I like Heather's idea.

Thanks for choosing, Wolfram.

Ooh, now I'll finally get my act together and get a library card here. I'm pretty sure there's a library somewhere in my neighborhood.

The kids and I just got ours, this week (Monday or Tuesday). They were very excited. I have a problem with libraries, because I want all the books. I don't want to borrow. I want to keep. The library sees things differently. *sniff*

eta...

Feh. My library does not have this book.

the idea of picking a selecter (at random, from a pool of those who would like to be chosen, maybe?), who would then offer two or three books for the rest of us to consense on, sounded good.

I like this plan to start with.

And someone also suggested that Heather and beth b brenda (ETA: thanks, Cindy! Sorry, brenda and beth.) for being the book club idea people. Works for me if they're interested in doing that (are you?).

Those would be my two cents for how to keep things rolling for now.

Other ideas?

Heather and brenda.

I was randomly thinking about the selection process earlier today. We could have open suggestions for a set ammount of time, then compile the list, cut it to 20 (based on availabilty or something) and then roll a d20.

ETA: Nevermind, it seems we have consensed to consense and all that. Cool.

*blushes deeply* aww thanks. I don't mind, and while I love my suggestions, I think I'm going to pick someone else's because y'know, I've already read the books I chose.

I'll look at the list and maybe mention the ones I'm thinking of tomorrow?

Sounds good. Heather suggesting the next one tomorrow, I mean.

I wonder where my library card is? Probably easier to get a new one...

Seconding Heather and brenda for the next selecters, if it's needed.

Loved the bad review, Heather. Not enough people know that "boringest" is really the only word to use in some cases.

If no one objects to buying used, I know Amazon has copies of this month's pick for as little as a dollar. You pay the shipping, of course, but still, it's an option.

Feh. My library does not have this book.

Cindy, can you order it through InterLibrary Loan? Most libraries belong to some kind of exchange program with other area libraries; surely one of the libraries in the program must have it. I have the feeling that ILL will be our best friend in this book club.

And I'm super-psyched to read The Intuitionist, yay!

Yay, The Intuitionist! I can't wait to start discussing it with y'all. I think it's overall very good, but there are parts that just don't work for me, which is also true of the other Whitehead book I've read, John Henry Days.

Also, I support the Heather & brenda idea.

Just an idea to follow up on my previous post.

We set up one book/one month because we figured everybody needs at least a month to get a copy of and finish a book after it's selected. The hole in this system is, we end up being forced to discuss the one book for a month, which may end being much longer than the discussion has steam for. I think we might want to do something at the very begninning to forestall this possibility. Which brings me to this suggestion:

What if we set a separate reading deadline from the discussion date for the next books? For example we set the reading deadline for book 2 to August 31, 2004. This way we can start discussion on book 2 on either September 15, 2004 (a month after discussion of book 1), or anytime after August 31, 2004 if we deem it necessary. We can set the third book reading deadline to September 15, 2004 for the same reason even though the discussion date might not happen until October 15.

This way we have a minimum of two weeks discussion, maximum of one month, and we can adjust selections and reading deadlines 2 months in advance to suit our pace. And it allows us to tweak discussion periods to the selection rather than be bound by the one book/one month rule. With an additional bonus of being able to read and discuss more than 12 books in the year.

For this to work, I think we need to plan ahead. And if it turns out to be unnecessary and each book can sustain the month-long discussion, than all we've done is read a few books faster than we needed to.

I hope I explained that well, because it made a lot more sense in my head then it does re-reading it here.