04-18-2021, 05:59 PM | #16 |
o saeclum infacetum
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I could totally get behind a classics book club! Once a month would be way too often, however. Once a quarter?
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04-18-2021, 07:04 PM | #17 |
Now what?
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04-19-2021, 02:50 AM | #18 |
Snoozing in the sun
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04-19-2021, 04:14 AM | #19 | |
Wizard
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One issue does come to mind—how is the club going to define a classic? The term is frequently used more or less loosely to refer to all sorts of works that are considered “significant” or “seminal”. Last edited by fantasyfan; 04-19-2021 at 04:33 AM. |
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04-19-2021, 05:53 AM | #20 |
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04-19-2021, 06:46 AM | #21 | |
o saeclum infacetum
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04-19-2021, 07:08 AM | #22 | |
cacoethes scribendi
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I can see various difficulties with a strictly "classics" reading group. Instead, this:
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You could have a pinned thread of outstanding suggestions and when multiple people say they're ready for a particular book a new thread for that book could be started and away it goes. Edited to add: The ideas thread could be like those reading target threads, where people reserve a post to hold the list of books they'd like to buddy ready. When a few people have the same books listed they might hook up (PM or another discussion thread or whatever) and organise when etc. Last edited by gmw; 04-19-2021 at 07:20 AM. |
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04-19-2021, 09:46 AM | #23 | |
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04-19-2021, 10:06 AM | #24 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Well ... since I seem to have inadvertently sparked something ...
If I were setting up a classics book club (which I'm not), I would start with one of the many online lists of 100 must-read books, eliminate books not in public domain everywhere (so as to avoid anything too modern and/or geographically restricted), gather additional suggestions, then ask people to vote for their top 10 or so choices to winnow the list further and create a slate of books for the year. That way, potential participants would know the schedule up front and could plan accordingly. |
04-19-2021, 10:11 AM | #25 |
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I would be OK with the suggested classics if I did not have to read the winning book if I did not want to. For example, if a Jane Austen book was the book for that month, I would not want to read that book.
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04-19-2021, 10:38 AM | #26 | |
o saeclum infacetum
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I guess what I’d like to see in a classics club would be one where I haven’t read most of the selections already, or at least not in decades. Like Jon, I wouldn’t want an Austen novel, but for the reason that they’re all quite clear in my memory. And I think any Top-100 list will lean heavily on favorites, that is, the ones that people will tend to have read. With a small group, I would hope it wouldn’t be that hard to settle on what would be only a handful of suggestions in the course of a year, while at the same time allowing for singularities rather than the standards. No reason why any individual couldn’t use such lists as a jumping off point in any case. |
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04-19-2021, 11:03 AM | #27 |
Now what?
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What about throwing out titles/authors that you've never read, and think you would/should like to read? I tend to re-read personal favorites and see how they age with me. It would be interesting to encounter fresh reads that I've missed or skipped.
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04-19-2021, 11:15 AM | #28 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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So if Pride and Prejudice was one of the monthly choices, and you didn't want to read it again (or ever), fine; no guilt. After the initial setup and choices, I would hope for a fluid group, with participants coming and going based on the monthly choice and their level of interest. I think this is feasible for a classics-oriented book club; I wouldn't necessarily want to reread a familiar classic, but I might still be interested in joining a discussion. |
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04-19-2021, 01:05 PM | #29 |
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I have often looked at but not participated in discussions of the various clubs. I'm one of those who wouldn't vote if I knew there were some choices I really didn't want to read. I didn't want to feel obligated to read something I had absolutely no interest in. There always seemed to be at least one such book. And of course by not voting, I was reducing the chance that a book I liked would be selected....
Often if one of the selected books was an author or topic I might have been interested in, it was a book I'd already read and didn't want to reread. Or I'd look at my Overdrive library and they'd have other books by the author but not the book club selection. How much I'd be willing to pay for a book depends on how interested I am, so I don't have a firm price limit. Someone above suggested a buddy read. Maybe if someone has a book they think looks interesting and that they are planning to read soon, they could start a thread in Reading Recommendations describing the book and inviting anyone interested to join them? Give a few weeks to read it before discussion starts so that interested people would have time to obtain and read it. If nobody responds, then hopefully the OP of such a thread would still enjoy reading the book on their own and could maybe report back later regarding what they thought about it. |
04-19-2021, 01:57 PM | #30 | ||
o saeclum infacetum
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BTW, I like the criterion of public domain everywhere. There might be other criteria, also, but public domain covers both age and price. |
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