Greetings all. Here's how it works:
We read one book a month. Whoever chooses the book writes a review of up to 500 words and posts it on the 15th of the month, then everyone else joins in the discussion in the comments section.
If you're choosing the book, please make the choice by the beginning of the month before your review is due. So, if you're choosing December's book, please let the rest of us know what the book will be by November 1. Post your choice here on the site with the month and year as the title heading (eg, Book for September 07) and the title and author in the labels section.
When you're writing the review, please put the title in the post title and the title and author in the labels. In the first line of the body of the post, put the author's name and in the first par, tell us why you chose the book. Everything else is up to you. Don't worry if you're including spoilers in your discussion. Presumably, we'll all have read the book and not being able to discuss the ending isn't going to work.
If for any reason you can't do your month, try to give us as much notice as you can. Post an SOS and the first person to reply in the comments can take over.
I'd like to stick to good quality fiction, with some non-fiction and biography thrown in. Preferably, the books should have been written in the past few years so that (a) most of us will be reading them for the first time and (b) they'll be fairly easy to come by. But that said, I can't see any reason why we shouldn't include a few classics or older books here and there. Try not to pick any huge, thick slabs of books, though. Anything over 500 pages can get a bit wearing.
We've already had objections to Harry Potter, so he's out of the running. Jane Austen and The Celestine Prophecy have had votes against them too. I despise James Joyce, so anyone who tries to make me read Ulysses again is just asking me to get my crazy pants on.
I'll select the order we choose books in by ballot and post the list. If new people join, I'll add them to the bottom. It could take a little while to get around to your pick, as the last count was 23 members. In the interests of getting started and because I'm a selfish git, I'll choose the first book.
Between official group books, feel free to post short reviews of anything you think the group might be interested in, or anything you fancy about books, reading, writing or writers. Mockery of celebrity authors or those who have their 'autobiographies' written by ghost writers will be especially well-regarded.
Bon apetite!
It's a book group, Jim, but not as we know it
book for December 07
Ecstasy, Irvine Welsh
5 comments:
Just one question. If a book is that bad that can't finish it without honestly trying to, is it still valid to post a review on it about how suckful it was, from what I read?
Hmm, good question, that. It would be nice if at least the person who chose the book could finish it. I suppose it would be preferable to have read whatever you choose before you nominate it to eliminate that problem. But if you hate someone else's book to death and can't finish it without giving yourself nightmares or wanting to chew off your own leg, then by all means abandon it!
If you'd rather poke your eyes out then keep reading, then stop reading.
Red, did I tell you about aNobii? It is a great site to catalogue all of your books and look at a ton of reviews.
scorpy, you did! I forgot to put it in the links, though. Also thinking about using it to set up a group book shelf to catalogue what we've read.
Post a Comment