Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion

Please follow this link to choose what you would like to read for the first quarter of 2021.

POLL

This thread can also be used for discussions on the poll. I will leave the poll open until 11:59 January 31 PST (UTC -8).

After the poll closes I will immediately post the discussion threads so that we can quickly see what books are coming up. If you have already read the book, please avoid the temptation to enter the threads early and begin discussing....

Thanks for doing the poll, Sean.

What were the options on the poll? I voted ...but now I can't see what the options are or anything about the votes. We used to be able to see how many votes per option (in prior quarters.) Will we be able to see that information?Thanks

The options for February are:
The Apes of God by Wyndham Lewis
Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg
The Forbidden Kingdom by J. Slauerhoff

and for March:
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
The Afternoon of a Writer by Peter Handke
Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz

I suspect that due to not having access to the Goodreads poll system, we will not be able to see the number of votes, but hopefully Sean will provide that information when the poll is concluded.

Thanks, David! I guess I missed the poll for January, too. Thanks for the info.

Colleen wrote: "Thanks, David! I guess I missed the poll for January, too. Thanks for the info."

January’s was in the other thread. Results here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Didn’t vote for February, as none of the books were particularly interesting to me. Though The Forbidden Kingdom probably more interesting than the others. Voted for Midaq Alley for March, as I’ve always wanted to read that, and haven’t yet got round to it.

For some reason Midaq Alley is missing from the copy of the list (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...) in our group...another thing we can’t change until we have a moderator. It was added to the list in 2008.

There are actually other errors in that list too. Can’t remember what they are, but I spotted them when I used that list to create my own spreadsheet last year. Maybe when we have new moderators I’ll look for the corrections to be made and let you know what they are.

Maggie wrote: "For some reason Midaq Alley is missing from the copy of the list (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...) in our group...another thing we can’t change until we have a moderator. It was added t..."

Thanks for pointing that out Maggie! I made my own speadsheet off of the group-list too and didn't even notice that Midaq Alley is missing.

I briefly thought about voting for 'The Apes of God' for February, but unfortunately it's one of those hard to find books on the list.
It seems to be out of print (only very pricey second-hand copies available) and none of my local libraries have it. Voted for something else instead, so not that much of a problem, yet it's the first time a list book is completely unavailable to me, humph.

Maggie wrote: "For some reason Midaq Alley is missing from the copy of the list (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...) in our group...another thing we can’t change until we have a moderator. It was added t..."

I noticed those errors too. As far as I remember most of them were issues with 2 in 1 copies of titles. I‘ll be happy to correct them once GR support finally acts!

I'm surprised the crowning of a new moderator has been that difficult of an issue for GR to resolve. Who's running this place, anyway?

Bryan--Pumpkin Connoisseur wrote: "I'm surprised the crowning of a new moderator has been that difficult of an issue for GR to resolve. Who's running this place, anyway?"

A number of us have contacted GR support to resolve this. Their response is to try and make contact with the moderator first and come back to us afterwards. I'm not sure if they have a time-out or process in place if there is no reply.

If there was an active moderator, it would be easy for them to add another. The obstacle is the absence of activity from the only listed moderator.

In the meantime, Sean has established a make-do poll to tide us over. We are all chipping in with efforts to keep things running as smooth as possible.

Once we have resolved this, we can run polls in the regular way, and resolve the issues noted above re list omissions, etc.

We appreciate everyone's patience during this time.

I did notice the differences with the poll. On the next poll thread (if we have to do it this way again come March (I hope we don't)), I will post the options on the first post along with the vote link so we can see them afterwards. I can also post the results link now. That will be the link to click if you want to see how the voting is going.

The only things that will now be different is that you won't be able to change your vote like you could on the GR poll, and you won't be able to see who voted for what. That's what this threadl is for, if you would like to share.


https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-KLY63CC57/

Just in case you are watching this thread and didn't notice that the upcoming reads section has been updated, the vote is ended and the results are in:

February
Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg

March
Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz

Next quarter we will be back to voting here on GR. Thank you to everybody who was patient with us during this transition.

Happy reading and see you in the group read threads.

Ellinor wrote: "Maggie wrote: "For some reason Midaq Alley is missing from the copy of the list (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...) in our group...another thing we can’t change until we have a moderator...."

I verified that Midaq Alley was missing from Charity's list, and was hoping to be able to add it, but had no luck finding a way to edit it (supposedly I have moderator capability).
I read Midaq Alley a couple years ago and thought it was great.

Will we be able to get back to using the old poll link at top or will polls be in the discussion threads in future?

George P. wrote: "Will we be able to get back to using the old poll link at top or will polls be in the discussion threads in future?"

Yep. The polls will be back Charity-Style next quarter. I am going to try to keep that part of this group as close to the way Charity ran it as possible.

George P. wrote: "I verified that Midaq Alley was missing from Charity's list, and was hoping to be able to add it, but had no luck finding a way to edit it."

I have added it to the list as a comment. I debated getting it into the list, but to do that I would have had to redo the whole bottom part of the list in my own name. I felt that Charity deserved to have that honor.