Book Club - guidelines sort of

[midnightcatprowl]

Some of the old members are keen for the Book Club to get going again and even better there are other people on the new Lemon Fool Books and Reading Board who are expressing interest. You can talk about a Book Club forever but really the main thing is to choose some books, read them and 'talk' about them and then people can see how the Club ran in the past and if it works for them and, if not, then members can suggest new ways in which Book Club might go forward. So I'm proposing to set up nomination and then voting threads for our January/February(ish) reads and running our first 'reads' of 2017 according to the old 'Fool' guidelines simply to get things going again.

The guidelines for Book Club changed quite often since it was set up on The Fool in late 2002 and were always very flexible in any case. The changes were always basically about helping more people to participate. Some changes worked, some didn't and fell away in the course of time. I'm summarising here how things stood (sort of) when The Fool discussion boards were closed and I'm suggesting that roughly the same guidelines are used for our first Book Club reads of 2017.

There is no joining procedure for Book Club, you are a member if you like to read and willing to join in choosing and commenting on the chosen books.

There are no 'qualifications' for Book Club except for liking books and wanting to discuss them with other people who have agreed to read the same book choices.

All opinions expressed on Book Club are equally valid, they can be discussed but not criticised, there are no 'right' answers, we are not preparing for an exam but enjoying books and discussing books together. Any review of a book can be as short or as long as you like. Comments such as 'I hated it and gave up after chapter three' or 'Great book' are just as valid as the sort of lengthy reviews which some members (I plead guilty!) are likely to post.

Each two months or so Book Club will run a thread inviting nominations for the next Book Club read(s). Anyone may post nominating one or two books - it is not compulsory but your recommendations may attract more votes if you give some information about that book(s) and why it might be a good idea to read it. Nominations may be for novels, collections of short stories, poetry, fiction or non-fiction, it is entirely up to you. N.B. We choose two books for each reading period to help those who really hate one of the choices and those who have difficulty in accessing the books, two choices gives more people a chance of getting hold of at least one.

Once nominations are in there will be a voting thread. Anyone can vote for one or two of the items nominated. Votes will be counted and in the event of a tie the member running the nominations/voting thread will have the casting vote (much dreaded by those who start nomination/voting threads!).

Once the reads are chosen two new threads will be set up for each of the choices. One will be for ongoing comments while reading (may contain spoilers so read with care) the other will be for reviews at the end of reading the item and comments/discussions on those reviews.

No matter how long it takes you to read a book, or how long you are away on business or for personal reasons and can't participate, your comments/reviews are always welcome additions to the threads even if we long ago chose and moved onto other books.

N.B. Book Club has no leader and never has had a leader. Often the person starting new nominations/voting etc is simply the member who is around and able to do so and who most wants some choices about new reads. During 2016 I've tended to be the most 'around' member so I've done a lot of this and I'm doing it now but that doesn't mean I'll want or be able to do it in the future.