Reddit discussion

And the The Sirens of Titan wins in a landslide!

Can't say that I'm at all disappointed, this is an all-time favorite of mine and I am super stoked to get started.

In the original thread there were some suggestions about how we should pace things. I think that a month sounds right: the book even has 12 chapters so we could do 3 chapters a week, which should be pretty manageable even for those with very busy schedules. The next discussion could go faster or slower, but for this first I would prefer to err on the side of taking too much time.

As far as actual discussions go, would you all prefer to have an open format where just talk about what we have read so far and follow the discussion as it comes up or have staged questions? A mixture of both?

I propose that we all go ahead and read the first three chapters and get started with the discussion one week from today (unless you all are chomping at the bit and would like to get started sooner). At the very latest though, we'll begin talking about the book in one way or another on the 21rst.

So, let me hear your thoughts!

Do we want to start it right now?

I was thinking we'd wait until February to get started. This will give folks some time to grab a copy.

Plus I have a few other books I've got to get through this month already, and don't think I'll have time for another one just yet.

Oh, hey, that works too.

I'm just wanting to keep up what momentum we have, but February works.

To keep up momentum, maybe we can get someone to clean this place up a bit?

Change out the group books, rearrange the forums, and start bugging people to join in :P

February sounds good. To have a good group you need good leaders working to keep everything running, Ryan I sure hope you're up to the task.

@Max

I know that I have taken charge around here lately but I am certainly not going to try and do this all by myself.

If you would like to help lead discussion, plan questions or help out in any way, please speak up!

I have been doing all these threads and keeping the ball rolling as much as possible because I know from experience that these things sort of peter out if left on their own. I'll continue to do that until somebody says, "Ooo, I want to do X." Or, "Ryan, shut up." Whichever comes first. Or maybe both.

So, if you want to help (or if you don't really want to but think you'd be good at it) speak up!

I'll help in whatever way needed, just let me know.

One thing though, I really think we need Mod assistance in this endeavor. Having a mod handy would go a long way to getting things rolling.

That's definitely true. Would you like to message them and see if they would like to be available as we need them?

Ryan, Thanks for stepping up and getting this going again, I would be happy to help you in any way I can.

Ryan wrote: "That's definitely true. Would you like to message them and see if they would like to be available as we need them?"

Sent a message to two of them who seem active here on GR.

Alright guys let me figure this shit out. Ryan I'm gonna pass you mod status is that cool?

Yeahiknow3 wrote: "Alright guys let me figure this shit out. Ryan I'm gonna pass you mod status is that cool?"

Works for me.

Sweet. Btw Shogun by James Clavell is amazing. Anyone else read it?

Read it years ago and loved every word of it. I've been meaning to reread it at some point, just gotta find where I put it.

About a week ago, I read the first 800 pages in 2 days, and then I just put it down and decided that if Shogun ends, my life will be a little less. So I've been ignoring it.

I actually started Tai Pan, which looks totally awesome. The one after that is Noble House. The movie version stars Pierce Brosnan.


I was just talking about Pierce Brosnan with my roommate, and we both decided that he should star in everything. CGI and wig-technology should be used so that Pierce Brosnan can play every character in movies from now on.

Fuck yeah.

I enjoyed Tai Pan as well. King Rat was well done also.

I still need to read Noble House though. I remember at the time(over a decade ago) when I read the others, the library didn't have it. Completely forgot about it until recently.

Guess I should add it to my TBR

definitely liking the idea of starting it in february! can't wait to get everything started. maybe some of us can submit questions or discussion topics to ryan? new questions go up on a specific day and stay open for a certain period of time? VIDEO CHATS?! the world of possibilities.

I like the February idea as well. I'm nearly finished with the book I have now and have to pick up a copy. And thanks to this discussion also ordered Shogun from paperbackswap. Yay.

Do you guys have Kindles?

my husband has one but i don't. if i had to pay for every book i read, we'd be significantly more poor. the library is my go-to.

I have a calibre library of 5000+ ebooks you can access online. Let me know if you want. :-)

any way to access that list without downloading the whole sucker?

Sure, here you go!

http://68.44.75.139:8080/

Yeahiknow3 wrote: "Sure, here you go!

http://68.44.75.139:8080/"

Thanks for sharing this! I have a great calibre library I'd share. Can you tell me how to share it out like you do? I couldn't find anything on their help site.

OK, so we know we want to start in February.

The next question is, do we have the whole book finished by Feb 1 or do we read a few chapters at a time and discuss what we read?

Looking at a couple other groups, it seems as if they have their entire book read at the beginning of the month and have one discussion question that sort of leads everything else. We could do it that way or have the discussion take a different turn each week and focus on a different aspect.

In college, I did by reading in chunks and talking about each chunk. I'm fine either way, but let me know what you think.

@Heather, I think submitting discussion ideas is a great idea. It'll keep things tidy. If we're low on volunteers for ideas, I'll take victims instead and ask some of you more vocal participants.

@Ala, once we get these details pinned down, you wanna start hitting up mamma Reddit to get more eyeballs over here?

@yeahiknow3 I look forward to rifling through your calibre (pun_intended)

Started a new thread for Calibre sharing.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/4...

Should be nice to have in one place.

Here's a repost of my previous comment, in case it got lost in the Calibre comments. It got real quiet in here real fast.

OK, so we know we want to start in February.

The next question is, do we have the whole book finished by Feb 1 or do we read a few chapters at a time and discuss what we read?

Looking at a couple other groups, it seems as if they have their entire book read at the beginning of the month and have one discussion question that sort of leads everything else. We could do it that way or have the discussion take a different turn each week and focus on a different aspect.

In college, I did by reading in chunks and talking about each chunk. I'm fine either way, but let me know what you think.

@Heather, I think submitting discussion ideas is a great idea. It'll keep things tidy. If we're low on volunteers for ideas, I'll take victims instead and ask some of you more vocal participants.

@Ala, once we get these details pinned down, you wanna start hitting up mamma Reddit to get more eyeballs over here?

The other groups I'm active in here tend to read and discuss the book throughout the month. But I'm fine with either way.

As for hitting up Reddit... man, I've lurked for a while but didn't get an account until a few months ago. I honestly would feel weird about posting a thread there...

Try to get as much of it read as possible by February? Not a big deal. Most of us can finish a book in one sitting if we have to.

Alright, that works. We'll try and get as much as read as February.

We'll just have to be careful not to spoil the ending as much as possible for those who haven't finished.

Just keep separate threads going. One for first impressions with no spoilers, then tag a few threads with spoilers for specific parts/scenes/etc.

And there's also the spoiler tag...
(view spoiler)[am...am I doin' it right? (hide spoiler)]

what a fancy tag! i like this website more every day.

Good call.

Alan Sepinwall does that with his reviews for The Wire: a Veteran review for those who have watched the whole season and a Rookie review for those who are watching for the first time.

I'll just put up a separate for each, then.

This is some seriously cool collaboration going on right here, I like it.

Hey Ryan or Yeah, might want to mass-message the group and let them know about the book and our plans for February.

Just a thought. :)

So should we have read it by February or are we starting in Feb and discussing it as we go, setting a certain amount for each week or something?

Read as we go in February. Discuss it along the way. :)

New discussion here.

Check it out.