year-old heroine embarks on a predestined quest to save a world much like Earth, but with some mind-bending differences, such as Pope John Calvin.  Pullman’s books are usually classified as fantasy for young adults, but they go much deeper than that.  As Newsweek said, “the author is working out an argument with organized religion that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.”  This best-selling novel, the first in a trilogy, received many favorable reviews.  The New York Times described it as, “Very grand indeed . . . Scene after scene of power and beauty.”

The Great Fire, by Shirley Hazzard.  278 pages, 2003.  The Economist’s review of the best books of 2003 gave it this thumbnail description: “A quiet and exquisitely crafted novel, opening in occupied Japan in 1947, in which a much decorated British major and a 17-year old girl reclaim a simple individual happiness from the collective suffering that surrounds them.  The most interesting work of fiction published this year.”  Hazzard’s last book, Transit of Venus, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and this book won the National Book Award.  Hazzard wins high praise from other writers:  “The Great Fire is brilliant and dazzling”—Ann Patchett.  “Shirley Hazzard is, purely and simply, one of the greatest writers working in English today”—Michael Cunningham.  “This wonderful book, which must be read at least twice simply to savor Hazzard's sentences and set pieces, is among the most transcendent works I've ever had the pleasure of reading”—Anita Shreve. 

Last Orders, by Graham Swift.  295 pages, 1996.  Several World War II army buddies, now old, drive to a seaside town to scatter the ashes of one who had just died.  The New York Times said “Swift is surely one of England’s finest living novelists.... The tale he tells is as affecting as it is convincing.... Quietly, but with conviction, he seeks to reaffirm the values of decency, loyalty, love.”  Salman Rushdie said, “This is Graham Swift's finest work to date: beautifully written, gentle, funny, truthful, touching and profound.”  This book won the Booker Prize in 1996. 

Love in the Time of the Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Nobel Prize winner.  348 pages, 1988.  Designated by Penguin Press as one of the “Great Books of the 20th Century,” this is the story of a man who waits more than 50 years to declare his love to a beautiful woman whom he lost to another man “much above her station.”  Marquez is a master of magical realism, “the eerie, entirely convincing suspension of the laws of reality.”  Newsweek described it as, “humane, richly comic, almost unbearably touching and altogether extraordinary.”

Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi.  384 pages, 2003.  The true story of a female professor at the University of Tehran in Iran who leaves her job because of the repressive atmosphere and organizes a secret book discussion club.  Central to this best-seller are discussions of great writers like Vladimir Nobokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jane Austin.  Publishers Weekly said, “This book transcends categorization as memoir, literary criticism or social history, though it is superb as all three.”  Booklists says, “Her book is an absorbing look at primarily Western classics through the eyes of women and men living in a very different culture.” 

The Storyteller, by Vargas Llosa.  245 pages, 1987.  At an exhibition, a Peruvian scholar notices a photo of an isolated Amazonian tribe gathered around their storyteller, the keeper of their traditions. “Wait a minute,” the scholar thinks, “I know that guy.  I went to school with him.”  This book is part mystery, part travelogue, and part ethnological study.  Library Journal calls it a “dazzling new novel” that “tackles major political issues as it fulfills the basic human need to tell and hear stories.  A well-written work, demanding that we think about the results of acculturation and ecological disaster.”  The New York Times described it as, “intellectual, ethical, and artistic, all at once and brilliantly so.”  The author won the 1995 Cervantes Prize, the top prize for literature in the Spanish language.  (There are only five copies in the Monroe Library system.  Is this enough?)

Turn of the Screw, by Henry James.  87 (271) pages, 1898.  This little ghost story, written by one of the great American novelists, continues to fascinate.  Amazon.com calls it, “an exquisite gem of sexual and psychological ambiguity.” Scholars have wrestled with it for decades, Benjamin Britten based an opera on it, and it even has that ultimate modern seal of approval, its own web site (www.turnofthescrew.com).  The story itself is only 87 pages long, but the Norton Critical Edition (271 pages) has over 100 pages of excerpts from 30 critical reviews, including the transcript of a delightful 1942 radio symposium about it by Katherine Anne Porter, Allen Tate, and Mark Van Doren.

Washington Square, by Henry James.  248 pages, 1881.  Written by one of the great American novelists and a classic chronicler of “Old New York” society in the mid-1800s, this novel focuses on a wealthy family and its surrounding neighborhood.  The father has never hidden his disappointment in his plain daughter, and now she has fallen in love with a dashing young man who actually makes her feel good about herself.  Should she marry the man she loves, even though he may only be after her money, or should she obey her father, who threatens to disown her?  This novel follows her dilemma over the course of several years.  It has recently been made into a film called The Heiress.

