The Not a Book Club Club discussion

So we've been around just under a year and a half now, and the group keeps growing in size, though not necessarily in participation.

Personally that's fine by me, as I'm not looking to create some monster group reading several books a month, or even necessarily at least 1/month.

However, I do admit to find myself baffled what the 200+ people (the group is around 250 members, only about 10-20 of whom I'd consider active participants) who never seem to post in the group are doing here however.

Mostly I'm curious to see what people are thinking about the group. I have a few key questions I'd like some feedback on.

- What do you think about the book "selection" process? It seems that just about all of the group reads have been organized by myself or Alex.

As for the ones I've organized, some were books I was just really looking forward to reading (ie Words of Radiance or Skin Game) and other are sequels to books we read last year (ie Crimson Campaign and Shadow Throne).

The participation on most of these reads seems to have been limited compared to other books we've read in the past.

That leads me to my next question:

- Do you like the book discussion format?

It seems often times that I'm either the only one posting in the various sections, or that people aren't really discussing the book, but simply posting their thoughts/ a summary of that section and moving on.

Most of the discussion seems to occur in the first and final threads of each book. I try to break the books into 4-6 parts because I enjoy discussing the events of each book as I go and hate to wait until the end to pop into the discussion thread to avoid spoilers.

However, maybe I'm just in a minority. Would people rather we just have a first impressions/final thoughts thread like the SciFi and Fantasy group uses?

And finally:

- Any other thoughts/ideas about the group you'd like to share?

I'm not looking to make things more formal here. I expect people to jump in and out as their schedules allow and based on interest in the books being read. Maybe everyone is happy with things the way they are and just don't want to post/discuss the details as much as I do. I just figured I'd try to gauge everyone's opinions.

Thanks.

My only feedback (which isn't what you asked for but whatever) is maybe taking some of the old discussion folders off of the main page, like The First Law, Tigana, and The Gentelman Bastards. It's a bit cluttered, IMO.

I am relatively new here. I haven't had the opportunity to participate in many group reads at the time they were happening, with the exception of PoF, because so far (in the short time I've been here) they seem to have been mostly sequels to great series I hadn't read yet. I am not sure how many others miss out because of this. This isn't really a problem for me longer term...I have caught up or am catching up with many of the series. I would suggest putting books on the calendar a little earlier, if the release date is known and its a sequel to something I haven't read, I can be caught up in time.

I do enjoy the format of the discussion broken down by chapter. I would probably be a more active participant if I was engaging in the discussions in real time rather than after the fact.

Dara wrote: "My only feedback (which isn't what you asked for but whatever) is maybe taking some of the old discussion folders off of the main page, like The First Law, Tigana, and The Gentelman Bastards. It's ..."

Sure it is. That was my third question.

I cleaned up a few things from the front page though none of the ongoing series stuff.

Sky wrote: " I would suggest putting books on the calendar a little earlier, if the release date is known and its a sequel to something I haven't read, I can be caught up in time."

This is something I already do. Most of those books were on the calendar for several months before they came out.

The main reason this group is good - is the selection of books that people suggest. I have my copy of Half a King ready for next group read (which i will probably start a day or two later). This is probably the first time i have started a book with the group.
A lot of my reading and future reading have been suggestions here (based on the feedback of Blood Song - that will be a future read).

I prefer the format of giving opinions on the book after i have read it. This avoids any spoilers. I agree that some discussion is just a summary of that section. I like to be taken for ride while reading, and don't like to speculate too much until i have finished the book (and there will be sequel).

At the moment there are no books that i would like to read that has not already been read/suggested.

In summary i find this a great resource for new reading from members of the Goodreads community that i respect as their reading is similar to mine.

I like the selection process. It is hard with genres consisting mostly of series to always find common stuff to read. I am terrible at planning on what to read ahead of time so not the best at recommending group reads. I just moved this month so don't have the time/money for all, the new releases discussed lately.

I like the current book discussion format but it might help for the organizer to prompt with some questions in each section to help start discussion. Some of the other groups I am in have several thousand members and only get a few people discussing each book.

Thanks Richard. I'm very spoiler adverse (as anyone whose felt my moderator wraith in this and other groups can probably attest to). So I can understand wanting to avoid spoilers.

