Books on the Nightstand discussion

Sunday's terrific Book Club panel deserves lots of follow-up conversation. Please post that here.

Amy, Karen and I will be starting a postal book club. We briefly discussed it yesterday so the details are still tba but if anyone is interested in joining let me know. I think the first book that goes out will be A Novel Bookstore since Amy and I bonded specifically over our shared interest in anything French.

Love that, Suzanne! Sounds like you are structuring your Postal Book Club a bit differently than the one described at the panel. Hopefully someone that is part of that group will describe it here, and I'd love to hear how you are going to run yours.

Suzanne wrote: "Amy, Karen and I will be starting a postal book club. We briefly discussed it yesterday so the details are still tba but if anyone is interested in joining let me know. I think the first book tha..."

Yay for you Suzanne! There are probably dozens of ways to do a postal book club. Here is ours in case anyone is interested in doing it the same way:

* Find some friends who live far enough away you must mail. (We have 7 people which is great. I talked to one of the Jims after the discussion yesterday and he's going to start one with his family. I think it involved 5?)

* Each person picks one book that is a mystery to all of the others. You have no way to know if they've read it, but for our first round we succeeded on that!(Our rules were ~300 pages, but otherwise no restrictions.)

* Get a notebook to travel with your book. You can start it with your own message on why you chose that book and anything else you'd like to share.

* Pick a date and everyone mails their book & notebook in a set rotation. After 5,6,10,? however many people you have, you will get your own book back with a notebook full of comments from your fellow postals. (We are going to continue using the same notebook for round two, so now everyone can read the other comments from the first go round).

that sound great cAn I join

This sounds great, keep us posted.

Suzanne wrote: "Amy, Karen and I will be starting a postal book club. We briefly discussed it yesterday so the details are still tba but if anyone is interested in joining let me know. I think the first book tha..."

Suzanne - I did not attend Booktopia but would love to participate in a postal book club if you need more participants. Thanks and great idea!
Maggie

The postal book club idea sounds awesome! I would love to take part!

Booktopia Boulder was such fun. Thanks to Ann, Michael, and all of the moderators!!

I just emailed my bookclub organizer/leader and found out I was wrong about how long our book club has been going. I thought it was 1993, but it was actually 1996. I'm glad I didn't win the prize or I would be feeling very guilty! (If you weren't there, Lisa gave a prize to the person who had been in the longest lasting book club. A fun way to wrap up the discussion!)

I really enjoyed this session. Who won and what was the award? Rachel and I had to leave early.

Suzanne wrote: "Amy, Karen and I will be starting a postal book club. We briefly discussed it yesterday so the details are still tba but if anyone is interested in joining let me know. I think the first book tha..."

I would love to be in the postal book club if there is a space. Looking forward to the details.

Emily wrote: "I really enjoyed this session. Who won and what was the award? Rachel and I had to leave early."

I think it was Cindy who won, Emily.

I so wanted to join a postal book group. I loved the idea of writing about the book and seeing someone else's ideas. If someone wants/needs me - just let me know. I'm open to just about anything. I'm not sure what you mean by anything French and am fearful that you may mean speaking. I did take French, was surprised how much I remembered when Son took it, but to read it, I'd need time and a very thin book.

I was so excited about what I heard yesterday, I went into work today and talked to the library director about the possibility of starting a book group in our university library. Could be students, maybe open to community, maybe classics, who knows...

Glad you started the discussion Ann (and this thread) and glad that Suzanne, Jo Ann, Lisa, Nancy, Jana and Russ shared - as well as the sharing from people in the audience like Marilyn and Cindy and Callie, Lil and Katie (sorry if I forgot anyone).

The book club panel and participation by so many in the audience was inspiring.

A few of the ideas that caught my attention:

A failing book group often lacks sufficient structure. Have both an organizer and leaders. Get members more involved by having them take turns as leaders. Choose a well known classic favorite such as To Kill A Mockingbird or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that will encourage great discussion. Ban: "I like" and "I don't like" from discussion. If all else fails, leave the group and start your own with friends and acquaintances that have the same expectations.

There are lots of venues with meeting rooms that may be delighted to have your book group use them for meetings: Parks, meetup.com, libraries, churches, bookstores, senior centers, private community centers, restaurants, fire departments, YMCA's.

Invite an author to meet with your group in person or by Skype. Be respectful of the author. Set aside time before or after to discuss the book by yourselves as well. Penguin Random House has a list of authors that are available to meet with book groups. Check other publishers as well.

I also loved Russell's idea of creating Tournament of Books.

The organizer and leader discussion was very interesting. My 18 years & counting book group has had the same person do both jobs the whole time (last month she asked me to lead THE ENCHANTED LIFE OF ADAM HOPE because she was out of town). But I think that is a rare success now that I've heard the other comments. We meet at a Barnes & Noble cafe and don't have the hosting stress (fun!) that others do. In December we meet in a restaurant, have a Yankee swap, and vote for the coming year of books. We pick an extra long one for January since there is no December book. It's worked great for all these years. I'm pretty amazed now that I realize how long we've been chugging along!

Emily, the prize was a magnet that said YAY BOOK CLUBS!

I would love to join the postal book club if there's still room!

If there are a lot of people interested in a general postal group club (vs Suzanne's specific French themed), you could start a thread to see how much interest there is and then divide into groups of 6 or so people and set up your rotations that way. There is a similar thing on Ravelry for knitters. They have sock groups and there is one central thread where they all find the rules & chat, but there are many different "circles" of rotating sock projects. Does that make any sense? I know what I mean, but not sure if I'm communicating it well. It appears that this postal idea struck a lot of people as fun (it is!) and I'm sure the interest is out there to do more than just one group.

Jana wrote: "If there are a lot of people interested in a general postal group club (vs Suzanne's specific French themed), you could start a thread to see how much interest there is and then divide into groups..."

I think I will take your advice and start a thread. But a question--when each person picks a book, is it one that he or she has already read? Or not read and it comes back with notes for the person to read? Or does it matter?
I love the postal book club because there is no official meeting time to work around my crazy and unconventional work schedule.
Thanks to all the participants in this great closing session for Booktopia!

Debbie wrote: "a question--when each person picks a book, is it one that he or she has already read?"

Good question. Everyone in our group had read their book but me. It was supposed to be one that we read & liked. I trusted my husband that it was a good book, and I already loved the author so I felt good about it. Turned out to be a success! (FYI it was Nevil Shute's THE BREAKING WAVE.)

Jana wrote: "Debbie wrote: "a question--when each person picks a book, is it one that he or she has already read?"

Good question. Everyone in our group had read their book but me. It was supposed to be one th..."

Thanks!

Jana wrote: "If there are a lot of people interested in a general postal group club (vs Suzanne's specific French themed), you could start a thread to see how much interest there is and then divide into groups..."

Suzanne, just checking...will your postal book group be solely French themed, or is that just the theme of the initial selection?

Davina wrote: "Jana wrote: "If there are a lot of people interested in a general postal group club (vs Suzanne's specific French themed), you could start a thread to see how much interest there is and then divid..."

That will just be the book I'm starting with.

Since 6 people seems to be a good size for this I'm just grabbing three people from this thread and will message you with details.

I'm also very interested in the Postal Book club.

what is the link for the google sign up for the postal book group thanks esa2978@hotmail.com

Ellen wrote: "what is the link for the google sign up for the postal book group thanks esa2978@hotmail.com"

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/c...
This is the link for the sign up.

I really enjoyed the book club talk, and found it very inspiring! I'm not currently in a book club, but I'm looking to organize a long distance one at some point, and hope to find/start a local on soon too.

I didn't go to Booktopia Vermont (not for lack of trying), this is my first post, and I'd love to join the postal book group. Keep me posted. The redundancy is intentional.
Trudy

Thanks for the link, I signed up and cannot wait for the club to start, Ellen

Not sure if existing Postal Book Club members are reading our new thread, so I wanted to let them know that I posted a question for them over there -- it's question # number 82, regarding what is written in the journal etc.