MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Lit and MR Book Clubs

Bookworm_Girl · 11-28-2017, 05:11 PM

Here are some of my thoughts on this topic. As an outside observer to the main club, I'm not sure that you embraced early discussions like you could have. It works very well in the literary club.

I think that leapfrogging is an interesting proposal that would help address library availability and personal time constraints. If that is the path forward, then I would recommend you start the discussion on the 1st of the month and not the 20th but encourage people to chime in at any time that month.

I believe that the literary club has done better at in-depth discussions than the main club. I believe that starting the discussion right away rather than waiting a few weeks promoted better discussions. I feel quite strongly about that actually . It enables people to post when they have time available and when thoughts are fresh. We discuss topics like where to find a book or merits of different translations or the publisher's version with the best introductory/supplemental material. We also discuss information about the author such as interviews, podcasts, links to book reviews, etc. Sometimes I find reading someone else's thoughts while I am reading helps to see things I would have missed.

The literary club respects that some people don't want spoilers. The forum has spoiler tags. We use these if you want to post something early in the discussion that others might not want to know. And of course nobody forces you to read the threads before you are finished!

I agree with issybird that I don't necessarily want to read all mainstream books that have pre-exisiting book club questions.

I think that we could develop a rather standard list of questions to initiate discussions. I also think there could be some standard author information like I described above posted. I think that the club moderators could help with developing questions while reading (perhaps with PMs from other members) that they could use to help facilitate better discussions. I don't want to feel like discussions are forced but clearly it's not happening organically and it's going take an effort at facilitation to promote it.

I think that as a club participant we should also feel accountable to add something meaningful to advance the discussion even if it is as simple ad adding "because" after I did or didn't like it. To me the point of belonging to a book club is to read new books I wouldn't necessarily find on my own and to have an interesting dialogue about them.

11-28-2017, 05:11 PM	#73
Bookworm_Girl E-reader Enthusiast Posts: 4,873 Karma: 36536965 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Southwest, USA Device: Kindle Oasis 3; Kobo Aura One; iPad Mini 5	Here are some of my thoughts on this topic. As an outside observer to the main club, I'm not sure that you embraced early discussions like you could have. It works very well in the literary club. I think that leapfrogging is an interesting proposal that would help address library availability and personal time constraints. If that is the path forward, then I would recommend you start the discussion on the 1st of the month and not the 20th but encourage people to chime in at any time that month. I believe that the literary club has done better at in-depth discussions than the main club. I believe that starting the discussion right away rather than waiting a few weeks promoted better discussions. I feel quite strongly about that actually . It enables people to post when they have time available and when thoughts are fresh. We discuss topics like where to find a book or merits of different translations or the publisher's version with the best introductory/supplemental material. We also discuss information about the author such as interviews, podcasts, links to book reviews, etc. Sometimes I find reading someone else's thoughts while I am reading helps to see things I would have missed. The literary club respects that some people don't want spoilers. The forum has spoiler tags. We use these if you want to post something early in the discussion that others might not want to know. And of course nobody forces you to read the threads before you are finished! I agree with issybird that I don't necessarily want to read all mainstream books that have pre-exisiting book club questions. I think that we could develop a rather standard list of questions to initiate discussions. I also think there could be some standard author information like I described above posted. I think that the club moderators could help with developing questions while reading (perhaps with PMs from other members) that they could use to help facilitate better discussions. I don't want to feel like discussions are forced but clearly it's not happening organically and it's going take an effort at facilitation to promote it. I think that as a club participant we should also feel accountable to add something meaningful to advance the discussion even if it is as simple ad adding "because" after I did or didn't like it. To me the point of belonging to a book club is to read new books I wouldn't necessarily find on my own and to have an interesting dialogue about them.