|
Here's a radical idea -
(and this is probably the worst time for it with club membership at its lowest, but this isn't necessarily meant to be taken seriously but rather to get people to think about it all from a different perspective)
What I see is that the problem many people have here is that people want more modern books and more genre books, but overall people who like older or literary books often win out. For the most part, regardless of what new categories we choose, that's not likely to change.
Well, what if we split the general club in two? We could keep a general club, and then also have a Modern Genre Book Club. In this new club offshoot, every nomination must be modern (i.e. after a certain date) and every category must be a popular genre such as Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller, Romance, Humour, Horror, etc., etc. And that would even leave some room for more specific genres that the majority might like such as Urban Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Young Adult, etc.
Then, back at the general club, we could still have some genres, but that would free us up have/keep the more creative categories, like award winners, foreign, free for all, banned/challenged, PCML, etc.
And there could be overlap. Just as now we have a nonfiction category in the lit club and in the general club, there may for instance be a Mystery category in the Modern Genre club and also in the general club, etc.
Obviously, the main problems are who would run the other club (not me!) and even with someone running it, keeping good participation with both. But it would without a doubt solve the problem people are complaining of with regards to winners in this club, and in a way that new book club would balance out the lit club so that the general club would then be sitting comfortably in the middle.
|