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Book Club: Vote for February/March books

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 7:39 pm
by MamaPata
As the last few times, whichever two books get the most books will be the books read in February or March. More information on the books can be found over on the Book Club Thread. The poll runs until Monday, which should hopefully give people time to then get the books before February!

Re: Book Club: Vote for February/March books

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2019 8:22 pm
by Maiwenn
For Le Clézio & Adichie, I probably should have specified just 1 book for each. If you'd permit, I'd suggest Désert for Le Clézio and Half of a Yellow Sun for Adichie.

Thank you for setting up the poll!

Re: Book Club: Vote for February/March books

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:28 pm
by kanewai
It’s quiet in here - it might be time to think about ways to energize the group!

Re: Book Club: Vote for February/March books

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2019 11:52 pm
by Mista
kanewai wrote:It’s quiet in here - it might be time to think about ways to energize the group!


Yes, and bumping the thread was a good start. Seems it attracted at least a couple of new voters. trying it again now ;)

Apart from that, maybe we should try deciding just one book at a time next time around.

Re: Book Club: Vote for February/March books

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 9:16 pm
by Maiwenn
Mista wrote:
kanewai wrote:It’s quiet in here - it might be time to think about ways to energize the group!


Yes, and bumping the thread was a good start. Seems it attracted at least a couple of new voters. trying it again now ;)

Apart from that, maybe we should try deciding just one book at a time next time around.


So February will be Metro 2033? I'm excited to get started on it!

As for energising the group, I think it could be helpful to "advertise" it in logs/study groups. I suspect a lot of people are simply unaware of the Multilingual Room.

EDIT: Additionally, I think setting weekly reading timelines could be helpful for preserving participation in the read throughout the month. (Ex: starting Sunday, February 3rd -- can discuss chapter 1; Sunday, February 10th -- can discuss chapters 2-x; Sunday, February 17th -- can discuss chapters x-y;... etc.)

Re: Book Club: Vote for February/March books

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 6:56 am
by MamaPata
I believe that the reason for doing two at a time was that people felt it gave them more time to get hold of the book and read it.

Re: Book Club: Vote for February/March books

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 12:04 pm
by Mista
MamaPata wrote:I believe that the reason for doing two at a time was that people felt it gave them more time to get hold of the book and read it.

I think the main argument was that you could order several books at a time and save money on shipping. Of course, different people may have had all sorts of reasons. Anyway, the most important thing is what people who participate or want to participate now think about the matter. I, for one, have changed my mind, as it turns out I never order both books from the same place anyway - because I have one of them already, or I find one at the library, or I read them in diffent languages and have to order from different places. Therefore, I think it's worth checking again what others think. I'm starting to get the impression that more people read the first book than the second, which could for example be because they need more time to finish the first. The benefit of choosing one at a time is that everyone who is ready to read a new book get to join in on the voting, while everyone else will probably stay out of it. Both ways will work for me, though.

Maiwenn wrote:As for energising the group, I think it could be helpful to "advertise" it in logs/study groups. I suspect a lot of people are simply unaware of the Multilingual Room.

I never thought of that, as I always use the "Active topics" tag. Maybe it would be better to run the book club under Challenges?

Re: Book Club: Vote for February/March books

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2019 3:25 pm
by Radioclare
Mista wrote:
Maiwenn wrote:As for energising the group, I think it could be helpful to "advertise" it in logs/study groups. I suspect a lot of people are simply unaware of the Multilingual Room.

I never thought of that, as I always use the "Active topics" tag. Maybe it would be better to run the book club under Challenges?


I was definitely unaware of the Multilingual Room! Serpent told me that you were reading Metro 2033 for February (I'm in, reading in Croatian) but I've just spent five minutes looking through the Language Challenges section for the book club threads, before eventually giving up and searching for "book club" :lol:

Re: Book Club: Vote for February/March books

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 4:19 pm
by Maiwenn
Radioclare wrote:
Mista wrote:
Maiwenn wrote:As for energising the group, I think it could be helpful to "advertise" it in logs/study groups. I suspect a lot of people are simply unaware of the Multilingual Room.

I never thought of that, as I always use the "Active topics" tag. Maybe it would be better to run the book club under Challenges?


I was definitely unaware of the Multilingual Room! Serpent told me that you were reading Metro 2033 for February (I'm in, reading in Croatian) but I've just spent five minutes looking through the Language Challenges section for the book club threads, before eventually giving up and searching for "book club" :lol:


Welcome! I'm glad you've found your way here and that you'll be joining us on the read next month! :)

Question: will Les Hirondelles de Kaboul be the March reading or will we be doing another poll?

Re: Book Club: Vote for February/March books

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 6:30 pm
by Mista
Maiwenn wrote:Question: will Les Hirondelles de Kaboul be the March reading or will we be doing another poll?

Yes, I see no reason why it wouldn't be.

However, I do think it would be a good idea to start a new topic in the "challenges" section, partly for the reason discussed above, and also because it would be useful to edit the first post every time we choose new books - and for that to happen, the first post has to be posted by someone who is an active participant in the book club. More generally, it would be useful if the first post gave an accurate description of what we are actually doing. I can take care of that, but I'll give it a few days in case anyone has differing opinions on the subject.