I do feel like we do a pretty good job on that here. People are usually pretty good about watching what thread they are posting in. This could be another reason why people skip the middle threads and jump right to the end, to avoid spoiling something if they aren't sure which section it belongs in.

There is definitely speculation that goes on in the threads, that I personally enjoy, although often times I seem to be on pace or ahead of the discussion so maybe it bothers me less than if someone is very good in their guesses about what might happen next than I might be otherwise.

I'm glad you're finding the group a useful resource. I know personally I've found several books and authors I may not have read otherwise in addition to getting to discuss some of the new releases I'm really excited about right when they come out instead of waiting for offline friends to catch up to me.

Bill wrote: "it might help for the organizer to prompt with some questions in each section to help start discussion."

I try to post a combination of plot summary and my own personal questions about the book, but often they don't seem to elicit much/any feedback. Maybe I'm just doing a poor job of it.

Often times if it's a book I'm really enjoying, I may not be thinking too much about where it's going and simply enjoying the story as it's unfolding though.

I can try to come up with some more targeted discussion questions though. Maybe I'll just throw up a bunch for each section and people can feel free to latch on to the ones of interest (assuming I can come up with any). Thanks for the suggestion.


Bill wrote: "Some of the other groups I am in have several thousand members and only get a few people discussing each book. "

That's a good point. I've noticed that as well. There always seems to be a core of active participants and then a ton of lurkers. Maybe they are content simply lurking. I guess I just have a hard time understanding it though, hence this thread. Though if they already don't post, this thread probably won't get them to start either.

Rob wrote: "This is something I already do. Most of those books were on the calendar for several months before they came out."

OK, I guess I joined right in the middle of all these sequels coming out and wasn't able to make use of the calendar :)

If you are looking for suggestions for stuff to put on the calendar, Fool's Assassin comes out next month, I haven't read any Robin Hobb yet, so now would be a good time for me to jump in. The Slow Regard of Silent Things novella comes out end of October, though I've already read the first two books, Magician's Land comes out next month (still need to read Magician King), Ancillary Sword comes out in Oct (haven't read Ancillary Justice yet)...though not sure if you are planning group reads of any of these.

Sky wrote: "If you are looking for suggestions for stuff to put on the calendar, Fool's Assassin comes out next month"

Several (most?) of the active participants here belong to the Robin Hobb group so I'm not going to bother setting up discussion for that here as they've had it on the calendar for months already.

I love Robin Hobb's Elderling books though, and highly recommend you check them out even if you can't catch up (there are 13 books across 4 different series) before it comes out. The aforementioned group has discussed them all too if you're looking for group discussion.

Sky wrote: "The Slow Regard of Silent Things novella comes out end of October, though I've already read the first two books, Magician's Land comes out next month, Ancillary Sword comes out in Oct "

These are all good ideas that we can add some/all of them if people are interested. I know several folks read/liked Ancillary Justice. You should post things like that in the Suggest a Book thread. :)

13? Yikes! That'll keep me busy a while. Might wrap up Dresden Files first, still have ~7 more to go.

Oh, so now we are supposed to be proactive and not just sit around and complain? OK, I'll post to suggest a book thread :)

Sky wrote: "14? Yikes! That'll keep me busy a while. Might wrap up Dresden Files first, still have ~7 more to go."

It is a lot, but more manageable than many other series I think. If not for the new book next month there wouldn't be any feeling of rushing to keep up.

It's 3 trilogies followed by a 4-book series. The first and third trilogies follow Fitz who is the main character of the upcoming book.

He doesn't appear in the other two series, but both are really enjoyable (Liveship more than Rainwild imho) and I think add a lot to the overall world building and shouldn't be skipped.

Sword and Laser did the first book of the first trilogy in 2012 and I quickly gobbled up the next 8 books. Last year I joined with some others to do Rain Wild after they caught up to me, and I'm really looking forward to the new book next month.

My biggest problem here is something you can't fix. GR notifications seem spotty at best for me and I don't always get the notifications on discussions for new books. Maybe instead of having it in one thread, put each month's discussion in a new thread? When I realize I've missed a bunch of stuff, it's hard to catch up.

