Group read nominations for October

Our pollster seems to be on holiday so I am starting this thread in hopes that he reappears in time to set up the actual poll! I have no idea how to do that.
On our last round of voting, Iris Murdoch's The Bell came in third. I am nominating that again and figuring that if no pollster comes along, we can just read that for October. However, I am also nominating Murdoch's A Severed Head because a friend who is a Murdoch fan said that it would be a good one to start with.

I'll second both Murdoch books, The Bell and A Severed Head.

I'd like to nominate Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.

Thanks for starting the nominations!

I'll second Invisible Cities and nominate Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton

I will second Cry, The Beloved Country.

I'll second Cloud Atlas.

Maybe someone can explain Cloud Atlas to me! :)

I have never read Murdoch so I will third The Bell.

I'll nominate The Woman in White and I'll second The Severed Head.

I'll second The Woman in White

I'd quite like to nominate Infinite Jest with the massive caveat that it is enormous and dense. I just think the group read will give me the shove I need to forklift it off the shelf.

I'll also nominate Grapes of Wrath because I always do!

I'll second Grapes of Wrath.

We have such a lot of good nominations! But our pollster has not resurfaced. Does anybody know how to organize a poll on that MisterPoll thing, or somewhere else? I have no idea.
Anyway, I will close nominations on the 21st.

I recall that from george1295's last message he was getting overwhelmed by work so I am happy to have a go at setting the poll up from Monday. I assume we will vote for October and November books now that we have 8 books seconded? (George, if you read this, hope you are having some chance at R&R and Reading and hopefully we'll see you back for the December nominations).

By my count there are now seven seconded books:
The Bell
A Severed Head
Invisible Cities
Cry, the Beloved Country
Cloud Atlas
Woman in White
The Grapes of Wrath
no second yet on Infinite Jest but we have the rest of today!

Both of the ones I have read before would make good discussions, and I am interested in reading all the rest. Well, maybe not the dense door-stopper ;-)

Thanks puckers for volunteering to set up a poll, tomorrow?

Misterpoll proved a bit beyond me (some javascript issues that left me baffled!). So I tried another mob. The poll is at the address below. Note sure that this will work as a link - if not just type the address in to your Address Bar and it should take you there.

http://poll.pollcode.com/98453

Same rules as before - vote for as many books as you like, but please vote only once. First place will be October read, second place November read.

If all else fails we'll just have to do the group equivalent of a show of hands.

Poll will close this time next week.

Just wanted to say a thank you to annamorphic and puckers for making sure our group reads continue! :)

Yes, thanks! Some of my best group read experiences have been with this group!

Thank you Annamorphic and Puckers!

Thanks both for taking the initiative and keeping this alive!

I'm secretly quite relieved no one seconded Infinite Jest!

Time to vote.

Thanks for organising, I have voted.

Let's see if this works. Just in case it is confusing, the following link should go straight to the current results of the poll.

October Poll Standings

4 way tie at the moment. Very exciting!

Already considering how I might vote in a run-off election, if it comes to that. Interesting inverted bell-curve, though.

Thank you for organizing the nominations and poll!

Now it's 10:10:9:9, I'm looking forward to whichever Murdoch we are going to read.

It's Sunday afternoon here in sunny Sydney (25 degrees under a cloudless blue sky - perfect) so time to close the poll. A burst of Murdoch mania has resulted in a tie. Unless anyone thinks otherwise I suggest we take The Bell for our October read, and A Severed Head as our November read. Looking forward to the conversation starting in a couple of days.

I was wondering if we should do The Bell for October but have a run-off between A Severed Head and the next two that were tied for second, Woman in White and The Grapes of Wrath, for November. I'm not sure that we'll all want to read two Murdochs in a row. Although maybe that would be an interesting experiment!

I'm fine for either way. I'd like to read The Bell for sure. A Severed Head is the only one of the next 3 that I haven't read, but as I'm not sure I'd read it in NovemberI would be perfectly fine with having a run-off vote.

Both nominator and seconder of A Severed Head have suggested a run-off for the November poll so I've set this up here:

http://poll.pollcode.com/951843

Results are here:

http://poll.pollcode.com/951843_result?v

Please vote once only, for one book.

Poll will close in a weeks time

Great! Thanks for setting it up.

Thanks Puckers, for the new poll. I agree that two Murdochs is a bit too much for me, so I was glad to vote again for The Woman in White!

So is The Bell our October book for sure? I was thinking about setting up a thread since I'm starting the book, but I wanted to double check first.

Certainly is - thread away. Hopefully I'll join you in a couple of weeks once I've ploughed through the 1000 pages of Against the Day

Yes, the Bell. I'll be starting in a few days, looking forward to it!

Thread has been started here.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/159751

Time to close the November poll and declare Woman in White as the winner by one point. Looking forward to reading this next month.

Wow, me too! Thank you Puckers!