The Buffista Book Club: the Harry Potter iteration
This thread is a focused discussion group. Please see the first post below for the current topic and upcoming book discussions. While natter will inevitably happen, we encourage you to treat this like a virtual book club and try to keep your posts in that spirit.
By consensus, this thread is reopened specifically to discuss Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It will be closed again once that discussion has run its course.
***SPOILER ALERT***
- **Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows lie here. Read at your own risk***
libkitty, what AmyLiz said.
Deena, thanks for putting it up. I'm on Firefox and it looks great for me. A few lines get cut in strange places, but nothing that disturbs my flow of reading, from what I've been able to skim so far.
I've skimmed some of the discussion at the beginning of the thread, and it seemed like the intention to running this thread was that each Buffista who had recommendations got to choose a book. So no voting on the book, and the suggestions can be thrown out by just anyone, and just taking turns.
It seems to me that since AmyLiz was the one to give that long list, and it looks like HotB is a good idea for at least a few people, we can therefore go along with it without further loss-of-momentum. Just my opinion, of course. There's also a possibility of choosing the following book already (especially if it's one that's harder to obtain) from the other names which were tossed around.
As far as I could tell, there was a post in "Press" whenever a book was chosen, with the dates for the beginning of the none-whitefonted discussion.
Now I'm going to ask what libkitty asked, because I seem to be doing what she was not.
Deena, it looks fine to me in Firefox, too.
Hi, Nilly!
If anyone thinks I'm getting too pushy or picky, please let me know.
Not at all. I've noticed, in this thread, that sometimes we're too "non-pushy". A little pushiness helps keep things moving.
Since HotB seemed to be the leader, and I needed the practice, I put it up here: [link]
Deena, you rock! (Like Nilly, I skimmed through on Firefox and it looks great.)
One problem we had with the suggestion/selection idea was that it was hard to find a book that a critical mass would enjoy and discuss. By shaking it up a bit, first with Harry Potter, and now with a consensed selection from Gutenberg, we can get a lot more people engaged. I do think we should wait until Friday to "call it" for HotB, but I don't think a vote is necessary.
Now if we can consense a discussion start date, on Friday we can put an announcement in press with a link to Deena's fantastic format. I'm thinking Tuesday after Labor Day (9/6/05). Too long? Too short?
I'm thinking Tuesday after Labor Day (9/6/05). Too long? Too short?
That sounds about right. Isn't HotB a novella? (I haven't read it yet, and I've always wanted to.)
Deena, It looks great in my browser and will really facilitate easy reading/discussion. Thanks for the effort.
I'm glad you all like it.
I'm not sure of the exact length, but it was only 15 relatively short chapters, so it shouldn't take long to read. (I kept finding mistakes in the code where I started reading and forgot what I was doing.)
I have read it before but it's still a great read. I was a real Sherlock Holmes groupie when I was a kid.
I think I'll be a snob and read HotB from my Baring-Gould two-volume annotated Holmes. God, I love those books, early fandom gone mad.
I'm looking forward to reading Sherlock Holmes in English. I don't think I've read any of the stories in anything but Hebrew before.
Oh, and I'm (again) with AmyLiz (hi back!) with agreeing with Wolfram. I couldn't participate in discussions before, but it seems like enough time even for me to read the whole of the text in English.
Thanks for all the reassurances. Please keep the question in mind, however, and do let me know if the situation changes.
Everything sounds good to me, and the text looks great in my IE at work, Deena. Thanks for putting it up! Wolfram, didn't you do the notices before? Do you want to put a notice announcing that HP discussion will be coming to an end and the next book, link and dates? Perhaps you could include a discussion guide or (in whatever form) from Ginger.
Lilty, are you reading here?
I've now realized that the new annotated Holmes won't include the novels until this fall. (I'm reading through my two volumes slowly, because it's like reading the phone book. My arms get tired.) Still, I think I can put together a Holmes timeline, links to criticism and some discussion questions.
One thing that occurred to me is that, particularly since this is a short novel that's available online, we could have something more like a read-and-post, i.e., we could schedule chapters x-xx for a week, rather than the whole book at one time. What do y'all think?