August 2023 TMB Book Club Poll

Discussion in 'TMB Book Club' started by The Blackfish, Jul 27, 2023.

?

Vote

Poll closed Jul 31, 2023.
  1. Ascension - Nicholas Binge

    37.5%
  2. Hidden Pictures - Jason Rekulak

    37.5%
  3. The Shards - Bret Easton Ellis

    25.0%
  1. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
    Staff Donor TMB OG
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    Vote for the August Book Club Book

    Ascension - Nicholas Binge

    The only way out is up. . .

    An enormous snow-covered mountain has appeared in the Pacific Ocean. No one knows when exactly it showed up, precisely how big it might be, or how to explain its existence. When Harold Tunmore is contacted by a shadowy organization to help investigate, he has no idea what he is getting into as he and his team set out for the mountain.

    The higher Harold’s team ascends, the less things make sense. Time moves differently, turning minutes into hours, and hours into days. Amid the whipping cold of higher elevation, the climbers’ limbs numb and memories of their lives before the mountain begin to fade. Paranoia quickly turns to violence among the crew, and slithering, ancient creatures pursue them in the snow. Still, as the dangers increase, the mystery of the mountain compels them to its peak, where they are certain they will find their answers. Have they stumbled upon the greatest scientific discovery known to man or the seeds of their own demise?

    Framed by the discovery of Harold Tunmore’s unsent letters to his family and the chilling and provocative story they tell, Ascension considers the limitations of science and faith and examines both the beautiful and the unsettling sides of human nature.

    Hidden Pictures - Jason Rekulak

    “I loved it."—Stephen King

    From Jason Rekulak, Edgar-nominated author of The Impossible Fortress, comes a wildly inventive spin on the classic horror story in Hidden Pictures, a supernatural thriller about a woman working as a nanny for a young boy with strange and disturbing secrets.

    Fresh out of rehab, Mallory Quinn takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.

    Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body.

    Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force.

    Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late.

    The Shards - Bret Easton Ellis

    NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A novel of sensational literary and psychological suspense from the best-selling author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho that tracks a group of privileged high school friends in a vibrantly fictionalized 1980s Los Angeles as a serial killer strikes across the city

    “A thrilling page turner from Ellis, who revisits the world that made him a literary star with a stylish scary new story that doesn't disappoint.” –Town & Country

    Bret Easton Ellis’s masterful new novel is a story about the end of innocence, and the perilous passage from adolescence into adulthood, set in a vibrantly fictionalized Los Angeles in 1981 as a serial killer begins targeting teenagers throughout the city.

    Seventeen-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is bright, handsome, charismatic, and shielding a secret from Bret and his friends even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret’s obsession with Mallory is equaled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them—and Bret in particular—with grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence. The coincidences are uncanny, but they are also filtered through the imagination of a teenager whose gifts for constructing narrative from the filaments of his own life are about to make him one of the most explosive literary sensations of his generation. Can he trust his friends—or his own mind—to make sense of the danger they appear to be in? Thwarted by the world and by his own innate desires, buffeted by unhealthy fixations, he spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between the Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably toward a collision.

    Set against the intensely vivid and nostalgic backdrop of pre-Less Than Zero L.A., The Shards is a mesmerizing fusing of fact and fiction, the real and the imagined, that brilliantly explores the emotional fabric of Bret’s life at seventeen—sex and jealousy, obsession and murderous rage. Gripping, sly, suspenseful, deeply haunting, and often darkly funny, The Shards is Ellis at his inimitable best.

    Goodreads Links:
    Ascension
    Hidden Pictures
    The Shards
     
  2. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
    Staff Donor TMB OG
    Alabama Crimson TideIndianapolis ColtsBook Club

    Gallant Knight, Truman, Dukes and 2 others like this.
  3. Fusiontegra

    Fusiontegra My life is dope and I do dope shit.#SparedByThanos
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    Appreciate the links but to the Goodreads entry would be better, for future reference.
     
    The Blackfish likes this.
  4. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
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    added
     
  5. 20/20/20/20

    20/20/20/20 running thru the house with a pickle in my mouth
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    Voted for Hidden Pictures simply because it’s on Kindle Unlimited.
     
  6. Daniel Ocean

    Daniel Ocean I only lied about being a thief
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    you had me at Less Than Zero and Serial Killer.
    The Shards gets my vote. So how does book club work?
     
    Truman and The Blackfish like this.
  7. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
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    When August begins I'll start a thread for the book that wins and people read it at their own pace and comment on it as they read in the thread. Its fairly loosely structured, some months get a lot of activity, some get barely any.
     
    Daniel Ocean likes this.
  8. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
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    close vote this month
     
    Truman likes this.
  9. Dildo Dawgins

    Dildo Dawgins Well-Known Member
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    3 way tie! The excitement is palpable
     
    The Blackfish likes this.
  10. Daniel Ocean

    Daniel Ocean I only lied about being a thief
    Staff Donor TMB OG
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    I’m on pins and needles.
     
  11. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
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    Dildo Dawgins and Truman like this.
  12. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
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    Daniel Ocean and Fusiontegra like this.
  13. jkun

    jkun UGA, United, Falcons, Braves, Tennis, Chelsea
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    I want to vote but don't want to be the tie breaker as I don't feel strongly about any option. Would be fine with Hidden Pictures or The Shards
     
  14. Dildo Dawgins

    Dildo Dawgins Well-Known Member
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    Its TMB book club, not Sophie's Choice. Just pick one. Plus some others may vote today too.
     
    20/20/20/20 and jkun like this.
  15. jkun

    jkun UGA, United, Falcons, Braves, Tennis, Chelsea
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    lol fine dick
     
  16. Gallant Knight

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    I’m going to participate this month :)
     
    The Blackfish likes this.
  17. Gallant Knight

    Donor
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    P
    Lol was hoping for the other one
     
    jkun likes this.
  18. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
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    I’ll need Shards voters to revote
     
  19. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
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  20. Gallant Knight

    Donor
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    Just pick the one you want to read they’re all close
     
  21. Dildo Dawgins

    Dildo Dawgins Well-Known Member
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    Let's read both to make up for one book for last 2 months. I only kinda kid. I'd vote for Hidden Pictures of those two but hate being decider.
     
  22. Daniel Ocean

    Daniel Ocean I only lied about being a thief
    Staff Donor TMB OG
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    hidden pictures
    Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a book club?
     
    The Blackfish likes this.
  23. Cornelius Suttree

    Cornelius Suttree the smallest crumb can devour us
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    A perfect example of when democracy fails
     
  24. Daniel Ocean

    Daniel Ocean I only lied about being a thief
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    vote don’t boo
     
    Cornelius Suttree likes this.
  25. The Blackfish

    The Blackfish The Fish in Black
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    Hidden Pictures it is. I’ll start the thread. Truman if you could give out the book. Go ahead and do both books if you can, seems like there is interest in doing both.
     
    Gallant Knight and Truman like this.
  26. Daniel Ocean

    Daniel Ocean I only lied about being a thief
    Staff Donor TMB OG
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    just put it on hold at my library. I just started reading something today so I’ll read that as soon as I’m finished, hopefully about a week.