Book Club Proposal- 2007

[Scheherazade]

Please vote for the nomination system you would like the Book Club to follow in 2007 by August 31st.

You can choose more than one option.

1. Author of the month: The present system. 12 authors to be chosen and each month we choose a book written by one particular author. E.g. In January we include only Camus' works in the poll and read one of those in February.

2. Genre of the month: Different genres to be selected and we nominate/vote for books belonging that particular genre each month. E.g., March: Month of Sci-fi so only sci-fi books will be nominated for that month.

3. Country of the month: 12 countries to be chosen and each month we read a book from that particular country's literature. The works nominated would not be too obscure (only those are available in English on Amazon maybe?)

4. Trend of the month: Each month we read a book from a different period such as Victorian, Romantic etc.

5. Random nominations: The old system. We nominate the books we would like to read randomly.



Book Club Procedures

[Pensive]

I vote for Random Nominations! Author of the month is also a good idea but in this case, we will not be able to read author's other books that year.

[cruciverbalist]

Country of the Month could be interesting. That way, we could read literature from various countries and cultures. Though, of course, we would have to ensure that the chosen books be widely available.

[Virgil]

I like the current system of author of the month. I don't think the book club should pick two books by the same author in the same year.

[Taliesin]

We are not so certain, see?
We don't like the author system much, We have to admit. There are so many authors that We can't nominate because they don't have much works and, besides, it might very well happen that We nominate some author this year but the next year we will read a book that we absolutely love by an author that we hadn't read before (We felt that about Pelevin this year) There is not much flexibility in the system.

We don't like the trend one either. There are so many interesting works in the 20th century and we feel that just putting them into one voting would be...unfair.


Country of the month:

That way, we could read literature from various countries and cultures. Though, of course, we would have to ensure that the chosen books be widely available

Well, yes, but we are afraid that there are a lot of small countries with interesting and good literature that will be missed with that method. We doubt whether Czech will be involved despite even Kundera and Kafka.

Genre of the month: There are works of fiction that are hard to categorize (and many of them are very good). That doesn't sound very bad, actually, so we might even vote for that option, but, what genres would those be? (we think that we could name about a dozen speculative fiction genres )



Random nominations: Good ol' random nominations! We liked them! They worked so well! They have our vote, when we decide whether to vote for the genre-system or not.

[grace86]

I would like to participate in the book club next year. It seemed like the author of the month was working. Random would be cool, but then you get all the members of the book club each voting for their own book...you end up with a lot of books that way. I don't know, I am not familiar with how you randomly chose it in the past. This is going to take a while.

[Taliesin]

Random system worked very well:
Month A:

Scher: OK, people, everybody, lets nominate some books.
*people nominate books. Some are sad because they were too late*

Month B:

Scher: OK, people, everybody, now, lets vote for the book you want to read.

*people vote for books they want to read and advertise them. People are sad because some book they wanted to read didn't win.*

Month C:

Scher: Ok, folks, lets read the book now!

*silence*
Somebody: OK, i have the book!
*silence*


But that was not the fault of the system!

Of course, people voted and nominated and read something every month, be not confused with the A, B, C system.

[papayahed]

I'm with Tal, it's either the genre system or random system.

This author a month is to confining, plus I'm worried that the same authors we picked this year will be picked next year and that would really stink because this year is pretty bleak!

Country of the month - this could be slightly slanted and what about the more fruitful countries, only one pick?

Trend - that might work, but may be a little restraining as well. How many trends are there?

[grace86]

I think I am going to stick with my better judgement and go with Random.

[Scheherazade]

plus I'm worried that the same authors we picked this year will be picked next year and that would really stink because this year is pretty bleak!

I share your worries Papaya that the same authors might be picked (especially the 'classic one', that everyone loves talking about but not reading). So if we decide to carry on with the author of the month system, we will have to make sure that different authors are nominated and voted for.

If we decide to go ahead with the Random Nomination system, I think we will put post number restrictions on posts to ensure that long term and regular members have more say in what we read.

[alshadai]

I'm a little new to the forums and I looked for this answer...sorry if I didn't find it!
Are we allowed to start individual book clubs? I would love to be a member of a group that focused on a certain topic so we could become well rounded in that topic. For example, Japanese Literature, Vietnam War Literature, Post-Modern American Literature, etc...
I have tried joining standard random book clubs but I am always bored to tears because I've never been into European or Russian classics

[Scheherazade]

Hello Alshadai,

The Book Club on the Forum aims to share our interests and choices with others; reading the books we would not normally pick ourselves and the result is often pleasantly surprising.

However, if you would like to discuss other books or subjects, you can create threads in General Literature or Authors Directory section. Those members who are interested will be posting, I am sure.

[Nightshade]

Well why not genre we did authour of the month this year mind you the problem with genre of the month is after a few monmths youd either be repeating yoursel or arguing on what constitues a genre.

[Virgil]

Well why not genre we did authour of the month this year mind you the problem with genre of the month is after a few monmths youd either be repeating yoursel or arguing on what constitues a genre.

Nightshade is back!!! Hooray!

I agree. What is a genre? Are we going to include as a genre sports novels or travel novels or true fiction novels or war novels or novels on picking your nose?

[alshadai]

The term Genre is a little bit too broad, I believe. But what about having it set up via location/time period like "Modern American Lit of the month" "Renaissance Lit of the month" etc etc... That would not only lead to discussions regarding the book but also the period of literuture itself.