EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club discussion

Hello Readers!
There has been some recent discussion by members and moderators, on the idea of further limiting MODERN book nominations by publication date. Our last 2 BOTM choices were published very recently, and are immensely popular on social media sites. This makes them very difficult to acquire though libraries, where long hold queues exist.

Our group was formed to read catch-up books, the ones that everyone else has already read. Would you support a further restriction on Modern book nominations to allow only books published over 1 year ago? Over 2 years ago? Over 10 years?

We, the moderators, are very interested in hearing your ideas. Thank you!

I personally agree to 10 or more years

I am only interested in books that have stood the test of time for at least 5 years. Ratings decline as buzz falls off and as more readers who were waiting in queue realize that the book wasn't worth the wait.

And yes, this is the Catch-Up club, indeed.

I disagree with this idea of saying it has to be published a certain amount of time. I agree with the idea the book has to be well know which is indicated by the number of ratings. Both of those new books have a lot of ratings which fall into the category everyone has read this but me. Perhaps a consideration around the definition of classic should be revisited and it should be books pre 1985 (rather than 1970) as that expands that window and may result in some other nominations.

I think the members of the group are voting on the books they want to read. They are nominating the books they want to read. I don’t read as many of the group choices as I used to because I have read the catch up books already and I have read most of the books that get chosen. So I participate in the other challenges instead.

Beyond the question of availability—which is a big one for a lot of people—I think this kind of time restriction has other benefits. The biggest one I can see is that it will help filter out faddish books—the kind where everyone reads it & chats it up, but then a year later they’ve all either forgotten it, or even realized it wasn’t a very good book in the first place.

For me, a two-year moratorium would probably be enough to achieve this, maybe three. I probably wouldn’t go higher than five, because there’s also a threshold where a vibrant conversation around the book has come & gone, and you’ve entirely missed it. The group can’t be all things to all people, of course, but I think 5 years is a reasonable middle ground.

I totally disagree with making classics any more recent. 1985 is not nearly long enough ago to qualify something; 1970 is actually pushing it, imo.

But I suppose we could have three categories, possibly? Classic before 1900, 20th century, and Modern/21st century.

I don't currently participate in Modern discussions because the choices do indeed seem "faddish."

Abeselom wrote: "I personally agree to 10 or more years"

I'm new here but I agree with the above.

BUT there may be a book or 2 each year that are brand spanking new but the whole world is reading it, like a Pulitzer winner or an autobio like Spare or My Name is Barbra which might have thousands of ratings even before they are officially released.

i second Laura H's comment :)

or maybe there would be even the possibility to form a new subgrouo wherr you can catch up to newer releases?

I was actually one of the people who originally nominated one of the very recently published books that we'll be reading. I confess that I hadn't thought of these issues when I nominated it. Now that I have thought about them, especially the availability issue, I think adding this kind of restriction makes a lot of sense. I'd say restricting the "Modern" category to books published at least 3-5 years ago would make sense given the purpose of this group.

I personally disagree with the idea of moving the boundary between "Classic" and "Modern" any further forward. 1970 is already very recent for that boundary.

Fun Fact - Out of 82 books in our Modern bookshelf, only 6 were read within a year of publication.

I was hugely in favor of the decision made to read books that have at least 50,000 ratings...

and I don't want to make life more complicated for our great moderators...

but I've often wondered whether the 50,000 ratings should apply to the Classics bookshelves and we should apply a higher number of ratings for the Modern bookshelves.

For example, Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens doesn't qualify because it has less than 50,000 ratings (that's fine, I'm not saying it should). But I could also give you quite a few examples of books that were released late last year that already have 50,000 ratings and I haven't heard about them at all, let alone ANYONE reading them.

I think the possible solution of increasing the number of ratings required for the Modern Bookshelves might be a way to get books that have stood the test of time a bit longer, while not missing out on Modern books. If we increase it on everything, I think we'll run out of Classic books quickly. :-)

I will support anything that the group decides. I checked both of the recent books out of the library and enjoyed one out of the two. :-)

Renata wrote: "Fun Fact - Out of 82 books in our Modern bookshelf, only 7 were read within a year of publication."

