I just want to see if I have this straight.
People want to discuss X book in depth and great detail.
These people think that, far too much the thread gets "hijacked" away from their conversation re: X book.
Question: How is that possible?
I see it like this:
Person A: "I read X book and I loved it."
Person B: "I read X book too! I loved the blah blah thematic blah blah structural blah blah cookies!"
Person C: "I read Y book."
Person A: "Yes, Person B, I too loved the blah blah cookies."
I mean...just ignore the "Y Book" post and continue your conversation. It's not like at a party where Person C would see you roll your eyes or you'd physically turn your body away to block them from your conversation. You're not being rude, here. You're just talking as though Person C were across the room talking to themselves. And, likely, Person D will see Person C talking to themself and respond "Hey, Person C, I read Y book and the blah blah fishsticks and beer really appealed to me. Howzabout you?" etc. etc.
Given this, I don't see the need for a Book Club thread. Continue your conversation about Book X and let other people talk about Book Y in parallel.
I'm guessing the books up for discussion would be like just about any other book club- or see suggestions made in the link upthread. As far as who leads it- I pretty much saw it going down like episodes. Due date would be like the air date, and people would just hop in with "Ok, could Jane please stop addressing the reader!?! It completely takes me out of the moment, and makes me feel like I'm listening to a school girl." And then four posts later you'd have, "I found Jane addressing the reader to be a useful device, because she's telling you what you really want to know, without wasting time on boring exposition. You get caught up in her excitement rather than wondering when she's going to tell you whether they got married or not." And then we'd fight about it. I'm not really partial to anyone leading, but I think discussion will take it's natural course.
These people think that, far too much the thread gets "hijacked" away from their conversation re: X book.
Nono. I don't feel like the thread gets hijacked at all. I feel like we're all reading so many different things that we never really get past Person A and B.
ITA with MM. And I too was curious about the question Jessica brought up and withdrew.
. I feel like we're all reading so many different things that we never really get past Person A and B.
Okay, but...I guess my question still applies. I mean...you read Z book and loved it. You wanna talk about it. A and B are talking about X book. What's stopping you from popping in, saying "Anybody else read Z? LOVED IT!" so that Person D can say "Yo! I read Z and I loved it up until the demon-monkeys ate the frog princess and then I was all 'Shah! Whatev!'" while A and B continue talking about X?
Mostly that not a lot of people will have read Z, or will have read it recently, same with X book. So it becomes a lot of people saying things about A-Z books without any of the kind of discussion I feel I would get out of a book club.
I thought it was pretty well consensed that the Lit thread doesn't lend itself to that kind of discussion, which is why I brought up the book club thing in the first place.
I thought it was pretty well consensed that the Lit thread doesn't lend itself to that kind of discussion, which is why I brought up the book club thing in the first place.
It may well have been, but I still don't think it makes sense. There's nothing stopping you from finding people who have read Z or telling somebody "Dude! Z! Read it, it rocks!" and getting people to read it and talk about it in Lit rather than starting a whole new thread.
ITA with MM. And I too was curious about the question Jessica brought up and withdrew.
I thought Jessica's question was answered. Did I misunderstand the withdrawal?
Okay, but...I guess my question still applies. I mean...you read Z book and loved it. You wanna talk about it. A and B are talking about X book. What's stopping you from popping in, saying "Anybody else read Z? LOVED IT!" so that Person D can say "Yo! I read Z and I loved it up until the demon-monkeys ate the frog princess and then I was all 'Shah! Whatev!'" while A and B continue talking about X?
MM, the point of book club is not so Person A and B can continue their discussion on Book X, obviously they can talk about Book X until there's nobody who wants to talk about it anymore. It's so Persons C-Z can participate in A and B's discussion of Book X with both the time to read Book X beforehand, and then have more then a couple hours to respond to Book X discussion before A and B are either gone or off discussing Book Y.
When we treat these threads like chat rooms things seem a lot easier then when we treat them like posting boards. It's a lot harder to maintain discussion on one particular text when only one other person has read the text or is interested in discussing it, and that person may only log on in the mornings while you are the afternoon owl. It's a whole different thing when a number of people pop in and out to discuss the same text (like in show threads.)
MM, I think one of the attractive bits for people is that you'd have an entire thread where everyone is discussing the same text, rather than just a few people. Something like a replacement for the episode analysis that always happened while/after something aired. But the only time that a significant number of people are reading the same thing at the same time is when a new Harry Potter comes out, so there isn't a lot of opportunity for it. A Buffista Book Club would encourage people to have a common text to pick apart which they had read recently enough to remember it well, giving an outlet for focused discussion.
At least that's my sense of the thing.
