I Read Therefore I Am discussion

An announcement.
Laurel has very kindly agreed to take over Seasonal Side Reads - thanks v much Laurel

I'm thinking of setting up a readalongs folder - where members can arrange to read non group books together. For instance I really fancy reading Austerlitz which came last in the monthly poll so I'd post a comment to that effect in the "suggest a readalong" thread and if I got any takers would start another thread to discuss the book in.
What do you think?

Another idea is for a "Book Challenge". Where a member recommends a not particularly well known book - another member accepts the challenge and in turn recommends their own choice of not very well known book which yet another member agrees to read and suggests their own choice etc, etc.
As long as the books got read and each person agreed to post their comments I think it might be quite fun.
(though seeing it typed out I must admit that it looks like a particularly complicated and boring party game!_

Ha ha - I hate it when you try to explain something that sounded good in your head and people just give you blank looks! Happens to me all the time....

That said, it's a good idea ;)

It sounds a good idea but I would suggest the first person writes a bit of a synopsis, I would hate to accept the challenge of reading a Mason and Dixon look a like! Another stupid question, how would you know if it was well known or not, I mean for books that are not obviously classics or best sellers.

Yes a synopsis would definitely be a good idea - I guess by not well known I mean not something that's just been published, or a recent prize winner or a best seller or a classic, or something that everyone's talking about at the moment. But as long as it's a book that the challenger enjoyed and someone's up for reading it - it wouldn't really matter.
I think also the person who accepts the challenge wouldn't be able to to set their own until they'd read and reviewed the book. Do you think a 2 month time limit would be fair?

Yes I think that would be fine. Looking forward to it but I don't think I'm ever going to get through my TBR books at this rate.

Me neither but then again at least we will never be stuck for something to read :)

I know how you feel, Hilary!! But I love discovering all these "new" books too!!

Just about to kick the randomiser off for our next quarterly read . Do you think I should continue to choose our Boxhalls reads completely randomly from whole 1001 list - or would it be better to chose 3 from the 1st third of the list one month, 3 from the 2nd third the next and so on? This would mean that each time we would be voting on 3 books from a similar period - ish. what do you think?

In principle that sounds OK. The only reservation I have is that I suspect there are a lot of very old and quite difficult books to get hold of in the first third. I do quite like the randomiser and not having any idea what is going to come up.

I don't really mind either way - sorry not much help!

I quite like the complete randomness we have at the moment, to be honest. We've had a good selection come up already.

Ok random all the way it is - thanks everyone - I'm a terrible one for suddenly becoming convinced that I'm doing something the wrong way - so it's great to have you three there to say no it's fine (or not as the case may be) :0)

I've set up the Readalongs folder -just to let you know that I've moved Dickens in Instalments there :0)

I've just set up the poll for the xmas side-read - hope it's worked ok - will you let me know if the invite come through ok or not please? (never done one before)

Yes - all ok :0)

How much do you think is too much for a monthly Boxhalls read?-I've been rejecting ones over £10.00 -but do you think that £9.00 is too much?

Depends on it's availability - I get a lot of mine from the library anyway.

Hi Lee, back home and back online! Anyone who doesn't want to do the book either because of its cost or they just don't fancy it, needn't do it. Or as Laurel says they can try to get it from the library. I wouldn't automatically exclude them because I suspect many of the more recent ones will not be be less that that.

Hi Hilary - nice to see you again - what I decided to do was include the book in the poll but add a little advisory note at the top suggesting that people check availability and prices before they vote.

Are we having a folder for personal challenges and/or book lists this year?

Ooh yes good idea - I'll maybe archive some of the 2013 stuff too.

Ok cool, I didn't use it last year cos the group only started halfway through the year but will defo use it this time round ;)

Excellent, I was going to ask the same question!

ha ha we are all champing at the bit to start this years set of challenges and reads!

I already know what my challenge is - read the 20books I put on my TBR post in August of which I haven't read one!!!

Maybe by the end of 2020 :0)

I'm starting to think about the spring seasonal side-read.... I'm tempted to let it run through march and april to take the pressure off cos everyone seems to be very busy. What do you all think, or do you just want to give it a miss until the summer???

I'm barely keeping up with what we have to be honest. I'm happy to leave it until the summer.

Don't mind - I suppose another possibility would be to have it over May and June - but I'll go with whatever suits everyone best.

I was thinking maybe do the summer one over a couple of months, then plenty of time to read it. Then there's a nice big gap between then and Hallowe'en. We'll leave it till may/june time then, and I'll have a think about a theme cos my spring idea won't work anymore ;)

Now I want to know what your spring idea was!

Ha ha it wasn't anything special, just it worked for march as it's women's history month so thought we could read something about some famous/important woman or women in history, see what non-fiction or historical fiction we had lurking in our tbr's! But I will think of something summer-themed for us to do later in the year instead.

Maybe next march :0)

Yeah, I've got some ideas for the summer :)