Just pretend it’s real!
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Especially if we read the Kafka. And then decide if you’d prefer to roll your own noose before the State comes to collect you and/or your loved ones.
Okay, Kafka gives me dark thoughts.
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I guess it could be, if that’s the way you use it. Myself, I consider the point to be the opportunity to read a book and discuss it with you guys, whether or not I might have read the book before, or would consider reading it on my own.
If people have other ideas, they should mention them. If people want to vote on whether we shoud do Fiction or Non-Fiction first, we can do that; I wish someone had said so sooner, though. We can do this super democratically and vote on every issue (reading time, discussion place, voting tool, vote amount, voting time, genres, suggestion limits…), but I just thought it was faster to just kind of have an on-going discussion and make sure there are no objection! yells.
If this is just another case of people joking around then I’m sorry for taking it seriously (seriously, Aspergers, can’t smell sarcasm from here). I’ve just had a really rough day and I feel kind of overwhelmed with things - and while I really love administrating this I feel like I’m taking the responsibility for all the decisions made. I guess that’s what it’s like to be a president. I’d make a better dictator.
If someone else wants to read Gravity’s Rainbow and explain it to me, I’m all ears!
I might go tweak my selections anyway, because I’d really rather read the Banks than any of the others that are popular…
We didn’t vote last time I did something like this, we took it in turns to pick something.
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That’s an interesting approach. There is a certain tyranny to consensus, and it’d be cool to have to read something that the group weirdo recommends.
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OTOH, there were some crappy selections. And it doesn’t half grate when you dutifully plod through a load of dross only to find that when you select a David Foster Wallace book as your choice, you were the only fucker who bothered reading it.
I remember this being one of the selections. Wins my award for most stupid ending to a book, ever.
I think Will Self was another selection that most people gave up on.
OTOH, that book club was responsible for a large amount of the books I’ve read that weren’t written by white guys. Both of these were also books we read.
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That sounds like a good way of doing things if it’s an intimate group. If there’s 5 people, reading each person’s suggestion will be interesting. If there’s over 15… well, the group is likely to dismantle before you ever get to pick something (unless it’s a monthly basis thing) anyway. Even if not, the selections are likelier to get crappier (or just not as suited to everyone’s tastes) the bigger the group is, and so people are less likelier to actually read the books.
That’s what I would imagine, at least.
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I thought we were having discussion in the voting threads, I haven’t paid attention to anything in here since.
Yeah, it would definitely work better in a smaller, more intimate group (like I’m currently imagining ours to be… snuggles!), and it would also work well in a somewhat themed group (like a sci-fi group, or biography group) unless you have serious bibliophiles who devour anything.
I’m not really suggesting any candidates this time around, since I would feel a lot of pressure to recommend Great Books That All Present Are Guaranteed To Love And Haven’t Yet Read/Discussed To Death Already. I am not nearly well-read enough to be able to offer anything that good. For now, I’m just along for the ride.
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Sorry, I’ve been writing in both places and didn’t really think someone was only following Loomio (actually, I thought it was likelier to be the other way around, which is why I wrote more here about my ideas). The thing is that we didn’t really set any ground rules when we started, I just made a test group and it took off and I’ve been uncertain where/how/on what I should ask people’s opinions on. I hope it doesn’t bother you too much that we start with a Fiction book. I’ll promise to make a discussion on Loomio everytime a new problem/question comes up.
I feel greatly inferior to other BoingBoingers when it comes to literature, so it was kind of intimidating to join this club. Some of my suggestions feel too well-known, since I tried to stick to books that weren’t too far out there, but maybe later (if we will be accepting new suggestions one day?) I’ll dare suggest something a little different.
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Am I in some kind of meta-logical argument with you? I can’t tell.
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Hey! By the way, Junior, I know they didn’t have too many books on that desert island you grew up on:
…but you got any plans to join us in our book group here? I see a small handful of you folks in this thread who haven’t yet signed up on the Loomio thing. Are ya in?
Excellent!
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My excuse for not voting is that I’m equally unfamiliar with most of the nominations.
My excuse for not nominating more is that I’m on page 383 of Against The Day, which I think I started back in May.
Also, I trust the taste of you lot.
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Jacqueline Susann, it is then!
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Wow… now that looks like a hoot. Gonna read that one too.
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So, we’re all going to be watching Inherent Vice?
Wanna start a movie club too?
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I was too busy to visit BB for most of last week, so I’m just getting caught up on the discussion now. :-/ I requested entry but I realize I may have missed voting.
