Help us select the work that the MobileRead Literary Book Club will read for August 2011.
The nominations poll will run through July 25.
The category for this month is:
Member Lottery - A member is chosen by random to select the month's work
In order to be eligible, a member needs to have voted or nominated a work in every month since the last Member Lottery. Since this is the first Member Lottery, a member needs to have voted or nominated in June and July.
Each participant may nominate themselves only, if they wish. There are no seconds, thirds or so on.
To nominate yourself, please vote in the poll (I am using a poll to make the timing of the nominations closing simple). To help, please also try to make a post providing instances of your votes/nominations for June and July (simply name one work you voted/nominated for each of June and July).
Once the poll is over, a member will be randomly chosen from the nominees on July 25. There is a randomisation website that I think will work (this month will be the test drive). There is an e-mail option so that I can make a list of people to have the results sent to before I even know the outcome. Anyone can volunteer to receive an e-mail of the results, nominee or not. However, I think there may be a limit on the number of e-mails, possibly only five or ten, so first come first serve. To volunteer to verify results, you can post here and PM me with your e-mail address. If no one volunteers to receive a results e-mail then everyone will have to trust me with the results.
After the member is chosen, I will start a new vote/confirmation thread, and the winner will need to post their choice for the August selection. The member may choose any work they consider "literature". Once they have posted their choice, the work will need TEN confirmations to declare it our monthly selection. The criteria for confirming is to agree that the work is considered or seems to be "literature", whether or not it is appealing to the one confirming.
Voting/Confirmation will be open for three days. Once the selection has ten confirmations, the process will be over for August's selection. However, if the selection does not receive enough votes, then we will revert to a "second-chance" month. The five non-winning selections with the most votes from previous months will be put to a short vote and the winner will be our selection.
This is a trial month, and there may be changes in future Member Lottery months once we see how well this sort of a selection process and these particular guidelines work.
What is literature for the purposes of this book club? A well-regarded work. Often (but not always) it is important, challenging, critically acclaimed, has a deeper meaning, makes one think. It may be from ancient times to today; it may be from anywhere in the world; it may be obscure or famous, short or long; it may be a story, a novel, a play, a poem, an essay or another written form. If you are unsure if a work would be considered literature, post it and ask. This is an educational (and enjoyable) process for us all.
The floor is now open to nominations!