Book discussion thingie P3 - Reading "The Quarry"

I still haven’t got my copy of the book, but should be very soon (this week, for certain, probably in the next 2 days).

The consensus seems to be that we will be discussing this chapter-by-chapter (3/4 said yes in Loomio, plus one abstained and only one disagreed). Are we all cool with this, or do some people still want to give their two cents about the issue or vote differently (here or on Loomio?).

Also, someone (@Donald_Petersen?) suggested we make a voting proposal in Loomio to see who already has the book. The problem is that not all people are able or remember to use Loomio for us to be sure everyone is set and ready to go. Maybe we should make a list here?

I’m gonna start the list from what I can remember (I hope I’m not mistaken!), add your own names if you already have the book or when you get it.


The members who have The Quarry

  1. @Donald_Petersen
  2. @jerwin
  3. @daneel
  4. @miasm (?)
  5. @chgoliz (?)
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Some day you are going to have to give me the names and data on your grandparents (and great grandparents, if you know) so that I can do the research and report exactly how many different levels of cousin we are to each other!

As of 5 minutes ago, I have the book in my possession.

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@raita
I also have.

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As ready as I’m gonna be.

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Yes, I am cool with that.

I haven’t been to Loomio yesterday or today, yet. But yes, that sounds A-OK.

My library’s online catalog shows 18 other books by Banks, but not this one, so I’ll hit up the bookstore tomorrow evening, probably. Sunday at the latest.

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I have it.

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And me and @noahdjango should be getting our copies very soon. So that’s at least 9 by the end of the week! If anyone gets their book or has any idea when they should be getting it, let me know.

I realized I have no real idea of how many people are in on this. There are 14 members on Loomio, plus there’s @SmashMartian and @jerwin (who still has a pending invitation on Loomio, don’t know what happened there?)… so at least 16 members, that I’m aware of.

Of course, more people are always allowed to join! :slight_smile:

Identical Cousins!


Book is waiting for me to pickup at the library…

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Hey @jlw, got your copy yet?

Ordered and in transit. Should be with me early to mid next week, assuming they can find a Express Post kangaroo bouncing in the right direction.

Alright! So it’s looking like by the 4th… let’s say 6th of February, people should have their books in hand? 6th sounds like a good day to start reading, because it’s a Friday, but if we’re ready to go before that, then even better. We’ll wait if someone can’t get their book in time, of course.

So, does a week per chapter sound okay to everyone? They’re around 40-50 pages long.

And then the discussion - should we reserve seperate time for that, or discuss the previous chapter while the next week of reading starts? I think we should do the latter because otherwise this will take a long time, but whatever works best for people.

So if we say we started reading on the date 6/2, the deadline for the chapter would be 12/2, which is when we would start a discussion in a dedicated thread. We can let the discussion go on for the whole next week, or should at least try to wrap it up before the next deadline - though it doesn’t really matter if people still wish to quibble (I’m not sure that’s the word I’m looking for…?) over some little details even after that.

So the schedule would be something like this (these dates are just an example):

06/2 - 12/2 - Reading Chapter 1
13/2 - 19/2 - Discussing Chapter 1 while starting to read Chapter 2
20/2 - 26/2 - Discussing Chapter 2 while reading Chapter 3
27/2 - 05/3 - Discussing Chapter 3 while reading chapter 4
– and so on

Thoughts?

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Given that NZ postage relies on sheep and the occasional wandering hobbit rather than conveniently pouched marsupials, it might take @aeon a little longer.

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Personally, I’m going to start reading it tonight and try to read a chapter a night…

But I’ll try to write up my thoughts elsewhere after each chapter so I can join in when the discussions start.

I can’t imagine intentionally dragging out reading a book to one chapter a week.

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Yeah, of course people can (and will) read whichever they way please. The deadlines are just so we can all match our reading speeds and schedules easily enough for reasonable discussion. We could in theory read a chapter every 2 days, but then some people who are too busy to read (even one time) that fast wouldn’t be able to keep up.

I’ll probably either read the book in one go and then go back to each chapter when we discuss it, or read it in good sized chunks and take notes and then wait a while in-between so I don’t get too far ahead (knowing what happens next might influence my thoughts, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing). But definitely no spoilers in the discussion threads, though!

I’m gonna repost this list with all the names (hope I didn’t forget anyone!) and their book status. And this way the people will get called to this thread to tell us what’s happening.

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No, I am gonna try one more library route then I guess pay the publishers insane price for an ebook.

… and although the Rural Delivery postal hobbits have vans, they first accept international parcels at an urban warehouse then bring them out to us a day or 3 later. The vans aren’t sheep powered, though, so there’s that.

Don’t wait just for me — I’m currently working my way through a textbook and a different novel for an IRL book club anyway.

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I should have it early next week.

I’m holding.

these kids need to get off my damn lawn with their $16 for a paperback, geez.

this seems reasonable. I’m totally open to anyone else’s ideas, though. I’ve never been in a book group before.

Since we’re doing discussion chapter-at-a-time, I think any longer than a week might be too slow, but it wouldn’t be intolerable or anything. Conversely, even though I’ll probably read it rapidly and think I’ll want a quicker schedule, it seems like setting aside time to get to the thread and discuss might actually be the bigger time factor? plus after a big day at work I’m liable to blow it off for a night. so I’m wary of basing the discussion schedule solely on our reading speed (which I’m sure is quite rapid for this group.)

so anyway, yeah; reasonable I guess but not sure how to call it, book club noob.

@Raita I got the book the moment I knew we had officially picked one. Sorry, didn’t realize this thread was in progress or I would have mentioned it ( :frowning: ).

I skimmed the thread but I’m not sure if we’re still discussing at what intervals to … discuss the book?

While I’m a pretty fast reader when it comes to the actual act of reading, I’m pretty slow when it comes to finishing a book. Partly my dyslexia (wish I knew of a way to use an RSVP (did not vet current wikipedia page for usefulness but at least it’s not an ad, amirite?) app in concert with the ebook format of my choice here) and partly time and energy considerations. I took a poke at chapter 1 so I wouldn’t be behind. Normally, I’d suggest something like three chapter chunks but there’s really a lot going on in chapter one.

Didn’t get to chapter 2 on … Tuesday night? So I’m not sure if it’s that conceptually dense all the way through but I’m definitely thinking—at least for chapter one—discussing the chapter by itself is probably a good idea.