Journal created:
on 31 January 2006 (#9402598)
Updated:
on 17 July 2007
Name:
Readrum: What Happens When Book Nerds Get Bored
Membership:
Moderated
Posting Access:
All Members
Ever gone into an ethnic restaurant, like a Vietnamese or Ethipian joint, expecting something low-key only to find that it's "ante-post-modern" and has funny chairs, synth-trance music, skinny blonde waitresses wearing all black serving Persian-fusian food, and a bathroom sink you can't figure out how to operate?
That's what this book club is going to be, with less synth-trance music, blonde waitresses, and...food.
The idea is this: It's a Book Club, but ante-post-modern in that the rules will be ever evolving, and we might not actually ever figure out how they work. We're all going to try and read the same book(s) once a month, but nobody is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to drive to Barnes and Noble to buy White Noise and a mochiatto...unless you're into that kind of thing. We want to have some shared experiences with books, but none that are forced
Basically, we're all of a like mind: we may have different interests when it comes to reading, but we have the same passion. This club is meant to help us along. To give us a gentle nudge. To make us read more!
Membership
Selective to a point--like, new members have to be able to refer to a current member and introduce themselves.
Posting
In the interest of keeping people's attention for at least a couple of seconds before they scroll down and read about their friend who accidentally got drunk and woke up in a tuk-tuk impound, all members must post semi-regularly. Though I'm Founder and Tyrant of this book club, there are no requirements. But how about this:
1. On a rotating basis, one member a week must post a general discussion topic--whether about a certain book, author, poem, or something bookish, like how certain books are forever connected to where you read them, or who you knew when you read them, etc. When it's not your turn to post a topic, members are encouraged to make comments or similar posts about once a week.
2. You must post reviews or opinions on what books you've read or we should read. For that...
The Books
James Frey isn't involved...yet. It's not a book club. It's not AP English. There shouldn't be requirements, but the problem that lots of people have, especially ones that I know, is that while they really enjoy reading they don't stay motivated because they're too busy working, living, and waking up at tuk-tuk impounds. Those 50 Book Challenge pages are nice, but last year I did a solid amount of reading and still only read half that. So, how about this:
1. Every month we nominate four candidate books, maybe one of which should be non-fiction (James Frey excluded). While if you want to post about whatever book you're reading, I think if we nominate several books that we're interested in it will keep us interested. For instance, a few people express interest in reading something by Saul Bellow. But maybe another member had a traumatic experience with Bellow in college and wants to turn us all onto a collection of short stories by Raymond Carver. This way, we can all make suggestions, take a vote, and some of us will end up reading the same book--but others will read something different, and we can learn what the others thought about their selections! It's not a requirement. It's just narrow encouragement.
2. That will be once a month, the nomination of four books. The rest of the time your slackass should be reading something or posting on something you read in the past. Got it?
Book Swap
In the future, we might be able to use this forum as a way to forge new friendships through the gift of book giving! It may be possible I, in my duties as Founder and Tyrant, once a month draw names out of a hat to determine who is supposed to swap books. $4 or $5 in shipping insn't too much for any of us to spare, I don't think, and I'm saying that as a person who gets paid in noodles and spices. This might also be a way for us to read a book selection that we didn't make--like, one month you decided to read Book A instead of Book B, but now you're getting the chance because another member did read Book B and loved it. Just a thought.
We'll be flexible here--there's no reason why our ante-post-modern Turkish restaurant can't eventually evolve into a Taco Bell. Let's just roll with it and see what happens.
Any kid who has two parents who are interested in him and a houseful of books isn't poor.
~Sam Levenson
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
~Jorge Luis Borges
That's what this book club is going to be, with less synth-trance music, blonde waitresses, and...food.
The idea is this: It's a Book Club, but ante-post-modern in that the rules will be ever evolving, and we might not actually ever figure out how they work. We're all going to try and read the same book(s) once a month, but nobody is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to drive to Barnes and Noble to buy White Noise and a mochiatto...unless you're into that kind of thing. We want to have some shared experiences with books, but none that are forced
Basically, we're all of a like mind: we may have different interests when it comes to reading, but we have the same passion. This club is meant to help us along. To give us a gentle nudge. To make us read more!
Membership
Selective to a point--like, new members have to be able to refer to a current member and introduce themselves.
Posting
In the interest of keeping people's attention for at least a couple of seconds before they scroll down and read about their friend who accidentally got drunk and woke up in a tuk-tuk impound, all members must post semi-regularly. Though I'm Founder and Tyrant of this book club, there are no requirements. But how about this:
1. On a rotating basis, one member a week must post a general discussion topic--whether about a certain book, author, poem, or something bookish, like how certain books are forever connected to where you read them, or who you knew when you read them, etc. When it's not your turn to post a topic, members are encouraged to make comments or similar posts about once a week.
2. You must post reviews or opinions on what books you've read or we should read. For that...
The Books
James Frey isn't involved...yet. It's not a book club. It's not AP English. There shouldn't be requirements, but the problem that lots of people have, especially ones that I know, is that while they really enjoy reading they don't stay motivated because they're too busy working, living, and waking up at tuk-tuk impounds. Those 50 Book Challenge pages are nice, but last year I did a solid amount of reading and still only read half that. So, how about this:
1. Every month we nominate four candidate books, maybe one of which should be non-fiction (James Frey excluded). While if you want to post about whatever book you're reading, I think if we nominate several books that we're interested in it will keep us interested. For instance, a few people express interest in reading something by Saul Bellow. But maybe another member had a traumatic experience with Bellow in college and wants to turn us all onto a collection of short stories by Raymond Carver. This way, we can all make suggestions, take a vote, and some of us will end up reading the same book--but others will read something different, and we can learn what the others thought about their selections! It's not a requirement. It's just narrow encouragement.
2. That will be once a month, the nomination of four books. The rest of the time your slackass should be reading something or posting on something you read in the past. Got it?
Book Swap
In the future, we might be able to use this forum as a way to forge new friendships through the gift of book giving! It may be possible I, in my duties as Founder and Tyrant, once a month draw names out of a hat to determine who is supposed to swap books. $4 or $5 in shipping insn't too much for any of us to spare, I don't think, and I'm saying that as a person who gets paid in noodles and spices. This might also be a way for us to read a book selection that we didn't make--like, one month you decided to read Book A instead of Book B, but now you're getting the chance because another member did read Book B and loved it. Just a thought.
We'll be flexible here--there's no reason why our ante-post-modern Turkish restaurant can't eventually evolve into a Taco Bell. Let's just roll with it and see what happens.
~Sam Levenson
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
~Jorge Luis Borges
ban the brontes, bill bryson, book club, book nerds, book swap, books, brett easton ellis, creative non-fiction, creative writing, dave eggars, david foster wallace, david sedaris, don delillo, donna tart, dostoevsky, ernest hemmingway, f. scott fitzgerald, george orwell, grabriel garcia marquez, haruki murakami, henry james, hunter s thompson, ian mcewan, james joyce, jane austen, jd salinger, joan didion, jorge luis borges, jose saramago, joseph heller, julian barnes, kurt vonnegut, lewis carroll, marcel proust, margaret atwood, martin amis, michael chabon, milan kundera, neil gaimon, nick hornby, non-fiction, philip roth, raymond carver, reading, richard russo, robert penn warren, salman rushdie, saul bellow, sci-fi, shakespeare, terry prachett, tom robbins, tom wolfe, virginia woolf, vladimir nabokov, william burroughs, william faulkner, writing