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***
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?
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.
I was going to wait until Friday to give folks time to weigh in on both the selection and the closing of HP discussion.
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?
I love this idea. Cindy had suggested something similar several months ago, and considering the convenient formatting that Deena did, and the length of the novel, it just might work.
Concerns I'd raise are: a) how would we limit discussion by chapter for people who've read the book previously or couldn't stop themselves from reading past the cutoff (like me); b) how would we chop up the chapters so there'd be enough to discuss; c) how long should each discussion period be; and d) would we then have an overall discussion period of the entire book.
I've now realized that the new annotated Holmes won't include the novels until this fall.
See, my first image from this was that the minders had just started tattooing Katie's interview lines directly on her skin.
I was going to wait until Friday to give folks time to weigh in on both the selection and the closing of HP discussion.
Great!
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?
I like this idea too.
Concerns I'd raise are: a) how would we limit discussion by chapter for people who've read the book previously or couldn't stop themselves from reading past the cutoff (like me); b) how would we chop up the chapters so there'd be enough to discuss; c) how long should each discussion period be; and d) would we then have an overall discussion period of the entire book.
Perhaps Ginger, as our fearless leader for this discussion, could determine breaking points and time periods for discussion. If we had superbrief synopses for each section, we could work really hard to limit discussion to that section (perhaps with more flexibility regarding what came earlier), even if we read ahead (not that I would ever do anything like that!). I like the idea of having a whole book discussion at the end, perhaps with some thought-provoking questions to keep the discussion going.
Read-n-post works for me, though it might cause problems for those who'd already read the book (like I've read HotB).
Libkitty, I've been darkish this week, and Skippy McSkipperton to boot, but I am reading here. And will try to be better about it! Need me to change something in the first post?
I don't think that there's anything urgent, Lilty. I think Wolfram was talking about posting new book info on Friday, and perhaps that would be a good time for first post changage as well. I just hadn't seen you around here, and was curious. Of course, I didn't look all that far back, which I probably should have done.
Well, it seems like Hound of the Baskervilles is going to be the new selection. I will post something in Press about it, but since we haven't determined if we're breaking it down or discussing as a whole, I don't think we can post a starting date yet.