While we are waiting for more people to finish the book, we should probably think about what to read next.
We need something to which all members (American or Australian...we don't have any other nationalities yet do we?) have access.
Anyone have any suggestions?
13 comments:
Been meaning to ask how we were going to choose subsequent books. Do we rotate choices? Do we vote? Do we stick to fiction only? Are short story collections acceptable? Should we pick only new releases (so fewer people will have read them) or will somewhat older books be okay? Should we skim over some reviews first to try to avoid obvious wastes of time?
I wasn't expressing an opinion on any of these items, just curious if anybody has given them some thought. My only opinions so far are (a) they should be fiction and (b) they should not been anything about to be made into a movie starring Tom Hanks.
As for suggestions, I can glance behind me at my little library and pick out a few that I've been meaning to read but haven't (skipping over the more obscure choices that not even I will really enjoy and anything already on my interminable stack):
Oracle Night, by Paul Auster
Observatory Mansions, by Edward Carey
The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon
Train, by Pete Dexter
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, by Umberto Eco
You Shall Know Our Velocity, by Dave Eggers
The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen
A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby
Out, by Natsuo Kirino
The Fortress of Solitude, by Jonathan Lethem
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
Haunted, by Chuck Palahniuk
That Old Ace in the Hole, Annie Proulx
Quietus, by Vivian Schilling
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith
The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Some of these I should have read a long time ago, I know, so no wise-cracks, please. Others I had thrust at me by the proprietors of a local, independent book store that I frequent often. They always recommend good ones.
Good thing I checked the Drafts, or I wouldn't have known what book to read! It IS The Historian, by Kostova? Or is CK being pro-active?
When is the cutoff date? I'd like to be timely, and need to pick up the book.
Voting - hmn, I had the impression that we were just going to rotate, and whoever's turn it is gets to choose.
Why limit ourselves to Fiction? Anything should be fair game.
Either voting or rotating is fine with me. If we vote, everyone gets input each time, but there is always a chance that some people never get to actually choose. I'm perfectly willing to go with the group on this one.
I also agree that we don't need to limit it to fiction. I love to read both fiction and non-fiction. As long as it's well written.
I assumed that when you were invited to join, the person extending the invite (I'm not naming names, but she's Australian and her blog initials are LG) told you that we were starting with The Historian because some of us were already reading it. Sorry about that.
And no, I can never be that pro-active.
You guys are sooo keen - it's quite nauseating actually.
The list that Invisible Lizards has come up with looks pretty fine. Are we happy to discuss books that some of us may have read - otherwise it will be nearly impossible. I think it would be good to take turns to choose the book so everyone gets to choose.
Perhaps the only criteria is that they should be reasonably recent (ie. published since 2000) and easily locatable. And no Bryce Courtney or Dean Koontz (although surely that goes with out saying).
And a big sorry to MC Etcher for not giving you all the info. And CK - you're a dobber.
So shall we set up a time frame for The Historian then? It really doesn't matter that much to me since all I have to do is hit "publish post". :)
Laziest Girl, if you're going to insult me, you could at least do it in some understandable language so I don't have to go searching the net for colloquialisms of the Commonwealth.
No worries! I know what's going on now. No need for name calling.
:o)
I definitely favor rotation over voting.
How fast do you folks read? Are we going to do a different book every week or two?
I don't see a reason for you to wait to post your review, CK - then as we finish reading, we can go ahead and add our input.
Ok, if I go ahead and post it, people who haven't finished will have to be careful of the plot details given away in the review, but otherwise I see no problems with it.
On a different note, is anyone else having issues with the comments section? It was fine when I commented last night, but this morning they are gone completely if I view in Firefox. I switched over to Internet Explorer and everything is fine. I think somehow deleting a comment may have caused FF to remove the whole thing. I don't code for a living, or even very well, so it's fairly likely I have a mistake in there. Just wondering I'm the only one experiencing this problem.
Try clearing your cache. I use Firefox (which I assume you already knew) and this sort of thing happens to me a fair bit.
Why don't we have the person who chooses the book (CK, in this case, you) post a simple entry with the book name and author, then everybody posts reviews as comments? That way anybody new to the forum can see what we're currently reading. Also, you can then add your review which will not be visible until we expand the comments, thus preventing accidental spoilers.
IL, I like your idea for the future, but I'm entirely too lazy today to go through and reformat my review to be spoiler-free. I have inserted warnings with simple stop and go (red and green) labeling to let people know which sections are safe.
So how do we determine the order in which we choose the next book?
Alphabetical by Blogger name?
I agree with the Lizards posting technique suggestions for future reviews.
And alphabetical is fine with me.
As to how often we get a new book - I think we need to be flexible but maybe aim for a new book every two to three weeks.
Anything else we need to decide?
Alphabetical seems like a good way. Since my blogger name is first, we even started in the right place and can just move along to whomever is next.
I think we've covered pretty much everything. Perhaps someone should compile a list of rules and post them for new members:
The first rule of Book Club is "You don't talk about Book Club".
If this is your first night at Book Club, you have to discuss.
Noooo I don't want to be last! Must read faster!
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