And Then There Were ?… The future of the book club here

[poohbear_nc]

If you were to have 4 books/year, you could focus each quarter on a century -- say, Victorian 19th century triple-deckers for January, 18th century epistolary novels for April, etc. Readers could drop in and out throughout the year if they were violently opposed to one quarter's selection.

Open it up for novels, poetry, drama, even non-fiction (Victorian travelogues anyone?).

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

Yes to a fluid group and no commitment. But still a monthly choice? Monthly seems too frequent to me for classics, at least of the 19th century doorstopper variety. But if we went with quarterly, it’s all the more reason to avoid as best we could selections that don’t achieve a broad consensus. And with only four books a year, I would hope that it wouldn’t be all that hard to take everyone’s preferences into account. It would be a pity to have to miss a choice out of sheer loathing, if we were to have only four selections in a year, but I really this presupposes a level of reasonableness, say? This probably wouldn’t be the club for someone who loathes moldy oldies who’d be vetoing choices right and left. Can we count on self-selection?

I was using "monthly" to avoid repeatedly saying "monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, whatever."

But I do sort of like the idea of monthly, which goes back to keeping the participation fluid. With a slate of a dozen books, maybe a potential participant might immediately decide that only half of them are of any real interest and sit out the others. With only four, I can easily envision myself not wanting to read any of them. There's also a lack of community if the discussions are starting and stopping every three months. Without a requirement to read the chosen book every month, there should be no pressure. Plus if this actually happens, might as well start high and scale down if needed.

[JSWolf]

So if classics go quarterly, can we do other books in the remaining months like SF/Fantasy, Mystery/Thriller, fiction, and one month a book definitely available in the PC/MR library. I would like the way t's done for the alternate months the same as for classics.

[JSWolf]

One thing I think is if you vote for a book and it wins the vote, you read it. But if you didn't vote for a book and it wins, you don't have to read it. That would solve the problem of having to read even if you don't want to. It could be you feel you won't like it or it's too expensive. So you vote for all the books you would read if any of them won. Problem solved (IMHO).

Another thing that may help is having the vote maybe two months in advance of when it's to be read so it would give us time to try to get it from the library. The problem as it was is that in a lot of cases, the line was too long to get it in time.

[Catlady]

I would not join any book club that has a lot of restrictions and/or that has recurring votes on each potential selection. With New Leaf, I spent a lot of time every month trying to find books to nominate, only to have them run into geographical restrictions, be considered too expensive, or otherwise garner little interest; I don't want to expend energy doing that again.

Classics are the only books I would even consider for a group discussion, because at least I can feel a sense of accomplishment that I got through some well-known doorstopper.

[sun surfer]

Great posts and discussion so far throughout. All options are on the table and there's quite a few diverse suggestions, and they all sound good. I'm just happy people responded to the thread; I wasn't sure anyone would!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I would not join any book club that has a lot of restrictions and/or that has recurring votes on each potential selection. With New Leaf, I spent a lot of time every month trying to find books to nominate, only to have them run into geographical restrictions, be considered too expensive, or otherwise garner little interest; I don't want to expend energy doing that again.

Classics are the only books I would even consider for a group discussion, because at least I can feel a sense of accomplishment that I got through some well-known doorstopper.

IMHO, there need not be any such restrictions. You nominate a book you want to read and others will decide to vote or not and if a book wins that you will not be reading, then you don't have to read for that month. That's what I would like to see.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by issybird

...I think the weight of the selection process ended up crushing all the clubs. Or to put it another way, the action was too weighted at the front end. And a book club where people don’t participate in the discussion is an exercise in futility, it seems to me.

I completely understand where you're coming from. It's a solid point and a good discussion is such an important part of a book club.

My own perspective after being a part of ones here is that the feeling of camaraderie and enjoyment of socialising about the shared interest in books and the shared goal of reading a particular selection, even in the tiny way an online book club offers, is not something to be totally dismissed, even if these things can be done without a book club too.

And there's the enjoyment of finding nominations and perusing others' nominations. I've found so many books that never won that I wanted to read that way, from the general club as well as the lit club. In fact I greatly enjoy this aspect and it's probably part of what's helped to keep me here ten years, though I know mileages vary and some are less interested in this discovery aspect.

The front-loading is a curious dilemma though.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Thanks for the thought, sunsurfer. However I don’t wish to get involved in a formal club.

What could be of interest to me and perhaps to others would be an occasional “buddy read” of a specific book nominated by an individual inviting others to join him or her in reading and discussing it.

Hi, Bookpossum! Buddy reads are an interesting idea. I'm not sure if you're thinking some type of more structured buddy read project, simply just buddy reads whenever they come along or either one, but they're something to consider.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by hildea

We had a face-to-face book club at my job, and when we found ourselves saying "I haven't gotten around to reading this month's book" too often, we switched to short stories (ie. a single short story each time) -- that helped a lot. Are anyone else here interested in trying that? When the commitment in time is much less, it's easier to get more people to read, and to get them to read genres they normally avoid.

I have sometimes wondered if putting some sort of page limit on might help participation in any book club.

[JSWolf]

I'm not sure f this would work due ot the different time zones, but maybe we could try holding a meeting on Zoom?

[issybird]

At least in my vision of a classics club along the lines proposed, the beauty is that it would largely run itself. Another advantage of no superstructure.

Originally Posted by sun surfer

I have sometimes wondered if putting some sort of page limit on might help participation in any book club.

Wellll, that rather blows out the notion of doorstopper classics! But it is the reason I personally think one book every three months is plenty. And in terms of the socialization that Catlady mentioned, people could discuss the book as they went along, because some of them will take time.

I have no interest in adding other genres to fill in the months in between.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

IMHO, there need not be any such restrictions. You nominate a book you want to read and others will decide to vote or not and if a book wins that you will not be reading, then you don't have to read for that month. That's what I would like to see.

Nominate a book based on what criteria? Themes again? Or genres, as you mentioned? Those are restrictions that require research each month (or whatever time period).

I didn't see the New Leaf rule about voting only if you were prepared to read the chosen book as a problem; I abstained when the slate of books held no appeal for me--so what? And did anyone really care or notice if a voter ended up failing to participate for whatever reason?

[issybird]

I know I’m willing to read anything that’s a classic; my only caveat is the one mentioned upthread, where I’d prefer not to have selections that I already know really well.

It already feels to me as if the minutiae is taking over. If people can get together and agree on four classics, that would be the end of it. There’d be no “voting.” Maybe I’m delusional, but it doesn’t seem all that hard to me. There are a lot of classics out there.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

I have sometimes wondered if putting some sort of page limit on might help participation in any book club.

Maybe for some, but not for me. I don't like artificial constraints like number of pages or price point.