Book club thread ideas

[Dweller Dark]

Even though I haven't been reading that much lately because of general tiredness, I enjoy discussions about books. And I've noticed that, aside from the "What are you currently reading?" thread, there isn't anything like a book club for the forum. At least nothing too in-depth akin to "The DWmegawad Club" thread, but for books. So I'm curious if there's interest in one, and ideas that we may have for how it could function. 

 

My general ideas currently are:

 

• A traditional book club thread where participants decide on a book and read through it in an estimated time frame, and then discuss it in detail. Ideally, at least for a slow reader like myself, the time frame would account for the slower readers first and foremost. A larger time frame would also give participants time to re-read or revisit parts of the book they may have been confused about on an initial read. 
• A book club thread in which participants read a book of their own choosing and then discuss things once they've finished their choice of book. Although I'm not sure how this could work without spoiling books for other participants, perhaps spoiler tags would need to be used frequently.
• While I don't have a clear idea here, it could be beneficial to have offshoot threads for books that are worth greater discussion on their own. Books that have so much to talk about that would/could derail the main book club thread, for example. "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski could be an example, where there are so many layers that the discussion would go on forever. Ergodic literature in general could be it's own separate thread due to how complicated it is.

 

Although I'm the one proposing a book club and would very much like to have one on the forum, I admit that I'm not confident I have the skills to plan and organize such an activity. I could do it, but it would require participants to have the relevant books or access to digital copies, someone to plan and organize things, etc. However, this post I've made is to gauge interest from all of you on the topic of having a community book club thread on the forum, so the organization and planning would be discussed later. If you have interest in such a thing, please feel free to share your opinions, other ideas, and potential resources on this thread.

[dasho]

I'd say leveraging Project Gutenberg would be good for this sort of thing instead of having an unspoken need to find "backup" copies of the books they already own.

[Dweller Dark]

2 minutes ago, dasho said:

I'd say leveraging Project Gutenberg would be good for this sort of thing instead of having an unspoken need to find "backup" copies of the books they already own.

If you are referring to "it would require participants to have the relevant books or access to digital copies", I'm saying that participants would either have to have the physical book or access to a digital copy, or access to something like Project Gutenburg if the normal means are unavailable (IE, if a participant is unable to get a physical or digital copy due to financial issues or in the case of a banned book). Leveraging Project Gutenburg and similar things would be beneficial for that purpose.