Candidates for Regular Meetings (non-fiction)

The Forgetting: Alzheimer's: Portrait of an Epidemic, by David Shenk.  304 pages, 2001.  The author is a journalist who describes an illness that afflicts nearly half of all persons over the age of 85.  Amazon gave it a “Best of 2001.”  The Washington Post Book World called it, “A fascinating meditation . . . Shenk has found something beautiful and soulful in a condition that forces people to live in the perpetual ‘now.’ . . . Deeply affecting.”  The Journal of the American Medical Association labeled it “highly recommended.”  The Washington Monthly said, “As good as the science in this book is, it takes a back seat to Shenk’s eloquent reflections on the meaning of memory and aging, and their connection to our sense of self.”  

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich.  221 pages, 2002.  A New York Times best-seller.  Social critic Barbara Ehrenreich, wanting to report on the condition of lower income America, decided to hide her PhD and take a series of low wage jobs in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota.  She discovered that it was difficult to earn enough to pay for even the basic necessities.  A New York Times review called Ehrenreich, “our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism.”  Publishers Weekly says, “Delivering a fast read that's both sobering and sassy, she gives readers pause about those caught in the economy's undertow, even in good times.”  

The Origin of Satan, by Elaine Pagels.  193 pages, 1995.  Pagels is a professor of religious history at Princeton and a leading figure in progressive and feminist religious circles.  Her earlier book, The Gnostic Gospels, won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.  Pagels shows that the concept of Satan has evolved over time, sometimes in ways that have promoted social evils such as anti-Semitism.  Booklist says The Origin of Satan provides, “important insights into the demonization of ‘intimate enemies’ that has marked the history of Christianity. . . . This is an informative, beautifully written book.”

Rising from the Plains, by John McPhee.  213 pages, 1987.  This volume is part of the Annals of the Former World, McPhee's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of geology in the United States, and it is as much about people as about rocks.  The New York Times Book Review said, “McPhee rides shotgun across Wyoming in a four-wheel-drive Bronco while the geologist David Love steers, lectures and reminisces . . . This instructive account of the geologic West and the frontier West is a delight.”  The Baltimore Sun said, “McPhee has created a style—blending detailed reporting with a novelistic sense of narrative—and a standard that have influenced a whole generation of journalists.” 

Candidates for the Summer Book

Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood, one of the most prominent modern novelists.  480 pages, 1996.  A fictionalized account of an actual 1843 episode in which a 16-year-old housemaid was tried for the murder of her employer and his mistress.  Booklist says, “Grace's enduringly enigmatic tale embodies Atwood's signature theme—the myriad ironies and injustices of women's lives—and, as she portrays a fictionalized Grace in prose as elegant as Eliot's or Wharton's, she also gleefully exposes all the hypocrisy, sexism, ignorance, and fear embedded in Victorian culture . . . .This is a stupendous performance and bound to win Atwood even greater acclaim.” 

Empire Falls, by Richard Russo.  496 pages, 2002.  This book won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize.  The Library Journal says, “Russo has constructed a sensitive, endearingly oddball portrait of small-town life, a wonderful story that should appeal to a wide audience. The New York Times described it as, “Rich, humorous, elegantly constructed . . . Easily Mr. Russo’s most seductive book thus far.”  The setting is a mill town in Maine.

A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry, who was born in Bombay and now lives in Toronto.  603 pages; 1995.  This novel won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, was a finalist for the Booker Prize and is an Oprah Book Club selection.  Kirkus Review calls it, “A sweeping story, in a thoroughly Indian setting, that combines Dickens's vivid sympathy for the poor with Solzhenitsyn's controlled outrage, celebrating both the resilience of the human spirit and the searing heartbreak of failed dreams.  The protagonists work to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.”  The Independent (Britain) says it is “Compulsively readable, also funny, intensely moving and, like Bombay, pullulating with humanity.” 

Full Catastrophe Living:  Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn.  496 pages, 1991.  The author is the founder of the Stress Reduction Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.  Featured on Bill Moyer's PBS special Healing and the Mind, this book explains how to develop your own personal meditation practice in order to reduce stress and improve your health.  Publishers Weekly says, “His program, in a word, is meditation, rescued from the mire of mysticism that made it trendy in the 1960s . . . . a more convincing introduction to the many modes and uses of meditation could hardly be imagined.”