To get a jump on things when this gets going in July, I thought I would round up all of the categories that have been used and proposed* in the past.
Here are the categories that have been used at some time in the book club already. The items in parenthesis are different names, but I think were intended to be the same categories (or close enough).
- Award Winners
- Banned/Challenged Books
- Classics (MR Classics)
- Contemporary (MR Contemporary)
- Fantasy (Fantasy-Trees/Magic)
- Foreign (originally non-English)
- Free-For-All
- Horror
- Humor
- MR Author
- Mystery (Mystery/Crime) (Mystery/Thriller)
- Non-Fiction
- Patricia Clark Memorial Library
- Romance
- Science Fiction
- Second Chance/Runners-Up
- Short Stories
- Thriller/Suspense (maybe "Mystery/Thriller" goes here)
- Travel/Adventure
I have also gone through the 2012 category nomination threads and grabbed the unique ones from there. Some have been combined for brevity.
- 21st Century
- Modern Fiction
- Classic Literature (>25 years old)
- Modern Literature (<10 years old)
- Books from 1989-2004 (i.e., not modern and not classical literature) (updated dates)
- Adventure
- Crime
- Free-For-All (Everything Else)
- First in a Series
- Folk Tales
- Graphic Novels
- Philosophy (Greek Philosophy)
- Historical Fiction
- History
- Indie
- Lottery (Winner chooses book) (Winner provides a list) (3x Winners provide a list)
- Major Award Winners (non-genre awards)
- Mythology
- No PBook Available (only available as ebooks)
- Non-Classics
- Science
- Normally Priced (i.e., not free/public domain)
- Novels of [specific author] (Robert Heinlein was suggested)
- Novels written by [specific nationality] author (Japanese and middle eastern were suggested)
- [User's] Choice (Nyssa and orlok were suggested)
- Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (and boats)
- Pulp Adventure
- Sci-Fi/Fantasy
- Speculative Fiction
- Splatterpunk
- Stories with a [fill-in-the-blank] theme (Christmas was suggested)
- Urban Fantasy
- Young Adult
And last, here is the list I would have for voting on if I was dictator. I tried to take all of the basic ideas from above and include them. Sometimes that meant making the category a little less specific, but hopefully I got the intent included.
If starting from scratch, I would have 3 votes and take the top 3-4 from each category below, probably 4/3/4, and then ask a volunteer to sort them in a way that makes "sense" for the year. If we were only replacing a few categories I would see what categories are staying and reduce the number selected from each category to give a well-rounded final list.
Spoiler:
Preselected Category:
January: Second Chance (All the runners-up from last year) - That way we don't need nominations during the holidays and can just have the vote and can extend the vote since people may be busier than normal.
General Categories:- Award Winners (choose your own award)
- Banned/Challenged Books (someone had a problem with this book somewhere)
- Classics (choose your own definition of "classic")
- Contemporary Books ("newer" books, any source)
- Foreign (originally non-English)
- MR Author (especially if we can find an author who would provide a copy of their book for discussion and discuss it with us)
- Patricia Clark Memorial Library (celebrate our own wonderful resource!)
- Free-For-All (anyone except for JSWolf can nominate anything, Jon must nominate a "classic".
)***
- Lottery (volunteer or winner provides a list for selection, see Literary club rotating nominations. If no one wants to provide a list, this becomes a free-for-all month.)
- Short Stories or Essays (specific short story or a collection which could be an anthology, a collection, or a web list of "best stories", etc.)
- Independently published books
- Personal Favorites (what is yours? Maybe limit nominations to 1 book, but don't require a second/third?)
Non-Fiction Friendly Categories:**- Non-Fiction (anything non-fiction)
- Science
- Philosophy
- Biography/Memoirs
- Travel/Adventure (could be fiction or non-Fiction)
- History
- Mythology (and folk tales, etc)
- Humor (could be fiction or non-fiction)
Probably Going to be Fiction Categories:- Romance
- Crime (fiction or non-fiction)
- Mystery (cozy mysteries, etc.)
- Thriller/Suspense (hard to be cozy with the action and/or tension in here)
- Historical Fiction
- Graphic Novels
- Young Adult
Note: I would limit the categories to at most 2 of the following (to prevent saturation):
- Speculative Fiction (catch-all for fantasy, science fiction, horror, steampunk, etc.)
- Science Fiction (general sci-fi, Space opera, post-apocalyptic, etc.)
- Fantasy (magic is generally involved)
- Urban Fantasy (and paranormal or other contemporary magic.)
- Horror (Psychological, physical, supernatural, choose your own flavor. Yes, that could include "splatterpunk")
*Proposed categories only from the 2012 nominations threads.
**I don't read much non-fiction, so would probably ask for more categories, but I think these cover most of what was previously suggested.
***I know how much Jon loves the Classics category, thus his interpretation of it is "any good book is a classic". Works for me in the free-for-all category.
Can you tell I didn't have much going on this afternoon?