21st Century Literature discussion

Please post any questions about this group that you have for the moderators or other members in this thread.

Hello...I have a question on old discussions on previous read books...I was not really interested in Decembers books so I started to read The Goldfinch...Absolutely love it and wanted to review the old discussions as I completed each part. I thought I saw it somewhere but it seems like the old discussions keep disappearing. I saw Part I and Part II and the after completing those parts I went to see the discussions and they were gone. Not sure if there is something I am doing wrong on settings or not. Thank you for your time

Kevin

For that discussion, try this link

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

If there are more than 5 threads in a topic, only the most recently updated ones appear on the summary lists

Hope this helps

Hugh's link is the fastest way to get there. For future reference, if you are scrolling through older discussions, clicking on the folder heading, in this case the bold "1/14 The Goldfinch" will bring up all the discussion topics in that folder. The line to the right of the heading shows if there are more topics, e.g. "Showing 5 of 7 topics". You can click on that as well.

And please feel free to add to the discussions! It was a popular read, I'm sure there are a few people who would love to see it revised.

Thank you both so much...this is a wonderful book club as everyone is so helpful...what I just learned is that my IPAD is somewhat limited on information it shows and my computer is able to show everything on the Goldfinch, thanks again, Kevin

Hi - I'm new to this group as of a couple of months. It is frustrating to me that messages aren't sent to members for nominations and votes of group reads. I see each month a dearth of nominations and believe there would be more participation, nominating, voting and discussing if we received alerts to the group's process. Thanks for listening.
Suzy

Suzy, we used to send messages about nominations, and we did get a lot more nominations. The problem was that many of those nominations, and poll votes, were from people who never participated in discussions, so we wound up reading books none of the active members were interested in, and the people who nominated and voted for those books never commented. At some point we (the moderators at the time) decided that our regular members could find the nominations thread without an announcement. We don't get as many nominations now, but, on the other hand, the nominations we get do come from people who are actually interested in discussing the books they nominate.

Thanks for the explanation Casceil - I find it quite difficult to get the relevant notifications without being swamped by noise - there are certain topics I would like to exclude all notifications for without changing default settings (most notably the daily Holidays update, but also the discussions on some of the wild card books)...

Hope you all had a good Christmas

Maybe it is time to try another approach. It would be nice if we could somehow reduce our membership list to people who actually participate. Our group has over 2,000 members. If you sort the list by number of comments each member has made, only about 200 people have made six or more comments. The membership list runs 71 pages, but by page nine of the sorted list you have come to members who have only ever made one comment. But if we were to send an announcement to all 2000 members that nominations were open, or that the poll as up, based on past experience we might have 40-70 people show up to nominate and/or vote. A book would be selected. The nominator would be offered a chance to lead the discussion and would most likely decline if they answered at all, and then one of the moderators would have to read the book and lead a discussion. There were too many months when the winner was a book none of us wanted to read, and the discussion (which we would put a fair amount of time into organizing) would draw maybe 4 people, and the nominator would not even comment. We got a bit demoralized after a while.

What Caseil said. And I'd like to emphasize her point that the mods are committing to leading the discussions if the nominator declines, even if it's something they aren't particularly interested in. That's a lot of time and effort dedicated to leading a discussion, made extra frustrating by the person who nominated the book and many who voted for it not showing up. The mods are here to enjoy themselves and discuss books they are interested in, just like everyone else.

Repeatedly stating that nominating or voting for a book meant you were committed to the reading and discussing had little effect on this happening over and over.

The only other thing we thought of was going through and banning from the group repeat offenders, which would be a lot of work, and no one wants to play prison guard.

Requiring a level of engagement from nominators and voters such that they need to make the minimal effort to check the boards or the homepage is perfectly reasonable, considering the effort that people who actually care put into the discussions.

I'd just say that the current system usually generates 5-7 choices for the polls, and that feels like a good number for me. The proposed options are almost always attractive reads and I probably add 2/3 to my TBR list from most polls.

I find it easy enough to check which polls are due and to vote.

It would be nice to know how many members are reading / or have previously read the books - whether or not they comment. I don't know if that can be done. More readers will of course generate more discussion. I suspect a major factor in getting folk involved is the availability of the selected books in libraries.

Anyway, I'll take the opportunity to thank all the discussion leaders and moderators. I really appreciate all your efforts. makes it a great group to be part of. Many thanks!

Jim wrote: "...It would be nice to know how many members are reading / or have previously read the books - whether or not they comment. I don't know if that can be done...."

If you go to the Group's Bookshelf and click on "View Activity" next to any book, you can see which members are reading, have rated or added to TBR.

Lagullande wrote: "If you go to the Group's Bookshelf and click on "View Activity" next to any book, you can see which members are reading, have rated or added to TBR.

Thanks Lagullande! That's good - haven't really looked at that option via the bookshelf. A good way of seeing reviews by other members too.

Jim wrote: "Thanks Lagullande! That's g..."

I haven't contributed very much to the group so it's good to be of service, Jim!

