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Old 03-13-2013, 07:20 PM   #91
fantasyfan
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Originally Posted by caleb72 View Post
I'm one of them.

I think Jon uses the criteria Horror = Scary as he keeps mentioning this over and over. Personally, I don't think that's the only way to classify Horror.

Having said that - I wouldn't mind going non-public domain for Horror. Rosemary's Baby came up in nominations in 2011 and that would probably be a great Horror book to read with the group. Another great group read would be The Exorcist or even a classic King novel like Salem's Lot. If we ever get another Horror category I'll probably nominate and vote for books like this.
Poppy Z Brite has written some Gothic Horror that is quite incredible. I have Swamp Foetus, her short story collection--and it is not for the faint-hearted. She has most recently moved into {very} dark comedy.
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Old 03-13-2013, 08:14 PM   #92
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On the matter of free books being a preferred choice, it's not necessarily that people are just being mean.

I'm retired and so am on a restricted budget for buying books, which in Australia are a lot more expensive than in at least some other countries - including ebooks. If a book is selected by the book club that I don't already own or can't get from my library, and it's not by a favourite author, then I'm not able to justify spending money on getting a copy unless I am convinced that the particular book is something really out of the box.

The Literary Book Club selection for March is an example of that, and I am waiting on a paper copy of it to arrive from the UK, because it isn't available as an epub and Kindle was only prepared to let me have it on their "cloud", so I couldn't have turned it into an epub.

By all means have a category that requires people to buy the book in question unless they can borrow it, but understand that a number of people may not be able to participate.
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Old 03-13-2013, 09:12 PM   #93
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Poppy Z Brite has written some Gothic Horror that is quite incredible. I have Swamp Foetus, her short story collection--and it is not for the faint-hearted. She has most recently moved into {very} dark comedy.
I've only read one of her books, Exquisite Corpse. Actually, I really liked the writing, but - well - the content was a bit hard to take. Have you read that one?
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Old 03-13-2013, 09:17 PM   #94
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Originally Posted by Bookpossum View Post
On the matter of free books being a preferred choice, it's not necessarily that people are just being mean.

I'm retired and so am on a restricted budget for buying books, which in Australia are a lot more expensive than in at least some other countries - including ebooks. If a book is selected by the book club that I don't already own or can't get from my library, and it's not by a favourite author, then I'm not able to justify spending money on getting a copy unless I am convinced that the particular book is something really out of the box.

The Literary Book Club selection for March is an example of that, and I am waiting on a paper copy of it to arrive from the UK, because it isn't available as an epub and Kindle was only prepared to let me have it on their "cloud", so I couldn't have turned it into an epub.

By all means have a category that requires people to buy the book in question unless they can borrow it, but understand that a number of people may not be able to participate.
I can understand this. Horror has come under scrutiny in this discussion and I can see why those who might not be afficionados may want a little more from the selection than a scare and may not want to outlay much for a genre that isn't a preferred option. In this light, selections like Camilla and The Island of Doctor Moreau make sense - and I enjoyed both of them even though I'm a bit of a horror buff myself.

Last edited by caleb72; 03-14-2013 at 07:58 AM.
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Old 03-14-2013, 05:58 AM   #95
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I've only read one of her books, Exquisite Corpse. Actually, I really liked the writing, but - well - the content was a bit hard to take. Have you read that one?
I haven't read much beyond Swamp Foetus which I found pretty strong stuff!

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On the matter of free books being a preferred choice, it's not necessarily that people are just being mean.

I'm retired and so am on a restricted budget for buying books, which in Australia are a lot more expensive than in at least some other countries - including ebooks. If a book is selected by the book club that I don't already own or can't get from my library, and it's not by a favourite author, then I'm not able to justify spending money on getting a copy unless I am convinced that the particular book is something really out of the box.

The Literary Book Club selection for March is an example of that, and I am waiting on a paper copy of it to arrive from the UK, because it isn't available as an epub and Kindle was only prepared to let me have it on their "cloud", so I couldn't have turned it into an epub.

By all means have a category that requires people to buy the book in question unless they can borrow it, but understand that a number of people may not be able to participate.
I concur with Bookpossum. I'm in a quite similar position.

On a personal note--and with no offense intended to anyone--The idea of making sure that a book is going to cost the member money--and even banning inexpensive books is not an ideal position for an inclusive book club. As to the argument that people vote for inferior books simply because they are free:--Well, I can only speak for myself but I have never voted for a book simply because it was free nor do I presume that others do so.

In the last Literary Club vote I proposed and initially voted for two selections which were in the Public domain. But I did so because I think they are both excellent books. On the final vote, I switched to a book which I felt would provide a new and rich experience. I could have used a copy from a friend, but because it was an older unrevised edition I bought an iTunes copy to read on my iPad. There were other cases in which I bought PB copies because I felt that the proposer in each situation made a good case for them.

