Oh, perfect,
Bookpossum. I'm not going to wait -- I'll spend my last ticket on a second for
Ending Up.
Bookpossum, does
The Last Policeman look like it would be available at your library? It's cheap in US and CA - but ridiculously expensive here and in the UK. I bought it back in April when it was cheap here, but I still haven't read it, and it would fit this theme.
Fantasyfan, same question. (Having just checked to see who was around lately from the UK )
Quote gmw
Bookpossum, does
The Last Policeman look like it would be available at your library? It's cheap in US and CA - but ridiculously expensive here and in the UK. I bought it back in April when it was cheap here, but I still haven't read it, and it would fit this theme.
Fantasyfan, same question. (Having just checked to see who was around lately from the UK )
Sorry, no - it isn't in either of my libraries, though a couple of other books by that author are there.
OK, thanks for checking. Maybe it's just as well anyway. If I like it I will want the next two books of the trilogy but I'm not spending that sort of money. I have a bunch of other ideas ... just having trouble making up my mind.
I'm going to nominate
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene.
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Graham Greenes masterful novel of love and betrayal in World War II London is undeniably a major work of art (The New Yorker).
Maurice Bendrix, a writer in Clapham during the Blitz, develops an acquaintance with Sarah Miles, the bored, beautiful wife of a dull civil servant named Henry. Maurice claims its to divine a character for his novel-in-progress. Thats the first deception. What he really wants is Sarah, and what Sarah needs is a man with passion. So begins a series of reckless trysts doomed by Maurices increasing romantic demands and Sarahs tortured sense of guilt. Then, after Maurice miraculously survives a bombing, Sarah ends the affairquickly, absolutely, and without explanation. Its only when Maurice crosses paths with Sarahs husband that he discovers the fallout of their duplicityand its more unexpected than Maurice, Henry, or Sarah herself could have imagined.
Adapted for film in both 1956 and 1999, Greenes novel of all that inspires loveand all that poisons itis singularly moving and beautiful (Evelyn Waugh).
It's a little pricey everywhere but the UK, but there are options: Freading and KU have it and there's an audiobook narrated by Colin Firth which was the Audible
Audiobook of the Year in 2013. And it's short for the holiday month, at ~200 pp.
US$11.33; CA$10.99; AU$12.99; UK£4.99
I need to get past my severe dose of DMD (Decision Making Disorder), so at the risk of going a step too far, going off the end of the road and beyond the human finale...
I nominate
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Synopsis from Kobo:
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"On the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house - or houses, that is. Cleans them right off the face of the earth. They all go."
What if mankind disappeared right now, forever ... what would happen to the Earth in a week, a year, a millennium? Could the planet's climate ever recover from human activity? How would nature destroy our huge cities and our myriad plastics? And what would our final legacy be?
Speaking to experts in fields as diverse as oil production and ecology, and visiting the places that have escaped recent human activity to discover how they have adapted to life without us, Alan Weisman paints an intriguing picture of the future of Earth. Exploring key concerns of our time, this absorbing thought experiment reveals a powerful - and surprising - picture of our planet's future.
324 hardcover pages according to
Goodreads.
There seem to be multiple editions and the prices vary, so watch out for that.
Example prices from Kobo:
USD $9.99,
CAD $10.99,
GBP £7.99,
AUD $14.99Non-fiction, obviously, which tends to be more expensive. I'm hoping people might find it in libraries (published in 2012), but this time I'm not holding back to find out.
Quote gmw
... at the risk of going a step too far, going off the end of the road and beyond the human finale...
I nominate The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Wow - bold choice! Great interpretation
I’ll second
The Calculating Stars.
I'm going to renominate a book I nominated at the end of last year:
Every Man Dies Alone (alternate title:
Alone in Berlin) by Hans Fallada, translated by Michael Hofmann (1947, transl. 2009; 546 pp.); it was his last book, published posthumously.
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Based on a true story, this never-before-translated masterpiece was overlooked for years after its authora bestselling writer before World War II who found himself in a Nazi insane asylum at wars enddied just before it was published.
In a richly detailed portrait of life in Berlin under the Nazis, it tells the sweeping saga of one working-class couple who decides to take a stand when their only son is killed at the front. With nothing but their grief and each other against the awesome power of the Third Reich, Otto and Anna Quangel launch a simple, clandestine resistance campaign that soon has an enraged Gestapo on their trail, and a world of terrified neighbors and cynical snitches ready to turn them in.
In the end, Every Man Dies Alone is more than an edge-of-your-seat thriller, more than a moving romance, even more than literature of the highest orderits a deeply stirring story of two people standing up for whats right, and for each other.
This edition includes an afterword detailing the gripping history of the book and its author, including excerpts from the Gestapo file on the real-life couple that inspired it.
Amazon U.S., $12.99
Amazon Canada, CA $9.88
Amazon UK, £4.99
Amazon Australia, AU $14.99
Kobo U.S., $12.99
Kobo Canada, CA $13.59
Kobo UK, £4.99
Kobo Australia, AU $14.99
Overdrive has the e-book and audiobook, RB Digital and Scribd have the audiobook.
(I copied the links from my original nomination; I have not checked to see if there are any price changes.)
I'll second
Every Man Dies Alone, which I've wanted to read for a while.
