Late again with the Booking Through Thursday Meme, but what else is new, right? Here’s this week’s question (there’s actually another part to it, but I’m only answering this one):
Have you ever been a member of a book club? How did your group choose (or, if you haven’t been, what do you think is the best way to choose) the next book and who would lead discussion?
I’ve only ever been a member of one book club. It was an online discussion group called the Classics Book Club or something like that, and it was supposed to be a place where members could read and (virtually) discuss classic literature.
Books were chosen based on member nominations. Anyone could nominate a book, and then there would be open voting for three days. Members would then read and discuss whichever book received the most votes during the voting period.
It sounded like a good idea in theory, but the execution was atrocious. The biggest problem I had with the group was that there was constant arguing about what kinds of books could be considered “classics”. I mean, without getting into the finer points of the discussions, we had people nominating books that were first published in 2005 or 2006. Come on! A classic at least has to stand the test of time, right?
Anyway, I left that discussion group and haven’t joined another one since then.
June 13th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Another reason not to join one!
My his he being serious post!