That said, what I've seen lately is a lot of follow-on books...since I didn't jump in on the original books, it's can be hard to jump in later. But that's sort of a "me" problem not a group problem. Right now I'm so buried beta reading and reading for reviews, I feel like I'm not keeping up with any groups.

I haven't had issues with notifications, for this group, but know how buggy goodreads can be. Plus it probably wouldn't hurt to close/ create a new thread for each month instead of just having one big thread.

The only thing I can suggest for the us not reading books you can jump in on is suggest a book!

I know what it's like to be overrun with books though. I just finished one review for SFFAUDIO, and I have two more to listen to and review yet.

Hopefully I can come up for air soon. :) Separate threads would be so helpful.

To share some positive feedback, I LOVE LOVE LOVE how you put the book title "abbreviation" in the post for each book. I wish S&L could institute that, would make it much simpler to see if the discussion is going on for a book I care/don't care about...

Heh. Thanks. I find it super useful for emails, but also for sharing a section for multiple books. I really do it for myself, but I'm glad someone else finds it useful.

Haha. I almost made you a mod last month when I wasn't reading along with the group. I don't remember why I didn't. Probably because I'm selfish and like to feels special. :-P

And the point of this thread isn't to make the group bigger. I'm just trying to get an idea of what people are thinking.

And I'm certainly not planning to move to formal nominations or voting.

I enjoy this group a lot - probably because it corresponds so well to my tastes in books. Several of the series I hadn't read and have had to pay catchup - kind of like Sky I think.

I like the discussions broken up into sections - that way I can feel safe reading about things where I'm at without being spoiled.

I do feel bad that I often can't think of anything profound to say. I like to read, but I'm not very good at formulating thoughts while writing. I'm pretty sure I occasionally HAVE profound thoughts - they just seem to disappear when I get in front of a computer.

I think we can definitely improve on book selection process, what we can do is people can nominate books and we can have vote on it and read that book which gets the highest votes.

Suzanne wrote: I do feel bad that I often can't think of anything profound to say. I like to read, but I'm not very good at formulating thoughts while writing."

Heh me too. I am still too shy to write book reviews. I am finding it easier though with the sections split up the way they are into chapters/pages, to have a little bit to say every few sections, and hopefully soon I can start rolling them up into an actual review.

I only joined this group recently but the one thing I really like is the not so strict nature of the group. It's been said before but I like the fact that you read books as they come out.

I just haven't been able to jump in because a lot of books lately are sequals to books I haven't read yet. And I didn't have the time or money to catch up that quickly.
If I do happen to get to a book the club has already read I might want to check your discussion feeds to see what other people think. So please don't delete everything, I know it might make it more orderly but I would really love to see your thoughts.

Perhaps voting for a book might be a good idea. There's nothing there in August and in september it's suddenly all Harry Potter, how many people are going to participate in that? I imagine it's hard to keep track of such things.

Bas wrote: "If I do happen to get to a book the club has already read I might want to check your discussion feeds to see what other people think. So please don't delete everything, I know it might make it more orderly but I would really love to see your thoughts."

I haven't deleted anything, but did tweak the group settings to move the really old stuff off the front page.

I don't see a retention setting, so I have no idea if good reads will eventually delete old threads. I hope not. I certainly don't plan to.

Eh. I'm a bit reluctant to open up the ability to add books to the shelf to just anyone. Though I suppose we can try it and I can always turn it off if it gets unweildly.

It's less a concern about the active members abusing it and more of all the random people who might join.

I'm also open to adding 1 or 2 mods, but so far with a group so small I haven't felt like there has been much need for that.

Personally though, I'm fine if discussion to read a book falls flat. As much as I like discussing every book I read, I don't like having every book I read/listen to so rigidly scheduled. It's nice to have some books I read on my own pace.

In general my opinion of why those things fall flat is because often times people suggest books and never take the initiative to follow through on them. So if it's a book I'm not excited/planning to read, it only seems to get on the schedule if Alex organizes it.

I'm not sure if people are intimidated or just think it's a lot of work to organize a read/create discussion threads or what.

Things seem fine to me. Truth be told, I check this group more often than the others I'm in, largely because I come to the internet to find people who agree with me. Uh, I mean, because I respect all of your opinions and you all have great taste in literature or something.

