I have an idea!

I WILL CHOOSE THE BOOKS!

And you will all bend to my will

You will read Louisa May Alcott's The Old fashioned Girl NOW

MWAH-HA-HA-HA!!!

goes out to buy LMA's book because I am bent to Sophia's will

See, I knew I shouldn't let Sophia hang out with Rio and Bon Bon.

that I hate to shut the door on anyone's tastes at the outset

Oh, sure. But do you metion sci-fi lovers? No. No, you don't. (Couldn't be more kidding, by the way, in case that's not completely obvious. About the door shutting. Not about loving sci-fi, because I do).

I'm with you on the all kinds of material thing. Just not very articulate about it.

Or we could just go Sophia's way.

It would be like leading a discussion, not giving a lecture.

Requisite or not, how would one lead Buffistas in a discussion, though? What would this leading entail? If it's difficult to explain, can you give an example, instead. I'm not trying to play obtuse or give you a hard time, Hec. I truly do not understand.

After making a quick detour to pick up Heather's recommended trashy goodness, follows Sophia, as if in a trance

See, I still think (1) bullshit consensus, (2) winnow the list and (3) Mr. Poll works pretty well. It's loose and it's simple and it's flexible.

Winnowing could just include throwing out books difficult to find at the library or in paperback, or eliminating a few possibilities by the same writer. Stuff like that.

I like Sophia's plan. She should be our benevolent despot.

There doesn't seem to be any reason to have CC&Rs about it.

I know this can't mean Credence Clearwater Revivals, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it does mean.

I think that things like "moderators" (which I really don't like the idea of) will work themselves out if the thread gets created.

Also? I think Hec likes saying "winnow." Winnow winnow winnow. Try it!

Yeah, but .. winnowing would take so loooonnnnnggggg (yeah, it's supposed to sound whiny). I heavily favor randomness in selecting from submitted titles, according to categories, then Mr. Polling five. I don't want to spend days in-thread talking about why or why not a book should be on the list from which I will one day, with some luck, get to pick my vote. Or am I missing what you're suggesting?

I think the idea is seem to see here is the simplest one. At the beginning, everyone who wahts to pimp a book volunteers. We use voting to eliminate any book overwhelmingly hated. Books not widely available (including not being on hundred person waiting lists) are also eliminated. Then we use random selection to pick three from those, and the order for those three, and that's our schedule for the next three months. Normally the person who promotes a book has responsiblity for doing some special pimping (pointing out what they found the major turn ons in the book.) If your book is chosen and you think someone else will make a better pimp, you can delegate, provide they agree to it.

At the end of each month, as one book is finished. new books get added to the list - with voting /bullshit consensus only used to eliminate books there is a really big hate-on for. And some book is picked at random from the list. So you always have a current book under discussion, and two books for the next month.

I'm using the term "pimping" in hopes that it is one term no one will read as "professor".

Note - no Canon/Genre distinctions or biases. The point is that we are having book club discussion focusing mainly on one book over the month. If we want to informally make sure we don't overlook romance or westerns or science fiction or fantasy or comic books or historicals we can bias the random selection a bit. Agree that we haven't had an romances in a while, and reach a bullshit consensus that this month the random selection will only be from romances. Maybe you will have a bunch of people overwhelmingly want to discuss a book - and skip the random selection one month to just pick that one.

Lastly - we don't want to make the structure too rigid. Let me suggest a way non-bullshit, non-bureaucratic non-consensus. A non-consensus is reached when four participants in the thread agree to something, and no one objects within ten days. That avoids the midnight consensus problem. If one person objects you don't have consensus. Maybe it could be a semi-consensus - as long as ten times as many posters say yes as no within a ten day period it passes. Or some other way. But in running a book club there needs to be some way of making changes without have to run to bureacracy and make a proposal to open lighbulbs.

I'm not trying to play obtuse or give you a hard time, Hec. I truly do not understand.

Well, I can only speak to how I'd do it. If I were leading on J.G. Ballard's Crash, for example, I would probably link to his introduction to the French edition, since that's a famous essay on what inspired the book. I'd specifically discuss his radical use of language in the book (he uses medical and technical language for literary purposes) and how that affects the story. I'd talk about the British science fiction scene in the late sixties/early seventies and which authors shared similar concerns and approaches. I'd talk about Ballard's influence on not only cyberpunk, but on social thought. Stuff like that. As the discussion got going, I'd try to address specific questions about what was happening in the plot, or what the author was trying to do or why certain elements weren't working - but mainly I'd expect to let the discussion evolve naturally after the framework I gave it.

(Note: I wouldn't pitch Crash because I don't think there's a wide interest here to support it.)