BlindDatewithaBook.com was the fabulous inspiration for our blind date game this month.
As I noted in a previous post, setting up the blind date methodology was a lot of work, but it looks like the vast majority of you really enjoyed the surprise element of it all. We had a wide variety of positive comments saying things like “Fun! Like Tinder dating with reading....great work.” & “I loved this experience!”
However, there were a small number of people who weren’t as happy preferring to only vote for books at their library (which we totally understand) as well as folks who wanted more descriptions or desired to know each book genre.
However, this was the best voting turnout we’ve ever had so it’s clear most agree it never hurts to mix things up!
Just a few background notes before we get down into the results:
We purposely didn’t include the genre because with only 6 books, people would then only vote for their preferred genre which defeats the purpose of our blind date with a book. (It’s different when libraries do this as they’ll have a whole bookcase of 30, 50, or more books with multiples of the same genre.)
Usually, Mia & I try to include a variety of genres for our picks to balance out the member suggestions, but this time, Mia & I played along in the blind date where we could so just like you, we sent in suggestions without knowing anyone else’s.
We decided not to include my vote because we felt it wasn’t fair that I knew all the books when no one else did. (Mia only knew the 2 books she suggested & Ivor knew none of the books.)
We got 5 book suggestions this month & randomly chose 2. If you want to see that list of books or how they were randomly chosen, here’s the screencast.
Reminder: No one aside from the book club management team is ever required to read the monthly book or participate in the discussions. We want reading to be fun! So if the book voted in is one you don’t like, no worries. Feel free to read one of the other books or just join us for the April read instead.
And now without further ado, here are the results of the vote with the books listed in order from the least want to read to the most along with their original descriptive words/phrases.
Voting Results
Described in our March Blind Date with a Book as:
Complex
Philosophical
Bleak
Black humor
Cruel
Writing vignettes
Final voting score: 38
The House of the Dead
“In January 1850, Dostoyevsky was sent to a remote Siberian prison camp for his part in a political conspiracy. The four years he spent there, startlingly re-created in The House of the Dead, were the most agonizing of his life. In this fictionalized account, he recounts his soul-destroying incarceration through the cool, detached tones of his narrator, Aleksandr Petrovich Goryanchikov: the daily battle for survival, the wooden plank beds, the cabbage soup swimming with cockroaches, his strange ‘family’ of boastful, ugly, cruel convicts. Yet The House of the Dead is far more than a work of documentary realism: it is also a powerful novel of redemption, describing one man’s spiritual and moral death and the miracle of his gradual reawakening.”
Note: This Penguin Classics translation by David McDuff is the one we recommend. Other translations are often considered poor (e.g., where “the house of the dead” was translated as “the dead house”…how can a house be dead?) or use overhyped translators who offer stilted writing as in the case of the co-translation by Richard Pevear/Larissa Volokhonskyan who write of an “alive dead house” instead of “a house of the living dead”). Only one note to be aware of with the Penguin Classic translation—read the introduction after the novel because it may contain spoilers as most Penguin Classic intros do.
(A special thank you to book club member, Sheena M. for the suggestion.)
Genres: political, historical fiction
Described in our March Blind Date with a Book as:
Stream of consciousness writing
Strong imagery
Wry
Influential
Thought provoking
Chilling
Final voting score: 52
We
The inspiration for George Orwell’s 1984.
”Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is set in an urban glass city called OneState, regulated by spies and secret police. Citizens of the tyrannical OneState wear identical clothing and are distinguished only by the number assigned to them at birth. The story follows a man called D-503, who dangerously begins to veer from the 'norms' of society after meeting I-330, a woman who defies the rules. D-503 soon finds himself caught up in a secret plan to destroy OneState and liberate the city.
The failed utopia of We has been compared to the works of H.G. Wells, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley. It was the first novel banned by the Soviets in 1921, and was finally published in its home country over a half-century later.”
Note: This translation by Mirra Ginsburg is the one we recommend. A good second choice would be the translation from Clarence Brown. Other translations are considered poor or awkward.
Genre: science fiction
Described in our March Blind Date with a Book as:
Dark, absurdist humor
Haunting
Stark
Disturbing
Entertaining
Disconcerting
Final voting score: 55
“One of The Telegraph's Best Fiction Books 2011
Moscow, 2028. A cold, snowy morning.
