Fans of Amish Fiction discussion

Rachel,

May I make a recommendation? Can we make another folder called Books By Author so we can move all of them to one area? I think it would be easier to find things as this group gets bigger and we start a group read.

Thanks!

Diane

Diane,

This is a great idea, thanks for suggesting it! I'll get started on moving them into a different folder.

Okay, how about one more folder for Group Reads? We can make a separate thread for each book we read.

Sorry to make you work so much on this thread. I'd do it myself if I could! LOL!

No problem, I was thinking about making a Group Reads folder too.

Please do let me know if you come up with any other ideas, you're a great help!

Three changes have been made to the group:
1. Author lists are now in the folder titled "Book Lists by Author"
2. There is now a "Group Reads" folder
3. "Amish Fiction in General" has been retitled "General Book Discussions"

I'm glad it is helpful!!!

Can we add Karen Harper to the Books by Author? I know she has an Amish Trilogy and then she has a separate novel about the Amish too. She's on my to read list that's the only reason I ask. I was looking to see if anyone else had read her. Thanks.

Sure! I haven't heard of this author before but I'll add her to the folder.

Question for you all - do you want to add books about Mennonites to the lists? I have a few on my wishlist that look really good.

I think they are so "simmilar" I say yes. Several of the Amish fiction also have some Mennonite people in them like that Cindy Woodsmall book you recommended for the group read.

So is the one that I am raeding now, Simple Secrets by Nancy Mehl. So I would say yes too!

Great, I've added a couple of Mennonite books to the list. Please alert me to any new authors you come across!

I just finished reading the Sound of Sleigh Bells by Cindy Woodsmall. Had to write a quick reveiew. This book is a 5 star along with cindy's other works. It was so touching and insightful. It is based on how we let past hurts build up walls around us, sometimes not allowing ourselves to be truly happy again until we start breaking down the walls around our hearts. It's about finding mercy and forgiveness and about overcomming our pasts to invite our futures. Great read i recommend it if you havent read it you should.

Patricia - Do you want to post your thoughts on the thread about Cindy Woodsmall? That way anyone thinking about reading one of her books will have your recommendation right there! Or you could add to the Christmas thread :) This one is mainly for technical suggestions about improving the efficiency of the group.

On that note, I've updated the author lists to include notes on whether a book is from the Love Inspired line at Harlequin, as per Janet's suggestion. Please let me know if you have any more ideas! I love how this little group has grown over the last few months and am totally happy to make changes to make the group more fun for all of us.

Would anyone else be interested in started a Reading Challenge for 2011? I was thinking of suggesting a separate area within our group for this. Each person who wants to participate would have their own thread to state their reading goal and to list the books read in 2011 as they are completed.

Any thoughts???

Great idea! While there are several GoodReads challenge groups it would be nice to be able to see what goals our members are aiming for and how we're managing to achieve them so that we can encourage each other. I'll set up a section called "Reading Challenges" and people can post their threads :)

Since there are several kindle users here, how does the group feel about making a separate thread where we can list our lendable kindle books?

I went through all of my books and made a separate shelf for them called Lendable Kindle Books. We could each post the link to our personal lending shelf so other group member could easily view them. Then if we want to borrow one, you would just send a message to the other person and include your personal email address so the book could be sent to you.

Then if I read it right, once it is lent once, it cannot be lent again, right??? Can anyone confirm that?

Any thoughts???

Sounds like a good idea, Diane. Perhaps we should make a general section for all Kindle related matters, such as freebies or lendable books etc? We already have several threads about Kindles so we could put them all together so Kindle-users can find them and others can ignore them! What do others think? Diane, feel free to go ahead and do this if you want!

I think that's a great idea Rachel!

Great addition to my prior suggestion Rachel! It's all set now!

I just created a new folder called Place to Get Books to Review. I moved the threads for Net Galley, Book Sneeze and FSB Media. I also created a new thread for Books for Blogging which I discovered about a month ago but I have not seen any books that interest me yet.

If anyone has another place to share with the group, please make a separate thread for it! Thanks!

Great idea Diane, I was also noticing the number of review-book threads we have and thinking they should all be in one place. Thanks!

Great minds think alike!!!

Just to improve on the section Diane, I think I'll add any other threads I find about book-reviewing into that section - I think there might be a couple of other discussions about BookSneeze and FSB Media.

Edit: Also, would it be a good idea to add any disucssions about blogs and blogging to that section too?

Sure, a little organizing sounds good to me!

Cool, blogging posts are now in that folder too. I couldn't add "Blogging" to the title as it was too long, so it's currently called "Blogging & Reviewing". Does this sound okay, or too ambiguous?

That works!

Thanks! My brain is too full of Chaucer and Milton to think of anything right now so just wanted to check :)

So I have been thinking. I love reading Amish Fiction with you ladies each month how about doing a none Amish book club reading each month as well separate from the Amish one. There are so many good books out there and I know a lot of us read the Christian romance lots of historical or contemporary books pop up on my newsfeed. Just a thought. That way even if we don't read the Amish choice for the month we could read the other choice or both since I know we all read more then 2 books a month. ;)

Just throwing it out there to chew on.

I like this idea - I know that a lot of us are into both historical and contemporary fiction as well as Amish. I wouldn't want to overshadow other groups on GoodReads, but if enough of our members are interested it's worth thinking about this idea. Kind of as a "Taking a break from Amish fiction" or "We also recommend..." idea. It would mean that those taking an Amish overload or not interested in the current read could read the other! Perhaps it would be a way of fitting in Shaker/Mennonite books as well, as I know some members like those.

