Quote:
Originally Posted by Dazrin
I think your original thought has some merit. My gut feel, which I heard last year from others as well, is that part of the reason we are seeing less participation is because this is turning into the Literary Book Club "Lite". I am not bashing the Literary Club, but I don't think the main book club was intended to be that. Not that a specific purpose is really defined. 
Here are the categories for 2010 (highest participation) and 2014 (lowest).
Code:
2010 2012-2015
January: Science Fiction Second Chance
February: Romance Romance
March: Nonfiction Travel/Adventure
April: Humor Classics
May: Classic Mystery/Thriller
June: Thriller/Suspense Award Winners
July: Fantasy (trees/magic) Non-fiction
August: Free For All Science Fiction
September: Mystery/Crime Banned/Challenged Books
October: Horror Patricia Clark Memorial Library
November: Science Fiction Foreign (originally non-English)
December: Classic Short Stories
If we look at what is now gone vs what we now have:
Removed (-6): Science Fiction (x1), Fantasy, Humor, Free-For-All, Horror, Classic (x1)
Combined (-1): Mystery/Crime and Thriller/Suspense into Mystery/Thriller
Added (+7): Second Chance, Travel/Adventure, Award Winners, Banned/Challenged Books, PCML, Foreign, Short Stories
Same (5): Science Fiction (x1), Non-Fiction, Romance, Classic (x1), Mystery/Thriller
We have taken out 4 months with genre categories (Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror and Mystery/Thriller) and added several categories that lean toward "literary books" (Award Winners, Travel/Adventure, Banned/Challenged Books, Foreign). I think the loss of Classic and addition of PCML is about a wash as well as the Second-Chance vs. Free-For-All. |
Several of those removed categories were personal favorites. I think a free-for-all month in July would be the perfect balance to January's 2nd chance. There's no need, in my opinion, to restore the second month of classics. Travel/Adventure has never been one of my favorites. Banned Books is a better idea on paper than it is in reality; some of those books should have been banned for being boring. Horror and Fantasy are two more we could consider bringing back. And I see "Foreign" as unnecessary. If a book is good, it should be nominated no matter what the original language. Same for "Patricia Clark Memorial Library". We're already in the habit of using that resource as much as possible. There's no reason to limit ourselves to books that can be found there.
I'm ready for some changes in the categories.