Andrei Danilovich Komiaga is fast asleep. A scream, a moan, and a death rattle slowly pull him out of his drunken stupor—but wait, that's just his ring tone. And so begins another day in the life of an oprichnik, one of the czar's most trusted courtiers—and one of the country's most feared men.
Welcome to the new New Russia, where futuristic technology and the draconian codes of Ivan the Terrible are in perfect synergy. Corporal punishment is back, as is a divine monarch, but these days everyone gets information from high-tech news bubbles, and the elite get high on hallucinogenic, genetically modified fish.
Over the course of one day, Andrei Komiaga will bear witness to—and participate in—brutal executions; extravagant parties; meetings with ballerinas, soothsayers, and even the czarina. He will rape and pillage, and he will be moved to tears by the sweetly sung songs of his homeland. He will consume an arsenal of drugs and denounce threats to his great nation's morals. And he will fall in love—perhaps even with a number of his colleagues.
Vladimir Sorokin, the man described by Keith Gessen (in The New York Review of Books) as "[the] only real prose writer, and resident genius" of late-Soviet fiction, has imagined a near future both too disturbing to contemplate and too realistic to dismiss. But like all of his best work, Sorokin's new novel explodes with invention and dark humor. A startling, relentless portrait of a troubled and troubling empire, Day of the Oprichnik is at once a richly imagined vision of the future and a razor-sharp diagnosis of a country in crisis.”
(A special thank you to book club member, Andi McCraine for the suggestion.)
Genres: political, science fiction, satire
Described in our March Blind Date with a Book as:
Entertains as it provokes
Philosophical
Exciting
Dark
Confusing at first, but addictive
Profound
Final voting score: 61
Hard to be a God
“An enjoyable, exciting, and gratifying novel.” - The NY Times
“A thoroughly good book . . . robust, imaginative, satisfying.” - Ursula K. Le Guin
“Don Rumata has been sent from Earth to the medieval kingdom of Arkanar with instructions to observe and to save what he can. Masquerading as an arrogant nobleman, a dueler, and a brawler, he is never defeated, but yet he can never kill. With his doubt and compassion, and his deep love for a local girl named Kira, Rumata wants to save the kingdom from the machinations of Don Reba, the first minister to the king. But given his orders, what role can he play? This long overdue translation will reintroduce one of the most profound Soviet-era novels to an eager audience. ”
Note: This translation by Olena Bormashenko is the one we recommend. Other versions are English translations of a bad German translation.
Genres: science fiction, fantasy
Described in our March Blind Date with a Book as:
Significant
Weighty, but hopeful
Understated
Stark
Informal writing
Unforgettable
Final voting score: 66
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
The novel that won Alexander Solzhenitsyn the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature."
"First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as 'a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy'.”
Note: This translation by Harry T. Willetts is the one we recommend. This is the original, unexpurgated novel brilliantly translated by someone who worked closely with Solzhenitsyn to fully capture the power and beauty of the original Russian. This is the only English translation authorized by the Russian author."
(This book is actually a favorite of both Beth & Mia…the only book in the club’s current reading list across all countries & genres that they both agree is outstanding!)
Genre: historical fiction
Described in our March Blind Date with a Book as:
Fascinating
Powerful
Gritty
Fast paced
Insightful
Witty
Final voting score: 79 which makes it our read for March!
Night Watch
"Night Watch is an epic of extraordinary power." - Quentin Tarantino
“Brace yourself for [an adult version of] Harry Potter in Gorky Park. . . . The novel contains some captivating scenes and all kinds of marvelous, inventive detail.” -The Washington Post Book World
“An international bestseller [as] potent as a shot of vodka. . . . [A] compelling urban fantasy." -Publishers Weekly
“They are the ‘Others,’ an ancient race of supernatural beings—magicians, shape-shifters, vampires, and healers—who live among us. Human born, they must choose a side to swear allegiance to—the Dark or the Light—when they come of age.
For a millennium, these opponents have coexisted in an uneasy peace, enforced by defenders like the Night Watch, forces of the Light who guard against the Dark. But prophecy decrees that one supreme ‘Other’ will arise to spark a cataclysmic war.
Anton Gorodetsky, an untested mid-level Light magician with the Night Watch, discovers a cursed young woman—an Other of tremendous potential unallied with either side—who can shift the balance of power. With the battle lines between Light and Dark drawn, the magician must move carefully, for one wrong step could mean the beginning of annihilation.”
Genre: fantasy
Happy reading!
(For transparency’s sake, here are the voting results in graphs from SurveyMonkey.)