Yeah, I don't think we need to have every tiniest detail worked out and a reading schedule through 2005 settled upon, but it'd be nice to have some broad parameters, e.g.:

1. How do we select books? Vote? Work from some master list of Great Works? Let participants nominate their favorites, and get the reading order by random draw?
2. Do we want some sort of moderator/discussion leader, or just let everyone have at it the day a discussion starts?
3. One book at a time, or 2-3 parallel tracks?
4. One book per month? Every two weeks? Or what?

Though if we can have that discussion while simultaneously arguing about proliferation, I dunno. But I also want to have some idea of just what this book club is going to be before I vote on it.

FWIW, I'm for the new thread, while undecided on whether or not I'll participate.

1. I recommend some sort of participants-pick-the-books-without-a-vote system, to avoid angry yelling about votes and nominations each month. The random draw thing is a good idea, or we could just have a constant list of "Who wants to suggest books?" and draw the name (before they pick the book) randomly, with a due date on when they have to submit their choice. A simple program (I could make one off-board, or a better programmer could make a prettier one) could be used for the list of who wants to suggest books, booklist for the future, et cetera. This means that if me, Hil R., and Susan W. all think that How to Eat Fried Worms is the best book in the world, and would nominate it as our first choice, then it won't end up on the reading-order list three times because, after Hil makes us read it in February, I can suggest Fried Green Tomatoes for April.

2. If the person who suggested it suggested it because they wanted to moderate, they can do so. Or, they can waive their right - either giving it up to somebody else (who they think is a good moderator) or letting it be a free-for-all.

3. I'd say one-at-a-time, but 2 parallel tracks might be all right. More might be bad.

4. Every two weeks, with discussion four weeks? That is - book A for discussion April 1-28, book B for April 14 - May 12, Book C for April 29 - May 26... (combines with the 2 parallel tracks in 3, but with the major spikes of discussion-opening coming every two weeks, and not overlapping. And you could easily participate in every other book if you don't mind risking spoilers, which for books hopefully wouldn't be a big deal...)

These are my suggestions. I am in no way important to this discussion, though, so feel free to ignore them. Or whatever. I think it's probably a good idea to have SOMETHING hammered out on how the thread will work before voting, though.

To be honest, I think the actual DISCUSSION of whatever book we choose could fit into Lit without disrupting the thread too much, However, the endless, "What about this book?" "What week do we start?" I would rather start with something newer." "What abput female authors for the list?""I think those two novels are too close in tone, let's do a non-fiction book in-between" "Should we list previous works or something?" "Does someone want to provide some background information before we start?" will drive people bonkers.

I agree with Robin. However if we hash out some of the structure here and it seems like it will be less trouble than voting in thread, perhaps it could be accomadated in literary. I really wish that if anyone in Literary REALLY doesn't want it there, they would speak up so I wouldn't have a feeling of stomping in and taking over if we do this.

I am sorry I offended you Kat, (and anyone else). A thread isn't worth offending a person.

t Threadsucking and skipping

I will catch up properly before I cast my vote, I wish I had time to participate. In any case, if nobody has volunteered to count the votes yet, then I'm willing to to it. This way I'll be able to at least contribute something to the process.

t /my post-of-the-day

I'd definitely suggest having a leader for discussion, rather than leaving it completely up to the thread. That would tie into David's suggestion about having people who are more familiar with a genre or an author being able to contribute.

Maybe put together a list of people who are willing to lead? Then, say, a month ahead of time, the next person on the list comes up with a book, proposes it in the thread. It's either accepted or shouted down by consensus.

I think I have been convinced that we should try the Book Club in Literary before starting a new thread.

Unless there are denizens of Literary who are against that. Which I have not seen. I have seen Pro-Book Club folk worrying that there are Literary people who will be put out, and I share that worry, but if someone said 'Me! Me! A Book club would ruin Literary for me" I missed it.

My structural proposals:

Rotating leadership/moderator/cat herder, so as to avoid burn-out.

An initial call for likely books to be read, older classics and newer, potential classics, with more proposed as things go on. Preference given to shorter over longer ("Jane Eyre" vs. "War and Peace") so that people have a chance to finish the thing--unless the consensus is that we ache to read "War and Peace," then it can be divided up into ranges of chapters.

Lead time of one month for books to be read, possibly with the first two announced together to give people time to get up to speed.

All classification of books eligible.

