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.

Are we just waiting for more detailed info from Ginger at this point?

We need to decide if we want to set dates to read it in pieces (the read and post) or a date to have the whole book read.

Also, will The Hound of the Baskervilles be anyone's first Sherlock Holmes story? If there are a fair number of people who've never read Sherlock Holmes, I'm thinking we should also throw in a couple of the short stories, particularly "A Scandal in Bohemia."

I like the read and post option for a couple of reasons.

--Having short deadlines is a good way to keep me on track.

--Being able to talk about chunks is appealing both for keeping my ideas coherent and for the potential of getting a more refined understanding through other's experiences.

This constitutes my vote. And, while this is not my first Sherlock reading, I'm so looking forward to Ginger's guidance and will check out "A Scandal in Bohemia" forthwith.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is my first Holmes story.

I'm up for read and post, or for discussing the whole book -- either way.

And doing another short story or two would be fun. Especially "A Scandal in Bohemia" since I *have* read the Carol Nelson Douglas books featuring Irene.

The problem with HotB being your first Holmes story is that it's not very representative of the relationship between Holmes and Watson. It's a little like starting Buffy in the middle of the second season.