On balance, I prefer public domain books--all things being equal. And price is a factor I must consider--particularly if an Overdrive or Library copy is not available to me. So I echo Bookpossum: "By all means have a category that requires people to buy the book in question unless they can borrow it, but understand that a number of people may not be able to participate"

Last edited by fantasyfan; 03-14-2013 at 09:27 AM.
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Old 03-14-2013, 08:10 AM   #96
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On balance, I prefer public domain books--all things being equal.
Completely off topic, but I absolutely love public domain. I didn't really benefit from it until I looked into e-reading. Now you better believe I make the most of it.

I'm reading one now and have another lined up for April.

If I were in a position where I just couldn't spend any more money, between public domain and eLibraries I would have an endless supply of high quality reading material for the rest of my life.
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Old 03-14-2013, 08:17 AM   #97
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I don't mind free books. But I do mind when a free is clearly not as good yet it wins. We've even had a month where the book was chosen because it was short.

If we were to do the nomination/voting one month early, this would give more time to read larger books and also give time for some to save up.
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Old 03-14-2013, 09:15 AM   #98
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Money is so personal, more personal than sex or religion or politics. People shouldn't feel compelled to explain or defend how much they spend on ebooks.

I agreed with Asawi upthread that having a month of free books is appealing because it takes price out of consideration and books compete on merit alone. Unfortunately the inverse isn't true; paid books exclude some from the get-go and unless they're all priced the same, price is still a factor. Nor do paid books have a premium on quality; I'd even argue that free books are higher quality overall, as time culls the dross from public domain. As an aside, I thought Carmilla and Dr. Moreau excellent horror choices; I voted for both. Some of the unfree nominations seemed like dreck to me, but I hasten to add that's my opinion only.

When it comes to nominations, I'm pretty flexible. I borrow a lot of them from the plibrary. I'm lucky to have access to a university library and I still read pbooks. Others don't have a good library option or only read on their devices. It's up to the individual. There are a lot of factors that go into a decision, even, dare I say it, taste--which also is personal.

This discussion is making me a little sick. It's made explicit something that didn't need to be said and evidences a country club mentality that I find extremely unfortunate. I'd rather have twelve months of only free selections than to have people feel explicitly excluded because of money concerns. Before this can of worms was opened, people seemed to take a "win some, lose some" attitude and participate or not on that basis. Now lines have been drawn.
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Old 03-14-2013, 09:46 AM   #99
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I don't think cost should be a factor in our decision to read a book. Neither paid nor free guarantees quality. True, there are exceptions, but most public libraries carry copies of the latest books. The reasons I find fault with the idea of using our library as one of the categories is as I have already stated, (1) free is a poor reason to choose a book, and (2) the library is a great resource (see our current month's selection as an example) but a poor choice for a category. I would have the same objections to naming the Kindle Store or Barnes and Nobel as a category.

I'm also opposed to the idea having paid books as a category, although in truth I think the two categories that reject the free books (Users Choice and Normally Priced) were tongue-in-cheek protests over the win of the MR Library. Quality should be the overriding factor that determines which book we should read, not price.
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Old 03-14-2013, 09:57 AM   #100
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I was not basing my choice of paid vs. free for any other consideration then the selections chosen vs. those not chosen. Using Horror (again), we did have books nominated like Rosemary's Baby and Carrie yet we ended up with Camilla. That's not fair to those that wanted a book that was possibly scary. The free choice tok away from a good read for a poor read (IMHO).

For me, this was never about money but about an enjoyable read. Not all free eBooks are poor reads. But it's when they are chosen (because the are free) over a better read that I feel the problem arises.

If a book is chosen that I want to read and it's not free (Overdrive) or at a price I am willing to pay, I'll borrow the pBook from the library (if possible). The romance runner-up; if it had won, I would have read it in paper form because of the illustrated version is better then the eBook.
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Old 03-14-2013, 09:58 AM   #101
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Money is so personal, more personal than sex or religion or politics. People shouldn't feel compelled to explain or defend how much they spend on ebooks.

Before this can of worms was opened, people seemed to take a "win some, lose some" attitude and participate or not on that basis. Now lines have been drawn.
I find the contentiousness and the drawn lines very disturbing. MR and this book club have widened my knowledge and introduced me to many books I would otherwise never have known about. It has become a refuge in a contentious world. I’ve come to love you wise and gentle people who have enriched my world.

Why must we seek to control how anyone votes or how much anyone spends? Why must we lament past selections? It’s a book club that I would not have supposed to be a likely arena for power struggles and control issues. If a month’s selection doesn’t work for us, why can’t we all just let it go. This month I’m reading the selection of the literary book club and have already read a runner-up to the current selection of this club. I don’t care what anyone else does. In the immortal words of the late Rodney King: Can’t we all just get along?
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Old 03-14-2013, 10:00 AM   #102
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I don't think cost should be a factor in our decision to read a book. Neither paid nor free guarantees quality. True, there are exceptions, but most public libraries carry copies of the latest books. The reasons I find fault with the idea of using our library as one of the categories is as I have already stated, (1) free is a poor reason to choose a book, and (2) the library is a great resource (see our current month's selection as an example) but a poor choice for a category. I would have the same objections to naming the Kindle Store or Barnes and Nobel as a category.

