Group Direction?

ScatteredThoughts

Hello everyone,

It appears that I am the administrator of the group for the time being. I'm not sure what is going on, but it seems that only a few people have kept interest in it so far. Is it just the time of year, and being busy with holiday events? Is there something we should change about how the books are selected?

Please let me know if you feel there is something we could be doing to make the group better. I still have enthusiasm for the concept of this group, and would hate to see it fall by the way side.


Thanks,

Anthony

lem_orc29

Hello! I just discovered this group this morning. I am a passionate reader, and would love to be involved! Since I'm so new, I don't have any thoughts on the functioning of the group, but I just wanted to let you know that I am here and looking forward to being involved with a monthly reading challenge starting in January.

mabug01

Lack of participation is probably just a phase. Why don't we keep going until last man standing? We're all going to continue to read, anyway. If there were another poll, I would probably vote to drop the self-help/improvement topic. I've never been in a reading group before, so I don't know how these things are typically run, however I was expecting a tad more discussion; like, for instance, someone does a bit more research and finds out who the author is, and then shares an interesting story about her with the group. Or, in this current book, defining what the gypsy words mean, for instance (like avo and chals).

mabug01

I was a mini-group (group within a group) leader once and I found I got more participation by sending stragglers an email.

steppingstones

Yes, let's keep it going. Maybe some discussion questions might help. This has kind of been a lost month for me but what are choices for January?

ScatteredThoughts

Thanks for the input so far.

I'm thinking it may be better to drop the rotation of categories, and just lump things in together for voting. Perhaps we should stick with fiction, unless there is a large demand for something else.

steppingstones - Under the current plan, we would be picking from the Self Help books next, from the Ongoing List thread. Honestly, I am not too crazy about that category either.

lem_orc29

I'm all for fiction! I think it might be easier to just have a "lumped" group of books to choose from rather than rotating categories, form an organizational standpoint, at least.

ScatteredThoughts

@mabug01 - I've never participated in a book club before either, and you have some good points. I'll see what can be done to stimulate more participation, even if I have to start strong arming again.

I think that I will collapse the suggestions into one group for the next challenge. I have updated the Book Suggestions thread to reflect a couple items which had not been added.

All, please feel free to give other recommendations.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/781222-book-suggestions

lem_orc29

This might be kind of difficult to do, but what if each person had a different week to "lead" discussion? Come up with questions to ask, etc...then it wouldn't fall on just one person's head to stimulate the back-and-forth.

ScatteredThoughts

Any further thoughts? No objections to the merging of the categories?

mabug01

I copied our official list here; I would be happy reading any one of them; I would also add that new book about Lincoln because I enjoyed that movie.

Fiction
1) "AMPED" by Daniel H. Wilson
2) "The Uninvited" by Tim Wynne-Jones
3) "The Anubis Gates" by Tim Powers (December 2012)
4) "Casual Vacancy" by J.K. Rowling
5) "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell
6) "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card
7) "The Dovekeepers" by Alice Hoffman
8) "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair
9) "Homer & Langley" by E.L. Doctorow
10) "The Art Forger" by B. A. Shapiro
11) "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore" by Robin Sloan


Non-Fiction
1) "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr (November 2012)
2) "The Violinist's Thumb" by Sam Kean
3) "Hallucinations" by Oliver Sacks
4) "The Joy of X" by Steven Strogatz
5) "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal" by Eric Schlosser
6) "Ghosty Men: An Urban Historical" by Frank Lidz
7) "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain

lem_orc29

Those all sound like great choices! I've read a couple from the fiction list, but other than that I'm up for any of them (I've been very interested in Cloud Atlas for awhile, so if we're voting, that would get my vote!).