◆ Nominations for Group Read - October 2018 ◆ [ENDED]

cynic

It is time to nominate the Group Read for October 2018. As per the schedule, we would be reading a book from the Non-Fiction and Biographies/Memoirs genre next month. Thank you all who participated in the previous group reads. Get your nominations in for our next pick. A few pointers . Nominations belonging to the Non-Fiction and Biographies/Memoirs genre would be the only ones considered. . The nominated book must be available in the Reading Room. . Please include a blurb about the book you nominate. Every nomination must include the link to the book in the Reading Room. . You can only nominate one book from the genre of the month. Multiple nominations will not be considered . You can second a book nominated by another member. . Do not nominate a book from the middle of a series, unless it can be read standalone. . Be kind enough to nominate the correct title

viksorion

I recommend Shantaram...
Semibiographical memoir

https://craxme.com/forum.php?mod ... highlight=Shantaram


Shantaram : by Gregory David Roberts


A novel of high adventure, great storytelling and moral purpose, based on an extraordinary true story of eight years in the Bombay underworld.

'In the early 80s, Gregory David Roberts, an armed robber and heroin addict, escaped from an Australian prison to India, where he lived in a Bombay slum. There, he established a free health clinic and also joined the mafia, working as a money launderer, forger and street soldier.

He found time to learn Hindi and Marathi, fall in love, and spend time being worked over in an Indian jail. Then, in case anyone thought he was slacking, he acted in Bollywood and fought with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan ...
Amazingly, Roberts wrote Shantaram three times after prison guards trashed the first two versions ...

At once a high-kicking, eye-gouging adventure, a love saga and a savage yet tenderly lyrical fugitive vision.

viksorion

Have been planning to read it forever. Have started it twice and could not finish it due to some or other reason. That was during the print era. Now would like to read it all over again.....

jayyogeswarusa

I recommend Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
Its a non-fiction book by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. It describes events around Indian independence and partition in 1947-48, beginning with the appointment of Lord Mountbatten of Burma as the last viceroy of British India, and ending with the death and funeral of Mahatma Gandhi.


The book gives a detailed account of the last year of the British Raj, the princely states' reactions to independence (including descriptions of the Indian princes' colorful and extravagant lifestyles), the partition of British India (into India and Pakistan) on religious grounds, and the bloodshed that followed.
The book relates that the crucial maps setting the boundary separating India and Pakistan were drawn that year by Cyril Radcliffe, who had never visited India in his life before being appointed as the chairman of the Boundary Commission. It depicts the fury of both Hindus and Muslims, misled by their communal leaders, during the partition, and the biggest mass slaughter in the history of India as millions of people were uprooted by the partition and tried to migrate by train, oxcart, and on foot to new places designated for their particular religious group. Many migrants fell victim to bandits and religious extremists of both dominant religions. One incident quoted describes a canal in Lahore that ran with blood and floating bodies. Also covered in detail are the events leading to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, as well as the life and motives of British-educated Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistani leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Mousetrap

I'd like to nominate 'Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup' by John Carreyrou.

The book is about an ambitious young woman who became a self-made billionaire through her startup, Theranos which also went on to become one of the biggest scams to hit Silicon Valley. Elizabeth Holmes was a Stanford drop-out who used her knowledge and family connections to build the billion dollar start-up.

Theranos was started to manufacture portable blood testing machines that could conduct all the different blood tests with just a drop of blood. This was a major breakthrough as it could stop the need for needles and vials of blood and the discomfort sick patients have to be subjected to. Great idea, no doubt, but did it work?

I've been meaning to read this one for some time now.

The book is available here:
https://www.craxme.com/forum.php ... ghlight=bad%2Bblood

cynic

jayyogeswarusa 3-9-2018 07:26 PM
I recommend Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre

Thanks for nominating. We have added a new rule for nominations. Please include a blurb and the link to the book in the Reading Room.

@viksorion, could you please add the blurb too?

viksorion

cynic 3-9-2018 11:44 PM
Thanks for nominating. We have added a new rule for nominations. Please include a blurb and the lin ...

Will do once I'm on comp. Right now pls do with what I could with the cell. Pls bear. In a day or two.

arjuns1988

I would like to nominate "Tetris: The Games People Play by Box Brown"



It is, perhaps, the perfect video game. Simple yet addictive, Tetris delivers an irresistible, unending puzzle that has players hooked. Play it long enough and you’ll see those brightly colored geometric shapes everywhere. You’ll see them in your dreams.

Alexey Pajitnov had big ideas about games. In 1984, he created Tetris in his spare time while developing software for the Soviet government. Once Tetris emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, it was an instant hit. Nintendo, Atari, Sega―game developers big and small all wanted Tetris. A bidding war was sparked, followed by clandestine trips to Moscow, backroom deals, innumerable miscommunications, and outright theft.

In this graphic novel,New York Times–bestselling author Box Brown untangles this complex history and delves deep into the role games play in art, culture, and commerce. For the first time and in unparalleled detail, Tetris: The Games People Play tells the true story of the world’s most popular video game.
Link: Tetris: The Games People Play by Box Brown

Mousetrap

arjuns1988 4-9-2018 07:42 AM
I would like to nominate "Tetris: The Games People Play by Box Brown"

This sounds really interesting, and it's in a graphic novel format... that's an added bonus.

divey

I Would Like to Nominate An Area of Darkness by V.S. Naipaul.

A classic of modern travel writing, An Area of Darknessis Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul’s profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland and an extraordinarily perceptive chronicle of his first encounter with India.
Traveling from the bureaucratic morass of Bombay to the ethereal beauty of Kashmir, from a sacred ice cave in the Himalayas to an abandoned temple near Madras, Naipaul encounters a dizzying cross-section of humanity: browbeaten government workers and imperious servants, a suavely self-serving holy man and a deluded American religious seeker. An Area of Darkness also abounds with Naipaul’s strikingly original responses to India’s paralyzing caste system, its apparently serene acceptance of poverty and squalor, and the conflict between its desire for self-determination and its nostalgia for the British raj. The result may be the most elegant and passionate book ever written about the subcontinent.


It can be accessed at the below link on forum


https://www.craxme.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=2985&highlight=naipaul