Literary The MR Literary Club • Welcome, Information & General Discussion

[Bookworm_Girl]

Sounds good to me!

[sun surfer]

Great! Then that will be the plan.

[sun surfer]

Now is the time to choose May's topic!

Any and all ideas are appreciated; just post! We are very flexible with the approach to our monthly topic and it can be a topic, theme, category or whatever else may work. We're looking forward to any ideas offered and the floor is now open!

Bookworm_Girl suggests this:

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

I have been brainstorming some ideas too. I was thinking something about an unusual Point of View in the book, but I haven't figured out a clever way to express it. Hope that makes sense!

[sun surfer]

For the topic name, I like 'An Unusual Point of View', or 'An Unusual Viewpoint' or 'An Unusual Perspective'; something like that. I'm wondering more what we'd give for the brief topic description in the OP.

[fantasyfan]

A different point of view could apply to a story written from a minority social/spiritual/gender perspective. Perhaps it might incorporate an iconoclastic approach such as a narrative which views the Mount Rushmore sculpture as an insult to Native American culture. I don’t know of a book which actually uses that specific topic but such works can often be both challenging and revelatory.

[sun surfer]

That sounds great, fantasyfan. I think we're set for May now.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Yes, thanks very much!

[sun surfer]

I might try two new things I’ve been thinking on. One is to make the texts of posts as the club runner a different colour. With a small club I often have to post multiple times in a row, sometimes as club runner and sometimes as a participant. This would help distinguish between the posts. I would want it to be a subtler, muted colour, and it couldn’t be close to green. I was thinking maybe a brown or dark orange.

The other thing is that I might try posting each week in the discussion thread of the current selection asking how everyone is doing with it. This might be a small gesture that could spur on discussion. My biggest concern is that I might miss some weeks or not be perfectly consistent on the timing of the posts but as long as everyone is okay with that I might like to give it a try.

What does everyone think?

[Bookworm_Girl]

Yes, I like the ideas.

[sun surfer]

All right, I'll try them both out.

I've started with May's selection thread using brown as the colour. I might prefer an even darker/subtler brown but the text colour selection is limited. I may play around with it a little more in the coming months.

I'll also begin with May's selection of making a weekly post asking about progress, as best as I can remember to anyway. And we can see how that goes.

[sun surfer]

Now is the time to choose June's topic!

Any and all ideas are appreciated; just post! We are very flexible with the approach to our monthly topic and it can be a topic, theme, category or whatever else may work. This is a collaborative approach and even any small idea or addition that others may build on is welcome. We're looking forward to any ideas offered and the floor is now open!

[sun surfer]

I've had a few new ideas to play with.

The first is because June is the club's birthday month and we'll turn eight years old. So I was thinking something along the lines of 'birthdays, parties and celebrations'. This would be a pretty open topic but would focus on books with prominent celebrations of some sort, or perhaps a significant birth or birthday. Then there's a few meanings of the word 'party' that could be inspiration. And of course a book with any of those main words in the title, or even just a celebratory title, could work.

The second is something to do with 'new'. I always liked the Contemporary category we used to have but was trying to think how to transform it into a topic similar to what we usually have now, so I was thinking of the word new and some idioms that include it with its meaning being a focus of the expression that could be good topics:

-Dawn of a New Day. This one could not only include any new/contemporary books, but also books relating to 'dawns'/sunrises/etc., or books about a character or characters having a big change of life or emerging from tribulations, or maybe books about a societal change happening, or books with 'new', 'dawn', or 'day' in the title, or maybe simply books about hope or optimism since that's a major component of the expression.

-Something New Under the Sun. This is an alteration of the classic expression 'nothing new under the sun'. This would of course include any new/contemporary books as well as any books about something new, novel or innovative, and people could play with the 'under the sun' part to have nominations relating to the sun or the words 'under' or 'sun'.

Some other thoughts are 'a new light', 'ring in the new', 'that's a new one' or 'what's new?'. Another possibility is 'Fresh Blood' which even without the word 'new' would include any new/contemporary books but could also have something to do characters going into a new situation where they might be considered fresh blood, or maybe books with blood, violence, murder, etc. We could also go with simply 'New' as the topic if we're feeling minimalist.

If anyone likes any of these or has any suggestions/alterations/additions to any of these, or any separate ideas of you own, please post!

[AnotherCat]

Something New Under the Sun seems to me to be able to open up plenty of interesting possibilities in both fiction and nonfiction.

I would be happy to go with that.

[sun surfer]

Great! June’s topic is settled.

[sun surfer]

Now is the time to choose July's topic!

All ideas are appreciated; just post! We're very flexible with our monthly topic; it can be a topic, theme, category or whatever else. This can also be collaborative so any little kernel of an idea is great.

The floor is now open!