Initial discussion time of one month, unless people start getting twitchy at week three and want to move on to the next one.

end proposal

I had an idea for an analogy for using a separate thread for this: Literary is a big room with an ongoing party/argument/bull session in it. In-depth discussions occasionally break out, and they're quite fun, but it's difficult to concentrate because of all the other things going on. Also, if you leave all your notes and materials on the table in the corner, sometimes they get messed up by the other folks in the room--through no fault of their own, of course. Table gets bumped, a stray breeze catches stuff, a drink gets put down on that carefully crafted comparison of James Joyce and Erica Jong and nobody else can find it.

It would be nice if we could use the conference room in the corner, if we could just get the key out of the administrators' hands.

Lead time of one month for books to be read, possibly with the first two announced together to give people time to get up to speed.

I was under the impression we'd discuss as reading. I realize now this was only my crazy brain making stuff up, and not any actual part of the conversation. But I figured we'd "release" chapters (or a block of pages) each week, episode style. Does anyone know what I mean?

Example

Book: The House At Pooh Corner (sorry, it's what I have on hand)

Chapters up for discussion week of 4 July-10 July:

In Which A House Is Built at Pooh Corner for Eeyore

In Which Tigger Comes to the Forest and Has Breakfast

In Which A Search Is Organdized (sic), and Piglet Nearly Meets the Heffalump Again

In Which It Is Shown That Tiggers Don't Climb Trees

and the on deck chapters--the set of chapters (or whatever) for the week of 11 July-17 July would be announced then, too for those who wanted to read ahead, but they wouldn't become fair game for discussion until 11 July.

In other words I *really* thought we'd treat it like a show thread, but with books, and we'd talk as we read. Just thought I'd share.

I was over a 100 posts behind, and some of this has been covered, but I am still posting it all.

That getting into picking apart a book, like one of the shows, wasn't happening in there for reasons other than the individual poster.

I think it wasn’t happening because there hasn’t been a critical mass of people who liked that type of discussion.

Can we kindly stop patting some of the local residents on the head, saying in effect, "You're so cute, with your Bridget Jones and Georgette Heyer reading. Now go sit at the kiddy table while we grownups talk about Middlemarch."

Consuela, do you have your father’s # handy so I can ask for your hand?

And if you're no longer subscribing to Literary, then it is relevant, because you and the others were there first, were participating and talking and swapping recs and posting links to articles and all the rest.

Really? people who were in threads first get to dictate how they run? I think it should be the majority. If we are gonna start doing things based on seniority, then I’d like a pecking order roster to see who I can boss around. God knows there is enough stuff I’d rather not have on the boards.

I wasn't getting what I wanted out of it, so I didn't participate -- well, boo hoo on me. That doesn't give me the right to repurpose the thread and make it a place where you don't go.

Of course it does, if enough other people share your interest. Threads change, this whole board has changed. Sometimes people don’t like those changes and leave. You start trying to control it too much and other people leave.

But I think tossing around terms like "lobby" and "camp" are a little much.

Oh no, there are meetings. When I counted votes once, I kept the tally sheets with names. I freely shared the emails of people who voted similarly. That’s the kind of person I am.

But the fact that my gut-check flies in the face of actual number bespeaks an effectiveness beyond mere hard numbers. And there's a pretty good reason for that - the one opinion that can be counted on to come up every time, and defended pretty strenuously, is the anti-proliferation argument.

Speaking for myself ONLY on this. One reason that I will continue to bring it up over and over and over again, is that people seem to pay so little attention to it. I don’t want to have to send money in every year. I could have stayed on TT for that. The backend work is not finished. Nothing is fixed. We don’t have a solution and we don’t have enough money to stay on a dedicated server for multiple years (I think we have 1 year). Of course we can wait to deal with it then, I am not one who wants to do that.

Further clarification on my issue, it is all about technology. If word is that we have funds for 3 more years and load is no longer a problem even with DVD releases, animated series, BDM and whatnot – then I no longer care, add threads at your will. Because I care not one whit about fragmentation.

But I figured we'd "release" chapters (or a block of pages) each week, episode style. Does anyone know what I mean?

I would hate that structure.

_______

I see two things going on around the idea of a bookclub, 1) people yearning for discussion like we had around the shows. & 2) People wanting b.org to be all things to all people.

Some days I’d like things like they were the last month of free TT, or the first couple of months on WX, or right after we built this place.