I'm also opposed to the idea having paid books as a category, although in truth I think the two categories that reject the free books (Users Choice and Normally Priced) were tongue-in-cheek protests over the win of the MR Library. Quality should be the overriding factor that determines which book we should read, not price.
But price is a factor. We've seen it happen. This is one reason why I've 2nd a paid only option. If price wasn't a factor, then I would not care about any paid vs. free categories. But as price sis a factor vs the actual book, we have these issues.
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Old 03-14-2013, 01:01 PM   #103
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I was not basing my choice of paid vs. free for any other consideration then the selections chosen vs. those not chosen. Using Horror (again), we did have books nominated like Rosemary's Baby and Carrie yet we ended up with Camilla. That's not fair to those that wanted a book that was possibly scary. The free choice tok away from a good read for a poor read (IMHO).
Nothing's stopping anyone from reading the "scary" book and posting about it in Reading Recs. Nothing's stopping anyone from getting a group of people to agree to read it, call themselves the Alternative Book Club, and posting about it here.

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For me, this was never about money but about an enjoyable read.
You are not the ultimate arbiter of what qualifies as an "enjoyable read."

I have no interest in reading Rosemary's Baby nor Carrie because of the Christian themes, and in the case of Carrie, because it focuses on high school bullies. I didn't care for bullies when I was in school, and have no interest in reading about them now. I would not enjoy either book, no matter how well-written.

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If a book is chosen that I want to read and it's not free (Overdrive) or at a price I am willing to pay, I'll borrow the pBook from the library (if possible).
Nice that you have a nearby library with an extensive collection. Not everyone does.

I don't mind if a month winds up with a "not-cheap pay-for-it book" as one of its categories, but I'd rather there was no delusion that this means that month will select a book of higher quality than any other month. I don't choose by free-vs-paid, but I have voted by DRMfree vs contains DRM, which often works out to the same thing.
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Old 03-14-2013, 01:15 PM   #104
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I will respectfully disagree with some of the previous posts. There's a few, so I'll try to respond to them more generally rather than individually.

For those who may not want to participate in a "Normally Priced" month because of price, let me ask you this: Anytime a book over $5 is chosen, do you automatically decide not to participate? Or do you judge your interest in the book, and check to see if there are deals, library availability, etc.?

If the answer is that you do sometimes participate anyway and find cheaper ways of obtaining the book, or just buy the book outright at normal price if it interests you enough, then I don't really see the problem or objections to a "Normally Priced" month. I don't see that the end result (a normally priced selection) would be any different than some other months when a book that is normally priced is chosen. The only difference would be that all normally priced books would be on an even playing field for the month, and not have a huge disadvantage in being normally priced.

And let me be clear - I'm not saying "expensive". I'm saying normally priced. The category would still include fairly cheap books - most countries that participate here have somewhat similar conversion rates and $5 is by no means expensive compared to the general prices of books - the only caveat being that free or extremely cheap books are excluded for one month so they won't automatically have a huge advantage.

It was not that long ago - even just five or ten years ago - when book clubs were all physical, and anyone participating had to go out and buy the book - usually at normal price, or at a premium - and their only saving grace might be local library availability.

I'm not complaining about people voting in other months based on price, and I never have complained about that. People should vote how they want. But by the same token, if "Normally Priced" were voted in as a category, I don't think it should be protested against or be "contentious". It's only one month out of a year, and there are always categories some people don't like.

And I don't see it as "not inclusive" at all. By that logic, except for free-for-all, any category wouldn't be inclusive because it excludes books that don't fit the category. Normally Priced is just as inclusive as Fantasy or Non-Fiction. It includes what is part of the category and excludes the rest for the month.

I think I said it well in my previous post - "I don't see anything wrong with having one month a year where the idea is not to have "costs a normal amount" be a big detriment to a book's chances." This category is about giving those books - normally priced books, which are a majority of non-self-published, non-public-domain-classics books - an equal playing field for one month. It's not like normally priced books are a small niche group - they are the majority!

Finally, I'll sum up by saying that I don't find the topic contentious nor did I nominate it out of protest. However, it was more of an "hm, what else can I think of to nominate?" category since most of what I would support was already fully nominated. I never expected it to win this month, but if it did, I think it would be an interesting category.

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Old 03-14-2013, 01:23 PM   #105
Dazrin
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Posts: 2,627
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: PDXish
Device: Kindle Voyage, various Android devices
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck View Post
I don't choose by free-vs-paid, but I have voted by DRMfree vs contains DRM, which often works out to the same thing.
Price/availability is normally a tie-breaker for me rather than a criteria. If two books are both interesting to me, I will probably choose the cheaper or easier to obtain alternative, but if there are no books that are interesting to me, I just won't vote. I also won't vote if I can't afford or obtain the book I do prefer (see the travel vote this year).

Basically, I won't vote for a cheap alternative just because it is cheap. I will only vote for a book I want to read and can obtain to read, sometimes that means I will vote for a cheaper book but it doesn't mean I would vote for a book that doesn't sound interesting or that I don't think fits the category.
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