I like Nova's idea, too. Select the selector. Everyone gets a turn.

I second Nova's idea. With two caveats - First, I think we should pick a book from the list of recs to start and then go with selectors. Second, I think it's important that the selector propose more than one book and get some feedback from the club and/or let people consense/vote on several book proposals. I don't think it would be good if Buffista X could sign up to be a selector and then force the club to spend a month on [your worst literary nightmare here] without any recourse.

Two lists, though I lean towards books rather than posters. I don't care if some over-exuberant Buffistas "stacks the deck" with their favorites.

I'm cool with that. I'd rather, if I suggested something that people weren't comfortable with for whatever reason that they tell me, and I take that into consideration.

(Just thinking that I have not been able to pick up The Little Friend in almost 2 years now, and am unsure how I'd react if it were the only choice I had, and couldn't at least say why I'd rather read something else).

Frog Hospital is, to this huge Moore fan, the least of her books -- if I'm in a group of people who have never read her, I'd far more rather start them off with Like Life or Birds of America, if people will read short story colls.

I've never read The Education of Henry Adams and have always meant to, so I vote yea to that one.

Frog Hospital is, to this huge Moore fan, the least of her books -- if I'm in a group of people who have never read her, I'd far more rather start them off with Like Life or Birds of America, if people will read short story colls.

Like Life is, to this huge Moore fan, the least of her books. Or maybe Anagrams. But I think there's a lot more I like in that one. Self-Help and Birds would be my short story picks. Birds was what hooked me on her.

I would like to read Henry Adams, but not right now. It's summer. I'll be on vacay for part of the reading time. I want fiction. It doesn't have to be fluff, but I don't want to be reading historical biographical material at the beach.

I second Nova's idea. With two caveats - First, I think we should pick a book from the list of recs to start and then go with selectors. Second, I think it's important that the selector propose more than one book and get some feedback from the club and/or let people consense/vote on several book proposals. I don't think it would be good if Buffista X could sign up to be a selector and then force the club to spend a month on [your worst literary nightmare here] without any recourse.

I agree on this, including the caveats. Great to have an early cutoff, too, or I could see us talking about how to do it forever. I think Wolfram should pick the first book from the list (I like the idea of the Potok book, since I love the author but haven't read Asher Lev , but am really fine with any of the books.). Perhaps early in the month (this time, shortly after the first book is announced), someone could annouce a call for choosers. People could volunteer, and one could be chosen randomly. I like the Nilly-esque number method that was described earlier (but which I now cannot find. Argh.). It just seems so appropriate for this group. Having said all of this, I have no strong feelings about method, and am really looking forward to getting started. This looks like a blast!

I think we shouldn't make a pool of books and then randomly choose books.

This is very important. The way that book clubs live is by finding books all or most of the members want to read all or most of the time. So, I think it's a good idea to Mr. Poll or discuss/consense each choice, rather than allow any one person to choose.

I'll confess, of the list thus far, I've ever heard of about 5, and it is hard to work up enthusiasm for books totally unknown to me.

I like the idea of paired books we read in tandem, like Jekyll & Hyde + [modern interpretation thereof]. They automatically provide something to talk about: a basic compare/contrast. Someone suggested Starship Troopers and The Forever War back in Literary, and I could be persuaded to try these. Other doable pairings: two different novelizations of Arthurian myth; Brave New World and 1984; two novels with unreliable narrators. Note how this only works with shorter books -- trying to read two 800-page novels in a month can only end badly.

I suppose Henry Adams is not really beach reading; I have absolutely no perspective on the subject, since I love the book with an unreasoning adoration.

How would new people enter?

I assume they would introduce themselves in the thread, and add their name to some list (probably kept off-board) from which new choosers are randomly chosen whenever necessary.

I also like the caveats mentioned. Here, then, is my total proposal for picking of new books.

A list of buffistas interested in participating - or, specifically, interested in picking books - will be kept somewhere (on the buffista webspace if possible, or somewhere else if necessary - I'll volunteer my personal computer for as long as I have a university connection if necessary). Each month, 3 months ahead of the opening of discussion, a member of the list will be randomly chosen from the list and approached to suggest a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 5 different books for their period, in-thread. After a bit of discussion, these books will be placed in a Mr. Poll, and the thread will choose the book for that recommendation period.

For the first three books, well, I don't know the best way to pick them. We could implement the scheme above immediately, but that would ignore all the fine suggestions we've already had. Or, we could just let Wolfram and Heather pick the first two books (as proposer and original idea-person, respectively) from the suggestions made, and let the third book be chosen by the above method as soon as the infrastructure gets implemented.

I would also like to see, perhaps in the same location as the "Interested suggestors" list, a list of book suggestions with mini-blurbs and pimping, for those who like that sort of thing. I like the pimps here, but will find them annoying once the discussion starts, and would prefer to have them off-thread (plus, then we can make them searchable and more easy to find, so they could be more useful for recs outside of the Book Club). This could be an invaluable resource for the person doing the picking, too.

My PHP skills are rusty, but I could probably implement something that's purely functional, given a couple of weeks. Somebody else on the board could probably do it much faster (email me and I can give you an account on my school machine, if we want to do it there.)

Discuss.