As far as the extra 200+ members are concerned, I've done a fair amount of research on the subject, and I believe that they are mainly cats.

Think about it. Cats love books, can most likely get enough use out of a tablet or mouse to find and join the group, but lack the fine motor skills and paw dexterity to participate in the conversation.

Except for David Sven, that is. Years of dodging dingoes to stay alive have obviously taught him enough feline cunning to manage a keyboard.

ROFL Sky. You're probably right. Damn cats. We had a Kat once. But she went and got herself a steady boyfriend and disappeared from the internetz.

Also, clearly David Sven is a bunny and not a cat.

Alex wrote: "Oh man I can't wait for Harry Potter month(s) starting in September. I've been looking forward to this all year."

ME TOO. I'm so impatient.

I suggest more carrots...group need more carrots.

Sky wrote: "Except for David Sven, that is. Years of dodging dingoes to stay alive have obviously taught him enough feline cunning to manage a keyboard. "

There's a special Bunny app for that


Rob wrote: "Also, clearly David Sven is a bunny and not a cat. "

My disguise is clearly working on some people. The Hood is working.

David Sven wrote: "I suggest more carrots...group need more carrots.

Sky wrote: "Except for David Sven, that is. Years of dodging dingoes to stay alive have obviously taught him enough feline cunning to manage a key..."

So it looks like we've hit critical mass and this thread is about as useful as it's going to get..

Maybe once 2 or 3 people want to read a suggested book they can start a seperate thread to check for more interest and to set a read date.

Rob wrote: "So it looks like we've hit critical mass and this thread is about as useful as it's going to get.. "

Always glad to help Rob.

David Sven wrote: "Always glad to help Rob."

YOU ALWAYS RUIN EVERYTHING!

Rob wrote: "David Sven wrote: "Always glad to help Rob."

YOU ALWAYS RUIN EVERYTHING!"

Is that a no to more carrots then?

I love the book selection process. If I want tedious voting, I go for different groups.

I love the discussion format with some 100 pages per discussion chunk, a kind of Drive-Through-Discussion :)

Discussions were great, I saw a lot of participation, far more than in large groups. And the quality of the discussions were far better generally speaking.

I have one issue with your abbreviations - on GR mobile app, it only shows up the abbreviation (int he "unread" folder) without the prefix context: e.g. instead of "The Shadow Campaigns -> TST: Part 5: Chapter 19 - Epilogue" it only says "TST: Part 5: Chapter 19 - Epilogue" which is quite confusing if you don't exactly know the abbreviations by heart.

The selected books reflect some very special taste and I think it could be a good think to get a little bit more diverse. Problem here could be an aversion by some key people, though.

Andreas wrote: "and I think it could be a good think to get a little bit more diverse. Problem here could be an aversion by some key people, though."

You're more than welcome to organize books for whatever you want, but the group is mostly made up of SFF fans, so you may not get a lot of buy in depending on what you suggest.

I read some non fiction computer books I don't bother to suggest as I doubt anyone else would care. And I do like other genres, but there is just so much SFF on my reading list that nothing outside of that has managed to worm it's way to the top.

I think if you have a really good book that people want to read though the genre doesn't matter.

Rob, I'd be happy to read some architecture-oriented computer books with you :) But that was not what I was thinking of.
I was talking about more diversity within SFF genres: The current bookshelf has a heavy tendency towards Fantasy and even there doesn't look in all the corners (though I admit that the Harry Potters series read is quite different).
But I understand that there are so many must-reads appearing that they fill up all the possible spots. Having to choose between the newest Django Wexler and some other work from, say, Samatar, Bacigalupi, Stross, Saladin Ahmed or others it would be clear what will land on that spot, right? I don't want to say that Wexler's work isn't better. Only that we read a lot in that particular part of fantasy.

Rob wrote: "We had a Kat once. But she went and got herself a steady boyfriend and disappeared from the internetz."

I volunteer as a replacement.

Andreas wrote: "Rob, I'd be happy to read some architecture-oriented computer books with you :) But that was not what I was thinking of.
I was talking about more diversity within SFF genres: The current bookshelf..."

Well you're free to suggest that stuff. The real issue right now is there are so many new books this summer I want to read.

Personally I'm overbooked, but that doesn't mean others won't be.