Per Renata's statistic, I feel that we are spending time and energy on a "problem" that is not a problem.
There is no requirement for any of us to read books chosen for the month, thus no penalty if one is not able to acquire and read the book in it's assigned month.
The moderators have done a fabulous job of facilitating reading for individuals in the group in other ways. If a participant is not reading the book of the month there are several other ongoing opportunities to read and discuss books.

I agree with Adrienne :)
The discussion threads are open for a longer time anyways - we can also read the books a little later if we couldn’t get them on time but are still interested. I think if we only had the modern section, I might think about this differently, but there are 4 book reads available each month- adding to that all of the other challenges that are available I think there are a ton of options for reading with the group out there- even if one has to be late for one of the read alongs. Plus, there are a lot of people voting for those books (it’s not like they are being dictated by an outside force?).
I hope we find a solution everyone can accept. Maybe if all else fails (and more people step forward with this complaint), splitting it up into two subsections could be put to a group vote? (If it is even possible to have 5 group reads…) Or maybe another option could be to switch off and have the (two?) year treshhold every other months or something? And thanks to all the mods for making this group such a fun place :)

I agree with Lina. It might help to add another group read or to alternate nominations between older releases and more recent books. I personally enjoy the more recent books but understand availability is an issue.

Thanks to the moderators for all that you do. :)

There are many other GR groups reading trendy bestsellers. Should we be one of them?

I am against even more monthly categories, i.e. new modern, old modern. If the 7/85 stat is correct then this doesn't seem like a huge problem? Once in a while a very new book makes the cut - those who can't find or borrow it don't have to read it with the group.

Adrienne wrote: “There is no requirement for any of us to read books chosen for the month, thus no penalty if one is not able to acquire and read the book in it’s assigned month.”

I guess I read the original concern differently. It’s not that there’s a penalty to members if they don’t read the book, but there is a penalty to the group as a whole if a book is chosen and then the interested readers find that they can’t get access to it. The conversation is then not as lively as it might have been, if a slightly older (and thus easier-to-acquire) book had been chosen.

Certainly, the threads stay open, and anyone might try to revive the conversation months or years later, once they’ve gotten the book. But isn’t the whole point of a monthly read that there is some benefit to everyone reading & discussing it more or less at the same time? Otherwise why choose monthly books at all?

Last month 335 people voted for Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tommorrow. 335 voices has the potential for a very lively conversation.
If a member can't get their hands on the book of the month for this month they can join back in with the group reads next month.

To Renata's point, I don't think we should become a group that reads only the latest trends, but an occasional new book is ok with me.
I would also encourage more people to participate in the suggestion process. 30-40 comments from a group of 23000+ is a bit pathetic.

I think 5 years would be a good date for modern reads. 3 at an absolute minimum. Not just to make books more easily available at the library but to determine if they are the merely popular or are they actually quality.

spoko wrote: "Adrienne wrote: “There is no requirement for any of us to read books chosen for the month, thus no penalty if one is not able to acquire and read the book in it’s assigned month.”

I guess I read t..."
Agreed.

Keep in mind, the Bookshelf Catch-Up category is another opportunity to collectively read a book that wasn't readily available in its first go-round.

Adrienne wrote: "Last month 335 people voted for Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tommorrow. 335 voices has the potential for a very lively conversation.
If a member can't get their hands on the book of t..."

Yes, our nomination process is underwhelming. We have a membership of over 23K people, but only 40 participate in nominations and just 700 cast a vote in the polls. Participation apathy or what?

Renata wrote: "Adrienne wrote: "Last month 335 people voted for Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tommorrow. 335 voices has the potential for a very lively conversation.
If a member can't get their hands..."

I can't explain it either! Voting and nominating are part of the fun!

I agree with Laura H’s comment about moving the cut off to 1985 on classics. But also could see a 2 year requirement on the modern book working out well since the group is called Books Everyone Has Already Read. It give the population so time to actually read the books being nominated :)

I don't have a problem with the current rules, but if you wanted to change modern classic/popular, I would only limit it to not published in the current year or the previous year. It should be easy to get books published in 2021 from the library because the hold lists have died down by now.