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June Book Club
The "book club post" will be posted on June 25th. All comments about the selected book will be welcome in that post. Reviews of the book should not be posted to the community.
This month, the book selection will be at random based on the poll results. I'm going to take the suggestions of your fellow readers and institute a "genre" or "theme" based policy for the next few months. If that goes well, then that's how we'll do the book selection for the club. Books that are not selected this month will be rotated into the poll for that specific theme/genre when it comes up. In early June, I will select the theme/genre for July's book club (suggestions via PM or comment are welcome), I'll then ask for book suggestions related to that theme/genre and post a poll for book selection.
As always, comments are welcome. I'm new to all of this. If some of you have experience and think there's a "better way," I'm all ears. Even if you don't have experience, if you can think of a better way, I'm happy to listen to your suggestions. I want the book club (and this community) to be successful! :D
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 68
Please Select Three Books That You Would Like To Read For This Month's Book Club!
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
13 (19.1%)
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
3 (4.4%)
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
13 (19.1%)
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
8 (11.8%)
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
10 (14.7%)
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
3 (4.4%)
One Second After by William R. Forstchen
2 (2.9%)
Middlemarch by George Eliot (pen name of Mary Anne Evans)
9 (13.2%)
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
23 (33.8%)
Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski
7 (10.3%)
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein
5 (7.4%)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
5 (7.4%)
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
22 (32.4%)
Ulysses by James Joyce
6 (8.8%)
The Plague by Albert Camus
5 (7.4%)
Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin
8 (11.8%)
Weaveworld by Clive Barker
7 (10.3%)
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
9 (13.2%)
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
2 (2.9%)
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
12 (17.6%)
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
6 (8.8%)
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
9 (13.2%)
Geisha of Gion: the Memoir of Mineko Iwasaki by Mineko Iwasaki
6 (8.8%)
*If you select more than three books, you should go back to the post and click on "change your vote." Any voter that has selected more than three books when the poll is closed will have all of their votes disqualified.
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And it also might have been good for the original commenter to check to see if Mineko Iwasaki was a man or woman ;)
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I didn't notice, until you mentioned it, that most of the authors in the poll were male. That was an unintentional oversight on my part. Thank you for raising this issue. In the future, I will make sure that the options reflect a balance by adding books written by female authors, authors of color, glbt authors, etc. I will also keep this issue in mind when I select the genre / theme each month. And, when I make posts asking for suggestions by the community, I'll be sure to ask that each suggestion include at least one that is written by an author that is not a white male.
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Inserting unwanted novels purely to fit some arbitrary definition of politically correct brings nothing to this community. In fact, forcing community members to read a book they didn't nominate and didn't vote for is more likely to drive away readers.
This isn't an arena for political campaigning - it's a place to enjoy books. If you think women are under-represented, try nominating books written by women instead of criticising us for not following your agenda.
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I think this tends to ignore the reality of community participation—only two of the books listed above were nominated by more than one person, and yet most of the books have received more than one vote. Only two people nominated Good Omens and yet many people are interested in reading that book. Likewise, Lolita received just one nomination, but its giving Good Omens a run for its money. Moreover, many people who have voted in this poll didn't nominate a book at all. There are almost 400 members in this community—I sincerely doubt that the suggestion list incorporated all of their interests. Working off of the suggestion list is beneficial because its representative of what people want to read—that doesn't make it an exhaustive list. I, myself, didn't add any books to the suggestion list because I honestly didn't have time to independently think of ideas. Some of the books suggested above were already on my reading list. Some of the books suggested above have been added to my reading list regardless of what the community vote turns out to be.
For this reason, I think its useful to add books to the list before voting on the read-of-the-month. And, I also think its important to offer a diverse selection of reading material written by a diverse set of authors. I think the use of themes/genres will help to keep the book club from reading "the same" book month after month.
We chose our beloved books, untainted by politics. The fact that we chose predominantly male authors isn't a vast conspiracy on our part - it just worked out that way.
Perhaps, not. But, its pretty much an undisputed fact that female authors are less likely to be employed at the publication level than male authors. And, its generally important for the nomination list to reflect diversity of thought and selection—we don't have to wage political campaigns in this community to be cognizant of how the publishing world operates in a discriminatory manner against female authors.
The original commenter intentionally and purposefully attacked me. She was rude. She also raised a very good point, which is why I chose to ignore her rudeness and address the point in the comment I made above.
The book-of-the-month for the book club will be selected on a majority-wins basis. But, I think its important for everyone to realize that the books on the list aren't an exhaustive representation of what people in this community want to read or would even be interested in reading as a part of the book club. And, while we might choose our books untainted by political bias (an assertion that I find difficult to believe—we don't live in a vacuum), we are, ultimately, influenced by the availability of books per the influence of the publishers. There's nothing wrong with making sure that future voting-lists reflect a diversity that the publishers (and we as society) should strive to achieve.