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.)

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

Did I say "winnow"? I meant minnow. It's all about Gilligan's Island in my head.

And from the other extreme, I'd say it could be as little as throwing an initial post out there stating why you love/like/think it worthwhile, along with some questions or major themes that occur to you. It doesn't have to be a huge deal.

Gar, your last para is making my head explode. Seriously, I don't think it'll be nearly as complicated in practice as we're all anticipating, but ten-day lag times could easily drive us all insane, as would a unanimity requirement.

Did I say "winnow"? I meant minnow. It's all about Gilligan's Island in my head.

Possibly "window." I don't hear so good out of my left ear, ever since the cold snap of nineteen-ought-two....

Unfortunatly Gar's entire well thoght out and lovely post is making my head explode. I say (seriously) people volunteer to pick a book. We go in random order. They pick a book. We read a book. They either lead or don't lead as they see fit. They announce the day the discussiuon s starting. We discuss. Then we move on to the next book.

I'm not sure you'd have to lead. I think once the date came around people would come in saying something like "Dude. His use of language was blahblahblahbrainybuffista talk." And then you'd probably talk about the stuff you know about the book and we'd argue and discuss.

I want to read Sci-Fi with JenP, specifically. That is all. Oh, and that book Teppy's friends' cleaning lady found with...um... yeah.

I'm thinking like Sophia

probably because I am bent to her will

It's starting to make me cramp up.