Book Club Selections List
 

This is a list of all the books read as part of the Mobileread Book Club so far, with links to the discussions. (Someone asked if we had a list, and we didn't, so I put one together.) I like the idea of "we don't have to stop discussing it when the month is over," but once the thread falls off the first page, it's hard to find again. This should make it easier to pick up the discussions later.

Categories are chosen by a combination of discussion and votes in the Book Clubs forum.

2008
November: Fiction A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
December: MR Classic Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

2009
January: Science Fiction The Time Traders by Andre Norton
February: MR Contemporary Refuge by Richard Herley
March: Nonfiction Professor and the Mad Man by Whincester Simon
April: MR Author Neptune Crossing by Jeffrey A. Carver
May: Horror Dracula by Bram Stoker
June: MR Classic King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
July: Humor Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
August: Contemporary Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
September: Mystery The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
October: MR Author Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer, Also: Verdant Skies by Steve Jordan
November: Classic The Trial by Frans Kafka
December: 2nd Chance: Runners-up Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers

2010
January: Science Fiction The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
February: Romance Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
March: Nonfiction (tie) The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson and Stiff by Mary Roach
April: Humor The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald
May: Classic The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne
June: Thriller/Suspense The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
July: Fantasy (trees/magic) Sheepfarmer's Daugher by Elizabeth Moon
August: Free For All The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
September: Mystery/Crime Killing Floor by Lee Child
October: Horror Risen by Jan Strnad
November: Science Fiction Old Man's War by John Scalzi
December: Classic The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

2011
January: 2nd Chance: Runners-up The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
February: Romance A Room With A View by E.M. Forster
March: Nonfiction The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
April: Humor Hal Spacejock 01 by Simon Haynes
May: Classic Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
June: Thriller/Suspense Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
July: Fantasy (trees/magic) The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One by Patrick Rothfuss
August: Free For All Slaughterhouse Five by Kurk Vonnegut
September: Mystery/Crime The Chinese Maze Murders by Robert van Gulik
October: Horror The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells
November: Science Fiction A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
December: Classic A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

2012
January*: Runner Up Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse
February: Romance Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
March: Thriller/Suspense Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
April*: Humour The Princess Bride by William Goldman
May: Fantasy Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
June: Classic Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
July: Mystery/Crime Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
August*: Free For All The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
September: Nonfiction A Thousand Miles Up the Nile by Amelia Edwards
October: Horror Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanu
November: Science Fiction Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
December*: Classic Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

* The voting this month was visible.

2013
January: Second Chance - Persuasion by Jane Austen
February: Romance - A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute
March: Travel/Adventure - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
April: Classics - A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
May: Mystery/Thriller - The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
June: Award Winners - The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
July: Non-fiction Fanny and Stella by Neil McKenna
August: Science Fiction Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
September: Banned/Challenged Books The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
October: Patricia Clark Memorial Library Dr. Izard by Anna Katherine Green
November: Foreign (originally non-English) The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
December: Short Stories Dubliners by James Joyce

2014 (all voting visible)
January: 2nd Chance: Runners-up All Quite on the Western Front by Erich Maria Rema
February: Romance Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
March: Travel/Adventure On the Trail of Genghis Khan by Tim Cope
April: Classics The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
May: Mystery/Thriller The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
June: Award Winners
July: Non-fiction
August: Science Fiction
September: Banned/Challenged Books
October: Patricia Clark Memorial Library
November: Foreign (originally non-English)
December: Short Stories

Thank you for putting the work into making this list! This is a great resource.

Adding my thanks. This is terrific.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I will bookmark this post! :)

Adding great thanks. This is very interesting and I am sorry I was not around for a number of these. Maybe this could be moved up to the sticky section?

Great suggestion Hamlet! :thumbsup:

Karma to you!

Groovy.

I'm not much of a participant :o, but I love to read the book club discussions. (One day I'll read and post, but so far I've just been reading the threads without reading the book, or I've read the book so long before that I don't remember the details.) Thanks for posting the titles and links!

Nominations for October's book won't be open for a while, and it'll get its own thread, like the September nominations thread. (Just letting you know that leaving a note here won't count toward the official selection process; this is just a list of past nominations & vote-winners.)

Does subscribing to this thread update me to your newly selected titles for future months?

I'll keep an eye on the selected books and if one catches my eye I'll join in that month. How do we start our own book clubs here?

Not yet? Subscribing to a thread doesn't get you notified when the original post is edited. I could, however, post a reply when I update, which would let people know there's a new book listed. (That's a good idea, actually; I think I'll do that. Probably not for the voting thread, but once the discussion's actually started, I can add a comment so people who've subscribed to this list know when something new is up.)

