MoFo Book Club?

I've created a monster!

True, and sad. I can't help them as I don't know what genre will be chosen month to month other than it won't be the same genre for back to back months.
I have somewhat eclectic tastes when it comes to reading so I have many books from different genre's I'd like to read.

A great idea but I don't want to limit the club to only books made into movies. That would disqualify far too many great books imo. But we could certainly do that when the stars align.

I'm ok with that. Hopefully you'll participate on a regular basis.

My thoughts for the club:

1. Members nominate books and vote for the one they're interested in. Anything goes (except politics).

2. Genre's can't be repeated on back to back months.

3. In order to nominate a book you must have actively participated the previous month, but you can still vote.

4. Don't take it, or make it, personal. Not everyone will like the same book.

5. Have fun!!

6. Rinse and repeat...

Suggestions? Thoughts?

I would echo Austruck's sentiment that in some months, various people, including myself, might dip in and out depending on the book. The MoFo song tournament works in pretty much the same way, with participation waxing and waning as the rounds go by...


BTW...

Currently reading:

Fiction: Something Wicked this Way Comes - Bradbury
Non-Fiction: The Lie About the Truck - Tisdale

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Yeah, I'd participate contingent on book choice, too. Nobody be offended, my standards for that sort of thing are high.

*looks on Yoda's nightstand*





Anyway, I up for it. Were you hoping to start in January?

Selfishly, On Chesil Beach has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for the last three years.

Yes, a January start is what I'm hoping for. Look for a new thread to officially launch the club.

I've just bought a Kindle so I'm happy to get onboard a project that motivates me into reading more again.

Sign me up.

Welcome!

I met McEwan at an idiotic festival a few years ago (he was rather unlikeable) and read this shortly after. It’s entertaining enough but seemed equally unpleasant to me. Shame this one didn’t come to my mind when we were discussing sex scenes. It’s a good read, though.

I actually have this book...

Thoughts on nomination and voting time.

I realize that we can't be here 24/7 so some time must be allotted for the process of nominating and voting on books. I was thinking ~ 72 hrs. for nominations and ~ 48 hrs. for voting.

Please chime in if you have other ideas on this, or any other suggestion I've made.

I'd recommend longer periods for both. Forums being asynchronous means a lot of people will check in every couple of days (some maybe even once a week), and/or just not notice the threads right away.

That said, there's benefit to keeping it brisk, so it's reasonable to prioritize that over making sure as many people as possible see things and participate, if that's the way you wanna go. My feeling from running various other little events and things is that participation and visibility are always the harder things, but as long as you're aware of the tradeoffs/the decision is intentional, go with what feels best.

Being locked down over Xmas and New Year... I've sat and read Jurassic Park for about the 14th time, and I've also managed to get through Lord Of The Rings for only the 2nd time ever in one shot.

I've still got no f*cking idea what LOTR was about though. Damned thing is like reading a historical document.

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I agree with you about visibility and participation. But we only have 30 days to read and discuss. In addition to the nomination and voting period people will need time to acquire the winning book. That may take some people another 2 to 3 days. That's 8 days of the 30 gone.

I will gladly increase the time for nomination and voting if that's what we want to do, and if we feel there would be enough time left to read and discuss.

Would like to hear from others.

Use a 5-ish week rotation instead. 7 days to vote and get the book, and then start the clock on a 30 day reading period. If some people need to suck up a day or two into the 30-day portion to acquire the book, they still have a full 4 weeks to read it afterward. The nature of the forum is going to slow down the voting and nom process no matter what, so it must be accounted for somehow.

Plus, it doesn't have to be an exact calendar month for any of this if we find out it's not a long enough stretch to include nominating, voting, reading, and discussing. I can't even guess how long it'll take to discuss a book--and that will likely vary widely depending on the book and the people who've read it.

Also factor in that folks here are from across the globe and, in some cases, are twelve hours apart or more. That's gonna affect how/when they access the forum.

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I've been in numerous events like this on this board, in Hall of Fames (HoFs). Usually we give 5-7 days to join a 3 month HoF, but we allow people to join in after it starts AND people know in advance when the start date is so they can prepare for it before it even starts.

So in the future you could start the next Book Club a week or so before the previous one is set to end. That way you have a full 30 days to read and still give ample time for people to nominate and vote for the next book.

With that said it's your idea so you should do what works best, just consider being flexible and evolving this as it proceeds.

Yeah, I guess making it literally "of the month" makes for a pretty aggressive schedule, by necessity. So you can either fudge that here and there (and skip the occasional month to compensate), make it every two months, etc. Or just try the fast pace and see what happens.

Fair enough. Thank you all for the input.

I'll start a new thread for the next book ~ a week before the end of the month. 4 days for nominations and 3 for voting.

Would that be agreeable? If we need to adjust as time goes on we can always do that.