We'll be posting this reminder with the next set of group read announcements in the new year, but there's a pretty, consistent schedule to the whole process that may not be apparent:
- Nominations usually start 6 to 7 weeks before a group read (with about a week given for nominations and another week given for voting)
- Announcements are sent out approximately one month prior to the group read to give members time to acquire the book

So, as a general rule of thumb, you can look for a new nomination thread around the middle of each month :)

I understand why emails don't go about about nominations and polls, but I thought I saw a comment that emails do get sent out about the books that are ultimately chosen. I haven't seen an email yet so I was wondering if that is still happening? Granted, I'm a pretty new member, and haven't had a chance to participate in the discussions. Do these emails go to the members who are regularly participating or are they supposed to go to everyone?

Thanks!

Karen,
E-mails go out to all members about once a month. The one announcing the February Open Pick and Moderator Pick will go out within the next two days. If you don't get that one, send me a direct message and we'll figure out what's going on.

Ok great, thank you!

Karen wrote: "Ok great, thank you!"
Sure thing :)

Actually, it's GR messages that go out to all members about once a month. Whether that in turns gets sent to you as an email depends on your personal settings.

An actual email goes out with "about to be read" information. The default for this is one week before the discussion date, but you can change it in your group settings. From the homepage, select "Edit" next to "you are a member". Scroll down to "UPCOMING BOOK REMINDER EMAILS" and set how many days before the start date you would like a reminder. Be sure you set it for less than 4 weeks.

Inappropriate comment deleted. A reminder that promotions have their own thread, and belong only in that thread.

I also accidentally deleted Marc's last post as I clicked the wrong "delete" initially. Oops, sorry dude. For those who ever wondered if one moderator could delete another moderator's post, mystery solved!

That was the comment where I was spreading false info (not being clear between GR messages and actual e-mails)--I consider it a public relations service in my favor--thank you!

I'm here for you, man!

me again! I'm just checking back in on my comment about notifications/emails for the nominating process and this conversation has been helpful to see the thinking behind the approach this group takes. Thanks! I know lack of participation in any part of the process is frustrating! I belong to several groups and have led 2 group read conversations. One had a lot of participation and lively conversation and another got zero participation!

I still would prefer an email that announces the nominating process has begun and another that the poll is up as is done on all other groups I belong to. (some with 5k plus members) But I now understand the why behind your practice of not doing that so I will try to check at appropriate times.

Thanks for the clarification and I look forward to reading The Blazing World.

p.s. If a book I nominate is chosen, you can count on me to lead the discussion :)

Me again. I enjoy the chosen books and the discussions of this group - excellent reads and a high level of conversation. But I am still frustrated with the lack of communication going out to members about nominations being open and polls being open. I have missed out on both occasionally here in Q1-2016. My participation would be greater if there was more outbound communication from the group leaders. I'm not interested in "marking my calendar" for when to drop into the group for these things. I'm eager to participate and will continue as a member but may miss opportunities because of this. Communication is a two-way street!

Suzy, I understand your frustration, as I am someone who is really bad about keeping track of dates. But the reply is essentially unchanged from above. The trade-off we have in not sending out group emails is that we don’t have hundreds of members who are not at all engaged with the actual discussion still nominating and voting; leading to people who ARE actually engaged not getting their preferred book chosen; as well as occasionally leaving the moderators with a book they have zero interest in, and an anemic discussion because of button-click voters.

Communication (and participation) is, as you said, a two way street. I don't think it's too much to ask that people be engaged enough with the group to check in every week or two see when a new thread has been opened. If you think marking a calendar is too much work, consider how much work it is to read and lead a discussion of a 500-page book that you have no interest in and that you know regular members would not have chosen.

Yes, other groups send out blast emails about nominations. I also frequently see the mods of those groups complaining about lack of participation in chosen books. This is how we’ve fixed that problem. As Caseil said above, there may be a better way to do things, but we are not going to restart sending blast emails to every member, as ceasing that practice fixed most of the frustrations the moderators, and many other people, were experiencing with this group.

Suzy, you can get your nomination in for May's Open Pick by midnight tonight here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/18049959-may-2016-open-pick-nominations

And then the voting poll will go up tomorrow and be up for a week.

Give or take a day or two, Open Pick nominations start around the 15th of each month and last for a week, followed directly by a week of voting on those nominations. The nomination thread is always placed in the What to Read folder.

Wild Card group reads take place quarterly (mid-January, mid-April, mid-July, and mid-Oct). So, nomination threads will go up around Mar. 1, June 1, Sept. 1, and Dec. 1. and will also appear in the "What to Read" folder linked to in the previous paragraph.

Marc wrote: "Suzy, you can get your nomination in for May's Open Pick by midnight tonight here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

And then the voting poll will go up ..."

Thanks, Marc, I've already nominated for May. I'm glad to see where the nomination thread is placed - I sometimes had difficulty finding it in the string of discussions on the home page.

