[sun surfer]

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.