You make a post that says "New Book Club: [topic]," and if people think it's interesting, they reply and start talking about those books. The only "officialness" to the MR "official" book club is that the mods move the threads to the sticky part of the forum during the month when they're happening, and they'd be happy to do that with pretty much any relevant thread.

They're not going to sticky everything, but another active book club shouldn't be a problem. If we get three dozen active book clubs? They'll make a new forum for book clubs.

nice work!

There were two books up for discussion in October '09? :blink:

^As well as March 2010. There was a tie in the voting and they just went with both before they've tried to come up with an actual winner now.

Oct 2011 selection
 

October 2011's book club selection, for Horror, is now live (has been for a few days, but I missed it going up; sorry): The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells

Hi Elfwreck.

The discussion for November went up: Discussion: A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller (spoilers)

Thanks! I've updated it.

2012 Categories & Schedule
 

Here are the categories for 2012. They are the same as for 2011, but the order has been shifted somewhat as per HomeInMyShoes' excellent suggestion.

Elfwreck, you may want to incorporate this information into your first post in this thread. :thanks:

Could we have Romance be open instead of Thriller/Suspense?

Romance is a throw away month so we may as well make the vote throw away as well.

Hopefully by the end of 2012 you and I will have the votes necessary to change to all hidden for 2013. I don't like having both classics visible, but every third month seemed about as fair as I could make it and I didn't want to change the schedule arbitrarily to suit my desires.

Updated with changes to schedule and December's selection.

Thanks, Elfwreck!

We could have the second month of each group of three months be the open vote instead of the third. That would make the open votes: Romance, Fantasy, FreeForAll and Science Fiction.

How about starting off in January with the open vote? Since we've just had two months in a row closed anyway. Seems fair.

Given how the voting went, the fair thing is to not have any open voting.

Unfortunately, that would also mean that now both "Classic" months would be closed, and I think Tom wants one open and one closed.

If we do every 4th month open then we could have one Classic open and one Classic closed.

January — RunnerUp
February — Romance
March — Thriller/Suspense
April — Humour*
May — Fantasy
June — Classic
July — Mystery/Crime
August — FreeForAll*
September — NonFiction
October — Horror
November — Science Fiction
December — Classic*

*Voting during this month will be visible.

I like the idea of starting open voting in January.

I like this schedule, but would also like to add open voting in January.

I like that a lot. That would give us four and we wouldn't have to wait so long for the next open vote.

:thanks:

The only problem I see there is that we then have both December then January open.

I don't know how others would feel about that.

Edit: I tried doing every 3rd vs every 4th month open, while starting with January as open, and we still ended up with both Classics being closed.

Oh, heck, it'll all be changed again by January 2013!

(In any case, I think it would be more interesting to change the open/closed topics from year to year.)

It' will only change in 2013 if people decide they don't like how things go in 2012.

I don't mind which four months are open really (I'm even fine with it being both classics), but I do think it would be better if we went with either the first months of each group of three, the second months of each group of three, or the third months of each group of three, to keep some sort of regular schedule to it.

So those options are:

First month of each three (Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct) = Runner-up, Humour, Mystery, Horror
Second month of each three (Feb/May/Aug/Nov) = Romance, Fantasy, FreeForAll, Science Fiction
Third month of each three (Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec) = Thriller, Classic, NonFiction, Classic

If 2/3 of the months are hidden, then I don't see a problem with both classics months being hidden, though with only 1/3 open, I do think it would be a little odd for both classics months to be open. So the "third month" option is probably not ideal.

So that leaves first or second month as the better options, in my opinion. But I really don't care, I'm just throwing out some suggestions that may work well and be the simplest considering the circumstances.

I do think, though, that we should just leave this to Tom to decide. Give our opinions and whatnot then let him decide which four months to have open. Which months are open are not that important and there's other things to discuss.

We're already debating getting rid of the second classics category for 2013. I think it makes sense to decide on changes from year to year.

Yes, *if* we kept this scheme 2013 and beyond (and that's a big "if"), I would think we'd probably rotate the open months.

At least, that's what I'd suggested we'd do from year to year if we'd been doing simple alternating (i.e. one year open polls would've been on even months, the next year open polls would've been on odd months, etc.).

Tom is the one who initially brought it up.

Then you made suggestions based off of that and I made suggestions based off of your suggestions with two people, Val and Issybird, asking for January to be "Open".... It has been a perfectly logical conversation thus far.

You're right. I didn't think of that.

OK, does this look good, then?

January — RunnerUp*
February — Romance
March — Thriller/Suspense
April — Humour*
May — Fantasy
June — Classic
July — Mystery/Crime
August — FreeForAll*
September — NonFiction
October — Horror
November — Science Fiction
December — Classic*

*Voting during this month will be visible.

:tup::tup: