The History Book Club discussion

This is a thread to discuss the polls and the result of the polls determining which countries will be next for country challenges.

Our first challenge was visiting and reading about the Middle East. That was an exciting one.

We have completed the India challenge and we really enjoyed the discussion of this wonderful part of the world.

We began the Japan challenge and are still finishing that up but there is still time to participate in that challenge in 2017.

Ireland was kicked off for the start of 2017.

Next up are the Koreas (North and South).

We will vote again for the lineup of the next countries to visit for challenges.

Watch for that poll. Goodreads use to be able to send out the polls to all group members but that feature has not worked for awhile. So we need to count on all of the 13,000+ members to take a second and just vote on this poll so that we have a realistic assessment of which country's authors, icons, leaders, places locations that you would like to read about next and to challenge yourself. This is a great way to discover some wonderful new authors that you may not have had an opportunity to discover before.

Those of you who have participated in any of our challenges - please be sure to vote in this next poll - I will even allow write ins of countries that you would like to vote for but may not have been top picks. So stay tuned.

The only countries that are NOT viable because we have selected them already are:

Middle East
India
Japan
Ireland
and the Upcoming Korea (North and South)

VOTE

Here is the link to the poll - be sure to vote. One of our rules and guidelines is to take the couple of seconds it takes to just respond to the polls to help us with our planning and be able to please you.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/8...

If the choice is Scandinavia, I suggest using the wider definition that includes Iceland, the Faeroe Islands, Finland, and Aaland. No need to have Iceland as a separate category. Being Scandinavian, I think this is closest to how we see ourselves, plus especially Icelandic literature is absolutely wonderful! (I am less well versed in Finnish and Faeroese literature but would love to explore!) No need to leave Iceland as a separate category!

From Wikipedia:

The term Scandinavia always includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are usually not seen as a part of Scandinavia, nor is Greenland, an overseas territory of Denmark. However, the Faroe Islands, also a Danish overseas territory, are sometimes included, as sometimes are Iceland, Finland and the Finnish autonomous region of the Åland Islands, because of their historical association with the Scandinavian countries and the Scandinavian peoples and languages.[3] This looser definition almost equates to that of the Nordic countries. In Nordic languages, only Denmark, Norway and Sweden are commonly included in the definition of Scandinavia.

Thank you for your suggestion but it is fun to separate them out and frankly we could have separated out Denmark by itself or Norway or Sweden - all have wonderful cultures and heritages separately and really do not need to be joined.

If Scandinavia wins - then we will be reading about Denmark, Norway or Sweden. If we had a selection of Nordic Countries - then that would have been different I assume.

But sometimes we do geographical areas and sometimes even just a single country so it really makes no difference.

But these are the only three countries that we will be focusing on if Scandinavia wins - Norway, Sweden and Denmark.


Scandinavia
Encyclopedia Britannica

We are only including the Scandia countries and only Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

There will be other challenges.

@Ulla - if you would prefer to read about Iceland - Iceland is also listed on the choices and you can make that selection instead - or you could write in Finland. But we will only be covering Sweden, Norway or Denmark for the Scandinavia choice and I made that clearer to folks. Our next challenge is going to be the Koreas and whatever choice wins next will be following and so on.

VOTE

Here is the link to the poll - be sure to vote. One of our rules and guidelines is to take the couple of seconds it takes to just respond to the polls to help us with our planning and be able to please you.

Link: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/8...

Fair enough :) I am well versed in Icelandic literature anyway. I just made the comment, since culturally and identity-wise, I think that most Scandinavians regard wider Scandinavia as Scandinavia. We are very similar. It is true that we only Norwegians, Swedes and Danes understand each other's languages directly since Icelandic is a sort of ancient Scandinavian language. A large proportion of the Finnish population is Swedish-speaking, however, and like Greenland, the Faeroe Islands are a semi-autonomous part of the Danish kingdom and represented in our parliament (as Scotland / UK and as was Iceland until 1944). Icelanders tend to speak one of the other Nordic countries and many pursue university studies there.

Anyway. Now it is about Ireland, which is really exciting. I was just excited to see our little corner of the world heading the pools :)

More than likely Ulla. I understand totally but we like to have folks really do a deep dive of a specific country's culture and heritage rather than to spread our reading too thin over a very broad area. For example - the picks Africa and South America from my viewpoint are too broad.

The challenge poll is now closed.

so will the challenge be Ireland

We have two open challenges which you still can join - Ireland and Japan.

We will be reading Ulysses soon as a buddy read if you would like to join in on that.

Very soon we are starting the challenge on the Koreas (no joke) - we have been planning that for awhile - timely isn't it.

The Two Koreas Challenge is in progress.

You can still join the Ireland Challenge and the Japan Challenge.

The India Challenge has been completed and is archived.

Bentley wrote: "The Two Koreas Challenge is in progress.

You can still join the Ireland Challenge and the Japan Challenge.

The India Challenge has been completed and is archived."

By any chance is it possible to read the archived India Challenge thread?

Unfortunately no - due to goodreads software (everyone still has their shelf however) but we do have some threads dedicated to India.

I will add a link here. Also we did read some historical fiction together as well and the discussions are all here archived - The Raj Quartet.

by Paul Scott

As I locate them I will add them here:

The first one I found was on Ancient South Asia:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

OK and here are the rest of them with many threads in the History of Southern Asia folder. You will find some of the challenge threads here, other threads on India, etc. As well as the discussions on the Raj Quartet.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...