June 2015 - theme

The time has come around again to think of our reading topic for June. June is a "theme" month. Below I have copied the list of possible themes from the wiki. For those that are involved in the HistoryCAT the theme there for June is "Culture and the Arts".

Biblical fiction
Civil wars
Communications (letters/telegraph/telephone/pony express)
Doorstopper - over 700 pages
Entertainment/recreation
Featherweight - under 200 pages
Industry
Local/state/regional history
Multiple authors
One word title
Poverty
Red Scare/Mccarthyism
Slavery/human trafficking
Tricksters
Urbanization
War

Please put forward your favourite from the above selections or offer something new.

I could go for Civil War or simply War. As for Communications, would a book written in the form of letters count? Because if so, that one is a good one as well for me, looking at the books on my TBR stack.

Industry might be a fun counterpoint to the HistoryCAT theme.

(I've got two books about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire that would fit nicely.)

Science would help me with my Bingo card. It's been a couple of years since we've done science as a theme.

So far we have suggestions of

Civil war
War
Communications
Industry
Science

Would anybody like to add anything else? I'll put the voting up in a couple of days.

"Culture and the Arts" should be in there to track HistoryCAT, if some folks who want to do so.

At the moment we have a tie between 'Industry' and 'Culture and the Arts'. Let's give it another couple of days to see if there are any more voters out there.

>12 Roro8: >13 Roro8: ... breaking the tie with Culture and the Arts. I'm torn between that and Industry (because I could really do with a reread of Hard Times and also The Jungle) but I did a tag mash on art and fiction and discovered seventeen books that I've got cataloged there, many of them TBR, and most importantly The Portrait of Dorian Gray, which I'm ashamed to admit that I've never read! (And I could also definitely do with a reread of The Marble Faun.)

Also, I won (though haven't yet received) William Blake’s Illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy on Early Review for March, but I'll probably want to get to that one before June so I can get my review written pronto.

>14 CurrerBell:, it is difficult to choose sometimes. I always seem to find a decent book to read whatever topic comes up, and it looks like you do too.

With a total of five YES votes, CULTURE AND THE ARTS will be the theme for June. Would anybody like to write up a bit of a theme intro?

I'm hoping to travel to Ireland next spring and I would love a book list under this category to read in advance of my trip.

>17 cfk: Then let's do Ireland for a theme month. I've been thinking for quite some while of doing a reread of Ulysses, but I've been wanting to do it simultaneously with a listen-to of Ulysses by James Joyce Unabridged CD Audiobook, which is a highly regarded dramatization. Problem is, it's 40 CDs and it runs 42+ hours, so it's an ambitious project and I'd rather not do it in August because that conflicts with ALL VIRAGO / ALL AUGUST in the VMC Group. Maybe we could list Ireland for October?

Works for me! I don't remember having done Ireland before.

I'll add Ireland to the list of potential themes on the wiki - just to help us remember for our next theme choice month.

Unless magic counts as arts and culture then I haven't managed to read anything for this month yet. How about everybody else?

ETA- I have just put up a thread for August.

I'm working on William Blake's Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy: A Study of the Engravings, Pencil Sketches and Watercolors, that I've got to get a review written for on Early Review. I'm sort of assuming that "engravings, pencil sketches, and watercolors" qualify as "arts."

>22 CurrerBell:, it sounds very arty to me

I was disappointed in my book for this month, The Ruby Ring by Diane Haeger. I was expecting an interesting story about artist Raphael but found it very slow moving, and it had way too much romance and not enough historic information.

I read a very entertaining biography of Shakespeare by Anthony Burgess.