I'd love to hear other's ideas on this. Thanks, Abbie :)

O I don't want to over shadow at all. I just find it so much fun to read books with you ladies but I sometimes get a little bored with Amish books and don't read one for a month or so. We could do a historical fiction because its closer to Amish fiction in some ways and has lots of options or historical/western since western is kind of historical when your reading 1800 westerns. Plus we could pull in some of the love inspired books as well though there are some Amish ones I should recommend those one month. I was just thinking we could do the same basic thing as we do with the Amish books each month. Maybe do a theme with them or something like one month is historical the next contemporary or western etc.

I was actually thinking about that for the Amish as well. Start doing themes like one month is mystery the next romance or pick just one author to choose from etc. Again I am just thinking so you don't have to take any of my ideas. :)

I think it's a wonderful idea. And keeping in spirit with Amish fiction I vote that we nominate a clean novel to read. I think it could be anything from historical fiction to christian fiction to a regular good old chick-lit novel. :)

I think it would be fine to have a non-amish fiction to read each month too.

I like that idea too. i'm with Camille I want it to be clean.

O I only read clean as well I don't even think about it anymore!

I figured we would all be on board with the suggestion, but never hurts to have it in the rules, just in case!

I like the idea of doing a different themed non-Amish book each month. We have so many options: historical, western, contemporary, mystery, chick-lit, etc.

By clean do we want to stick to specifically Christian/inspirational novels or vote for secular ones as well? I do read non-clean fiction, mainly because it's so hard to find clean stuff over here sometimes :/ So glad I found you guys to recommend these books to me! But yes, having a clean novel sounds like a good idea.

Diane hasn't dropped by yet but I'm sure she'll be happy with this idea too :)

I was telling my fiance that my book group was planning on doing two books a month and he thinks it's a great idea, so obviously he hasn't clicked that this will mean I'll be spending MORE money on books! :P

Are we too late to start in April?

I don't see why we can't start nominations now, if people would like to kick off this idea in April? We'd need to decide on a theme and then start nomination, but it is only the 3rd of March right now. We could always end this month's nomination later than normal if needed.

What do people think?

Sounds good to me! :D

I'm going to start a discussion in the Non-Amish Books section so we can discuss this further over there :)

I sometimes read non-clean fiction too Rachel, so I'm right there with you. But I just figured for the group as a whole, to keep in spirit with the Amish fiction theme, which is clean, that it'd be most appealing to the group members to nominate something clean each month to read aside from our Amish fiction read. :)

Okay, I'm here! Sorry, I haven't been here much for the past 24 hours. I had a little problem at home. We can home on Tuesday night from work and our dog had severe diarreha while he was in his crate all day. Everything needed to be cleaned, including him. We called the vet and they told us to put him on a bland diet and to bring him in if it doesn't get better after 48 hours. I took yesterday off from work to stay home with him so he could go out every 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Thankfully it stopped and things are "back to normal" as of last night. I just hate when pets are sick since they cannot tell you anything.

Anyways, my opinion regarding reading a non-Amish book as another group read sounds great! I used to be a member of The Next Best Book Club here on Good Reads. They used to have nominations for two books per month and you could participate in both, one or none. I do like the idea of keeping it clean and making a requirement of being Christian fiction.

Let's start for April too. Again, you can only nominate one book per category each and you must specify which book is for which category.

Do we want to add a theme to the Christian fiction read also? Let's start a thread for theme suggestions and make a "master" list. We could number it so I could use Random.org to pick our theme for the month. Once a theme is used, it cannot be used again for six months just like what we are doing with authors for Amish fiction.

This will be fun! I too enjoy reading books with everyone here in our little family!

I think the idea of picking a theme and doing the six month idea is a good one so we can read different books!

So are we going to use Random.org to pick one of the genres each month and then each nominate a book within that genre? I think that would be the most simple thing to do. Keep one list of genres like the one Diane started, and each month just pick one of those genres and each of us can select a book within that genre.

Camille wrote: "So are we going to use Random.org to pick one of the genres each month and then each nominate a book within that genre? I think that would be the most simple thing to do. Keep one list of genres ..."

Sounds good to me!

Jodie, I'll definitely go check out your group as well :) good luck with taking over and revamping it!

Diane, I'm so sorry about your dog! I totally know what you mean about hating not knowing what's wrong with your pets, my cats just hide under my bed when they're ill!

I think the idea of nominating a theme and then not using it for six months after is a good idea, it'll give us a chance to explore lots of different genres. Then we'll have a list of genres to work through so that we know which genre comes up each month and then nominate within that theme :)

I'm excited about this!

I made a new folder for Christian Fiction Group Reads and I renamed the other one to be Amish Group Reads. This way we don't get mixed up between the two group reads.

Rachel, to make life easier for you and I, would you mind if I took care of starting threads for the Christian fiction group reads and you can continue starting the Amish group reads? Unless something comes up, then we could message each other to start them if there is a problem.

I was just thinking about renaming the groups, so thanks!

And yes, that makes perfect sense. It means I don't have to worry about starting FOUR new threads every month, just two. We'll just try to keep the same format for each introductory post, but you seem to have got that under control already with the Suggestions thread :)

Completely unrelated to the new book group, but does anyone else like the idea of having an Off-Topic section? We could discuss anything - knitting, recipes, films, whatever's going on in our lives, etc. What do people think?