New Leaf Themes! Themes! Themes!

[issybird]

It's time to think about our next slate of themes, for the period starting September 1.

The proposal is to hash it out in this thread. Everyone who's interested can nominate one theme. When the dust settles, we'll see what we've got. If it's not too many, we can just go with it. There will be a poll to winnow the list if we would be committed too far into the future, in the interest of staying flexible in case our interests change or we come up with a new approach.

The fine print: The only restriction is no genre nominations; themes only. Everyone knows the drill; we have a tag line and then a theme. But if you can only come up with a theme or aren't happy with your tag, our helpful club will be glad to supply ideas (no doubt they'll provide commentary in any case).

Feel free to comment, suggest, make observations about your own nominations or others'. Tweaking can take place and the discussion can fine tune proposals. If you change your mind and come up with a better idea, that's great. Go ahead and post your new nomination and it will be substituted for the old one. There will be a master list of nominations which can be altered until everyone's satisfied.

For anyone who wants to refer to the old theme thread for ideas or as a memory jogger, it's here.

I think that's it. If anything's been missed or you have questions or suggestions, I'll amend this.

So, what themes will we have?

[issybird]

Proposed themes:

• astrangerhere: Lost in Translation: Other Tongues
• Bookpossum: Naturally Gifted: Prodigies
• Bookworm_Girl: The Way I Heard It: Retellings
• Catlady: Murder, They Wrote: Deadly Pursuits
• CRussel: You're Never Too Young: Children
• Dazrin: Let's Make a Deal: Trade Secrets
• Dngrsone: Just for Fun: Guilty Pleasures
• fantasyfan: Into the Labyrinth: The Quest
• gmw: Out of This World!: Otherwhence
• orlok: Lies and Misdirection: Unreliable Narrators

[gmw]

Out of this world!

Strictly fantasy or science fiction - anything not set on this planet.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by gmw

Out of this world!

Strictly fantasy or science fiction - anything not set on this planet.

I'm going to step in. "Out of this world" is great, but people would be free to interpret that as they wish. The stricture on genre nominations precludes "strictly fantasy or science fiction." There's no problem with playing the game by suggestions that slant toward a particular genre, but it's got to be open-ended. There shouldn't be a problem of tweaking this to get it compliant!

Glad this came up; examples are helpful.

[gmw]

Ah, of course. Thanks for the correction. (Maybe I could pretend I raised this example especially to help you out. )

[Catlady]

Only one suggestion per customer? Awww.

What about something like Murder, They Wrote. This could include anything from mysteries to true crime to history to sociology.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Only one suggestion per customer? Awww.

What about something like Murder, They Wrote. This could include anything from mysteries to true crime to history to sociology.

Or even biography: There's an Agatha Christie biography that's been on my list for a long while. So I like it.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Only one suggestion per customer? Awww.

What about something like Murder, They Wrote. This could include anything from mysteries to true crime to history to sociology.

Well, you can suggest as many as you'd like. But only one official nomination per person, hoping that will mean that everyone who wants gets to pick a theme. That depends on how many participate. We don't want to commit until the next administration; we could be sick of themes by then.

And yes, "Murder, They Wrote" works in the way "Out of this world" works. It might suggest a genre, but people can go with it as they'd like, or as far as they'd come up with a justification.

JIMHO the appeal of themes as opposed to genres is that they're more inclusive. It can be difficult if not impossible for someone who's not a sci-fi fan, just as one example, to come up with a strictly sci-fi nomination. And then a list of pure sci-fi works in the poll might lead the non-fan to think, "Not this month." Ideally, while this process might not result in the perfect choice for the hard core, it will come up with something that's good enough to appeal across the board.

I also think the themes are more creative and more fun, but again, that's me. People are free to disagree with any or all of the above. We can always change direction if that's what most want.

[issybird]

I'm going to make a provisional nomination that's been close to my heart: "My favorite book you've never heard of."

I'll withdraw it, though, if the nominations start to get unwieldy, in the interest of getting as many members on the slate as possible.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

JIMHO the appeal of themes as opposed to genres is that they're more inclusive. It can be difficult if not impossible for someone who's not a sci-fi fan, just as one example, to come up with a strictly sci-fi nomination. And then a list of pure sci-fi works in the poll might lead the non-fan to think, "Not this month." Ideally, while this process might not result in the perfect choice for the hard core, it will come up with something that's good enough to appeal across the board.

I also think the themes are more creative and more fun, but again, that's me. People are free to disagree with any or all of the above. We can always change direction if that's what most want.

I don't.

[Dngrsone]

Would a category such as "Just Plain Fun" be too broad? I like to wallow into the humorous/not-so-serious stuff on occasion.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

Would a category such as "Just Plain Fun" be too broad? I like to wallow into the humorous/not-so-serious stuff on occasion.

Go for it. I figure we'll get the nominations up and hone and refine where desirable.

I like humor, too.

[CRussel]

I'd like to suggest a children's books theme, focused on favourite books we read as kids and how well those books stand up to reading as adults. It could also include books we read _with_ our kids, and how they got different things out of it than we did. (Keep in mind that us old folks tend to have a somewhat different definition of kids than you youngsters, so I'd suggest this scales up to at least YA. )

What got me thinking about this was the Oz books of L. Frank Baum that I devoured as a child. We had an entire set of them that had been passed down from my father, complete with absolutely wonderful illustrations.

For a catch phrase, something along the lines of "You're never too young"

[Dazrin]

I saw a category listed in a Goodread's summer challenge that was "I feel a breeze" and was supposed to have nudists involved in some way.

I'll come back to nominate something later but I laughed at that one.

[Bookpossum]

I like “You’re never too young” Charlie - nice phrase and theme.

My suggestion is “Over the hills and far away”, which could cover books about travel, distant countries, or even nursery rhymes.