Kat wrote: "Rob wrote: "We had a Kat once. But she went and got herself a steady boyfriend and disappeared from the internetz."

I volunteer as a replacement."

Haha. OK.

Rob wrote: "I read some non fiction computer books I don't bother to suggest as I doubt anyone else would care. "

Au contraire mon frere. Suggest away! This would be waaayyy off-topic, but I love learning new things,like ARM embedded programming, android dev, refreshing my linear algebra/calculus, learning statistics and R, mostly through taking classes on edx/coursera. I usually make friends in the course and we discuss stuff over facebook groups/irc/email, but if anyone else is addicted to this stuff like me, it would make for interesting discussion.

Andreas wrote: "Rob, I'd be happy to read some architecture-oriented computer books with you :) "

I am currently working my way through John Valvano's 3 book series on ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers:

Intro to ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers
Real time Interfacing to ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers
Real-time Operating Systems for ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers

if anyone is interested

I'd always be down for a re-read of Computer Organization and Design or anything else people suggest :)

Regarding Samatar, Bacigalupi, Stross, Saladin Ahmed I am way behind on this side of stuff, I'd be down to read any of it if it gets suggested.

I work in IT so might also be interested in reading some computer books.

Most of what I read is about computer crime and the early days of computers:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Most recently I finished reading Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, which was pretty good.

None of it is that technical. I haven't read too many technical books since college.

We could have a Design Patterns discussion! lol.

Rob wrote: "Most of what I read is about computer crime and the early days of computers:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...

Most recently I finished reading [book:Hackers: Heroe..."

I love Hackers (anything by Steven Levy). I re-read it every 5 years or so. I've been planning to read Levy's "Crypto" for a while. I work in Computer Security so I'd be down to read anything in that area.

Design Patterns...Haha...I am taking a class on Pattern Oriented Software Architecture for Android and will be working my way through the gang of four book, POSA vol 1-5, Concurrent Programming in Java, and Head First Design Patterns over the next year, if you are interested :)

Head first design patterns should not be read on an empty stomach.

Weird...It totally seems like we have enough programmers/IT people in the group to do some computer non-fiction/technical book group reads. I wonder if any such groups exist on goodreads.

Speaking of which, any good Cyberpunk come out these days? Stephenson went all sword geek on us, I haven't really kept up.

Mark Russinovich of System Internals fame tried writing some techno-thriller (Zero Day?) but I've never read it.

I did enjoy Daniel Suarez Daemon and it's sequel Freedom. Not exactly Cyberpunk but pretty accurate techno-computer-thriller. Reminded me a bit of REAMDE.

I guess this is all a bit off-topic for group feedback, maybe deserves its own thread :)

Sky wrote: "Speaking of which, any good Cyberpunk come out these days? Stephenson went all sword geek on us, I haven't really kept up."

I wouldn't call it exactly "cyberpunk" but have you heard of Magic 2.0? I'm listening to book 2 right now. I rather enjoyed the first one: Off to Be the Wizard and highly recommend the audio version read by Luke Daniels

I liked Daemon, but Freedom was just a bit too far. I haven't done his Drone book, but I did Influx and thought that was alright. If you liked Freedom, you may like it better than I did.

Thanks for the recommendation! I picked up Off to Be the Wizard when it was a kindle daily deal - looking for a good time to schedule it.

I agree with you Daemon was much better than Freedom...The believability factor went way down with Freedom, especially all the ninja bikes etc.

I may give Russinovich's Zero Day a shot soon.

Sky wrote: "POSA vol 1-5"
The guys writing the first POSA are colleagues, I see them like every day :) In fact, my professional bookshelf is nearly as large as my SFF. 20 years of Java programming stacks quite hard.

Andreas wrote: "Sky wrote: "POSA vol 1-5"
The guys writing the first POSA are colleagues, I see them like every day :) In fact, my professional bookshelf is nearly as large as my SFF. 20 years of Java programming ..."

That is awesome! Get them to do a group read with us haha :)

Yeah, i think my technical bookshelf is larger than my SFF too! Spans from windows internals/assembly languge to tons of security books, networking, java... I go all PDF/ebook now though...Its kinda sad, but having it all on one tablet instead of 4 bookshelves makes up for it!