Help Us Choose One Book for 2025's Schedule!
Manage episode 434204278 series 3516490
Hey Close Readers,
Early next month we will be sharing the official book list for 2025 here on the show. The “Great Winnowing” episode has been recorded and we’re prepping the release. But we need your help! One title will be determined by you, the audience. It’s the audience choice award, if you will.
The full list will be released the first week of September, but over the next week you get help to announce the first title. Have at it.
Here are the five nominees
(with brief descriptions from Wikipedia)
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952): Addresses many of the social and intellectual issues faced by African Americans in the early 20th century, including black nationalism, the relationship between black identity and Marxism, and the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, as well as issues of individuality and personal identity. Invisible Man won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction in 1953, making Ellison the first African-American writer to win the award.
Piranesi by Suanna Clarke (2020): Set in a parallel universe made up of hundreds of halls and vestibules, which triggers a gradual loss of memory and identity in newcomers. The story is told through the research notes of the eponymous narrator, who reconstructs the story of his own arrival as he explores this world. Piranesi won the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction.
A Room with a View by EM Forster (1908): a 1908 novel by English writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman in the restrained culture of Edwardian-era England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a humorous critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century. The Modern Library ranked A Room with a View 79th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century (1998).
Stoner by John Williams (1965): follows the life of the eponymous William Stoner, his undistinguished career and workplace politics, marriage to his wife, Edith, affair with his colleague, Katherine, and his love and pursuit of literature. Despite receiving little attention upon its publication in 1965, Stoner has seen a sudden surge of popularity and critical praise since its republication in the 2000s.
An Episode of Sparrows by Rumer Godden (1955): focuses on children in Catford Street, a working-class street in South London, with much stone and asphalt but only a few patches of green.They are seen through the eyes of a pair of well-situated sisters in middle age, one sympathetic to the children, the other not.
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