It seems to me that the primary objection to a special book club thread (and I could be misperceiving) is that we have the literary thread, which sh/would be used for such discussion.

And the taxing of resources. Those seem to be the two big objections.

There are feelings that a book club in Literary c/would be disruptive to that thread.

Kim, this is not my primary objection to the Literary suggestion, and I think a lot of people are missing this point. I feel that a book club in Literary would be disruptive to the book club. Whether it will be disruptive to Literary is a different thing.

ETA: and this from Hec's post above - But I also think there is no chance a book club would work within Literary. It's already going to be hard to get it up and running - it needs the sort of slight, guiding pressure that having its own thread will generate to maintain momentum and traction.

Would it be practical to table this proposal and go ahead and start a book club in Literary, as an experiment for a month or two?

For the foregoing reasons, I can't table the proposal.

I'm actually in favor of the book club thread, Wolfram. Just trying to spell out the aspect of the objection that I find most compelling.

And, Calli -- I emailed you.

Wolfram, I never said that was your primary objection, but that it was my understanding of the majority of dissenters here. I may well have misunderstood. I am always willing to admit when I am wrong. It seems to me that the issue of taxing the resources, while brought up early on, was not a focal point of the discussion until just recently, and I feel it is a valid concern.

(FWIW, I like the idea of a Book Club thread, though I would probably just lurk there, too.)

If you don't feel it's practical to table the proposal then you shouldn't. It's your proposal. I only wanted to offer a suggestion I hadn't seen.

(And I think this is coming across as touchy and defensive, and I don't mean for it to. I just want to be clear and concise.)

(Edited, because I hate that it sounds touchy and defensive and I can't seem to make it sound less so.)

Since I was probably the most egregious in my comments, I'd like to apologize.

It's not necessary, but I appreciate the monkey-grooming. ;)

I'm sorry to have restarted the argument, or seemed like I was doing that; let me try to boil this down to what's applicable to the current argument. Part of the discussion seems to be constructed as "Literary serves a purpose the Book Club would disrupt," and I wanted to put in my two cents as a Literary participant who doesn't think the Book Club would be disruptive, or antithetical to the purposes of the thread.

A separate issue is, I think, the idea that "Literary would disrupt the proposed Book Club," which I think is possible but not as certain as many posters do.

A separate issue is, I think, the idea that "Literary would disrupt the proposed Book Club," which I think is possible but not as certain as many posters do.

I'm more in this boat - It'd be like trying to conduct a seminar in the middle of a cocktail party.

In the f2f book club I'm in, we will frequently get side-tracked to different topics. It's not quite a cocktail party atmosphere, but there's usually wine and clever people who like to talk (usually about the book, but not always). Theme X in the book reminds such and so about an event in her life, that event reminds so and such of something that happened to her. We've all known one another for years now (mostly) so it's easy to wander off into various digressions. However, it's also easy for interested parties to say, "Such and so digression reminds me of plot point Y in the novel," thus bringing things back on track.

I don't know if this would be effective in an online forum or not.

Kristen, see my post here.

Wolfram, I saw your post this morning and I appreciated the clarification. My post was in response to Cindy's comment, which read to me as her feeling this proposed thread was being held to a different standard to previous proposed threads.

I expect there will be digressions and tangents in the book club thread. I just don't think we'd be able to maintain a relatively tight focus in Literary.

It's not necessary, but I appreciate the monkey-grooming. ;)

One more (at least) then. Betsy, I am sorry that in my original posts I cited Heyer, Crusie, Sayer. Those stuck in my mind not simply because discussion had returned to them frequently, but because their virtues had been so well articulated in the thread. After the fact, I realized those were all writers which you had particularly championed, and you could certainly read my comments as a direct insult on your taste. I did not intend that.

It was because you had so effectively made the case for those writers that they were on my mind, and had generated enthusiastic readers in the thread. Anyway, I feel bad about it and did not intend any slight to you.

But I'm not sorry I started the discussion or what I said. I think it produced a very useful discussion, even though there was definitely some bruising.

I hope it was useful to others, because, like Hayden, I'm still really bruised and bitter from it.

Wolfram, I never said that was your primary objection, but that it was my understanding of the majority of dissenters here. I may well have misunderstood. I am always willing to admit when I am wrong.

Kim, I was actually speaking for the non-dissenters, but I'm sorry for coming down so hard on your post. I may have been the one who was getting touchy and defensive.

Wolfram, I saw your post this morning and I appreciated the clarification. My post was in response to Cindy's comment, which read to me as her feeling this proposed thread was being held to a different standard to previous proposed threads.

My mistake. Thanks.