Suzy and Marc, you just made me realize that the above information isn't spelled out in the "how things work" thread. I will update it to make it more clear, thanks.

Whitney wrote: "Suzy and Marc, you just made me realize that the above information isn't spelled out in the "how things work" thread. I will update it to make it more clear, thanks."

That would be really helpful.

Duh. How did I not remember you nominated The Past?!! May the odds be ever in your favor... (a rare example in which I saw the movie and didn't read the book)

Is it possible to read the discussion of a book that has archived? I just finished HHhH and was looking for the discussion thread only to find it was a 2013 read whose folder has been "archived."

It is possible, but it's kind of a PITA. Because each group is only allowed 100 active folders, we've had to archive the 2012 and 2013 discussions into one big folder for their respective years.

All the discussion threads for HHhH are heaped in the the "2013 Book Discussions" folder, along with all the other books from that year. It's all there but it's not in any discernible order, so you have to sort through to find all the HHhH threads. A total mess, but it's the best solution we could come up with for the 100 folder limit.

For an active group like this one, keeping to 100 folders must be tough! I found the thread where the 2013 discussions are archived but failed in figuring out how to "get in" so I could look for the HHhH discussion. Perhaps doing so is limited to moderators? Not a big deal, as there are very good reviews for multiple viewpoints. It is a shame that groups with good, lively discussions are need to archive book discussions.

Ruh, roh. It's not supposed to be 'restricted'. Try clicking this link to the folder: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

Thanks Whitney! The link got me where I could not figure out how to get and it was well worth it. The discussions were excellent and confirmed why the book kept making me think of Loquela. They have a lot in common in terms of style.

Good, I'm glad you were finally able to read the discussion. I didn't get to HHhH, now I regret it more. Life is tough for us slow readers.

HHhH is in my to-be-read pile for some time this year!

Does anybody have a quicker way of searching for discussions of a specific book in the archives than scrolling through pages and pages of discussion titles? I have just tried, because I was interested in reading the discussions on "Life After Life", found a few, then got distracted by the discussions on "The Children's Book", but found it a little frustrating, and an index for the archives would make the process far less painful - I might have a think about whether that could be done semi-automatically...

To answer my own question (partially), I managed to create a text file that contains links to all of the 2012 and 2013 discussion topics, and I'm working on sorting it by discussion date and book title. So to take three (not entirely random) examples:

04/13 HHhH
~
HHhH - General Comments and Resources
HHhH - Read Along Comments for Part 1
HHhH - "I am too corrupted by literature"
HHhH - Read Along Comments for Part 2
HHhH - An unreliable narrator or a comment on human nature?
HHhH - Truth vs Fact
HHhH - "My genre"
HHhH - "Another story I could write a whole book about…"

09/13 Life After Life
~
Sept 13 Life After Life Background And The Author
Sept 13 Life After Life General Discussion Points with SPOILERS
Sept 13 Life After Life Reading Schedule
Sept 13 Life After Life Section 1
Sept 13 Life After Life Section 2
Sept 13 Life After Life Section 3
Sept 13 Life After Life Section 4
Sept 13 Life After Life Section 5
Sept 13 Life After Life Section 6
Sept 13 Life After Life Section 7

12/13 The Children's Book
~
12/13 The Children's Book - General Discussion No Spoilers
12/13 The Children's Book. Beginnings. Chapters 1-6
12/13 The Children's Book. Beginnings. Chapters 7-9
12/13 The Children's Book. The Golden Age Chapters 10-15
12/13 The Children's Book. The Golden Age Chapters 16-22
12/13 The Children's Book. The Golden Age Chapters 23-27
12/13 The Children's Book. The Golden Age. Chapters 28-31
12/13 The Children's Book The Silver Age. Chapters 32-36
12/13 The Children's Book. Silver Age. Chapters 37-43
12/13 The Children's Book. Silver Age. The Age of Lead. Chapters 44-54
12/13 The Children's Book. Final Discussions

Hugh, That is impressive!

Linda wrote: "Hugh, That is impressive!" I'd be happy to add more on request...

Hugh, that is awesome. I took the liberty of creating an "Index to Book Discussions" in the 2012 and 2013 archive folders, and pegged them to stay at the top of the folders. If you would put your links in those files, it would make it much easier for future generations to find. Thanks!

2012 here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

2013 here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Just finished adding them - thanks!

Wow--that is impressive and ultra useful--thanks!!!

Thanks, Hugh. Good work.

Thanks from me as well. I didn't read Life After Life with this group but have wanted to read the discussion. Now I can!

Good job Hugh!

Really great! Did you find a clever shortcut to do this, or was it brute force linking?

Whitney wrote: "Really great! Did you find a clever shortcut to do this, or was it brute force linking?" Some of it was IT trickery (I used a program to remove everything but the hyperlinks from the web page HTML), but the final sorting had to be done by hand, and for the last few (mostly the Lahiri stories), I had to follow the links to find out where they belonged...

Now that we know you are so IT talented (I am in awe) you will be in demand!