Book Club Guidelines

[dwndrgn]

You may now un-bate your breath

Here are the general guidelines for the book club. These guidelines are mutable, so if for some reason we need a change - just go ahead and pm me and we can see about making any needed changes.

We will be staying within the Science Fiction/Fantasy genres for the time being. If a specific book has enough backing but isn't in the genre, I've got no problem including it. Beginning on the 20th of each month I'll accept suggestions for the next book to be discussed. Please pm me any and all book suggestions - if you have more than one, please put them in the same message so I don't have zillions to go through. We will try to stay with books that will be easily available at local libraries for those financially challenged among us.

The final decision on the book will be posted on the first of each month. Once the book title is posted, topic suggestions should be posted to that same thread. Once the book is posted, any interested members should obtain and read the book, even if you've read it before. This way, everything will be fresh in your mind for the discussion and you can take into account any topics for discussion that have been suggested.

Beginning on the 15th of each month, I'll open a thread for discussion of the book we've just read. I'm a fast reader, but I understand others may not be, especially those that work and have lives , so if that isn't enough time to obtain and read the book, please let me know and we'll adjust accordingly. I'll keep the thread open for a week to allow all the disparate members time enough to visit the forum and throw their two cents in.

The only other rules are those of politeness, respect and thoughtfulness. I am sure that many of us will disagree on certain points, however, I have faith in the members here to keep it clean, fair and nice. Above all, this is for fun, so let's keep it that way.

Since this is the beginning of our little club, I'll begin taking book suggestions now. We'll start our first book on February 1st. so send 'em in.

I'm a book club virgin so If I've left anything out, please don't hesitate to tell me.

Let's read!

[knivesout]

Here we go!


I was thinking we could start with a short story perhaps,like Asimov's Nightfall, something easy to find, not too time consuming but still with a lot of scope for discussion.

Does that make sense?

[dwndrgn]

Sounds like a logical suggestion. Baby steps.

[littlemissattitude]

All the guidelines sound quite reasonable, dwndrgn. Thanks again for taking the time to do this. I need a couple of days before I send on any suggestions for our first book; I want to think about it a bit.

[I, Brian]

All recommendations by PM, rather than in public?

Also - shall I open a new board for this - perhaps a subboard of this board?

[Elysium]

Yay! This sounds great. I can't wait.
Oh my, I'm about to lose my book club virginity too. I hadn't realised. Well, now I'm just all weak in the knees.

[dwndrgn]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

All recommendations by PM, rather than in public?

Also - shall I open a new board for this - perhaps a subboard of this board?

I chose pm's because I figured it would be cleaner but if you want to open a sub-forum we can do all the suggesions there. I think people would enjoy seeing others' suggestions and get ideas from there as well.

[SDNess]

Yeah...that sounds better, IMO.

I was thinking about:

The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien
(someone else mentioned that in the first pre-book club thread)
Dune, by Frank Herbert
Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein

[knivesout]

Any of these would be fine by me, too, although my only worry is that I would have to re-read them to say anything of any worth, and that would eat into my already packed reading schedule. nevertheless, with any of the three works mentioned, that would not be too heavy a burden. Still, starting with a piece of shorter fiction may make more sense. Just thoughts.

[Sci-fi_gEEk]

Cool!! Guide lines sound great. At the moment I don't really have any good suggestions (I can hardly decide on a book to read for myself!!) so I'll just go with the flow till I think of a good book that needs talk'n about :-D

gEEk

[littlemissattitude]

I think that I, too, will refrain from making any recommendations just now, as all of the suggestions that have been made already are just fine with me. Although, for what it's worth, I think the only one of the suggestions that I haven't yet read is "The Hobbit". Not that it matters; I wouldn't mind re-reading the others.

[dwndrgn]

I'd love to start with "Lord Foul's Bane" but I can't find it anywhere, so for the time being that one's out.

So far we have these suggestions:
Nightfall, Asimov
The Hobbit, Tolkien
Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein
Dune, Herbert

and I'll throw one in just for spice:
In The Garden of Iden, Kage Baker

I'll leave this open for any other suggestions until Friday and then we'll choose our first book.

[Frankly]

Dune, YES!

Already read it awhile back, but it's a classic with everything!

[Incognito]

I'd love to read Dune again, in particular.

[knivesout]

Me, too. If I could just find my copy...