Read by Theme discussion

Feel free to talk about anything in this thread and its folder as long as it doesn't violate the rules.

Okay, so I was trying to pick out a Blue Book yesterday and I asked a co-worker if he had read a certain book. He said that he had read it and it was boring. I told him I needed to find a book to read with a blue cover and he wanted to know why. I told him that I had joined a book group on Goodreads and that we read books by theme. My Director overheard our conversation and she was very interested in the idea. I think we are going to start a library-wide theme book group at our library. I'm very excited!

Cindy wrote: "Okay, so I was trying to pick out a Blue Book yesterday and I asked a co-worker if he had read a certain book. He said that he had read it and it was boring. I told him I needed to find a book to r..."

Wow, that's absolutely awesome! :D

"Bird on the Cover" month showed me just how indecisive I can be when picking a book out of the blue (no pun intended for this month's theme). I hem-hawed around and finally settled on one, then got distracted by another book and so the bird is dead.

QUESTION: Once on my "currently-reading" list, how do I get it off without putting it on either my "to read" (its dead I tell you!), or my "read" list??

Amy wrote: "QUESTION: Once on my "currently-reading" list, how do I get it off without putting it on either my "to read" (its dead I tell you!), or my "read" list??"

To remove a book from your shelves completely, click on the "X" on the far right beside the book.

I'm still new on this website and was wondering if anyone can recommend another bookclub I could join?! I LOVE this group here and was wondering if there are any other similar ones out there? I really don't like to get 'dictated' what to read, so a boookclub where we have a little bit of freedom would be good. And I don't like groups that are too cluttered with too much stuff going on at the same time. I really like it to be clean and simple, just like in here! LOL

I hope it's ok I ask this question here...

Marie-claude wrote: "I hope it's ok I ask this question here..."

Perfectly acceptable! ;) Though it might be useful/interesting to have a "Recommended Groups" thread where everyone can pimp their other groups.

But as for suggesting another bookclub, I unfortunately can't help there. The only groups I'm a member of (and so familiar with) are two NaNoWriMo groups, the GR Librarians group, the GR Feedback group, and the official mod's group.

Marie-claude wrote: "I'm still new on this website and was wondering if anyone can recommend another bookclub I could join?! I LOVE this group here and was wondering if there are any other similar ones out there? ..."

I joined "Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" after this one, but its VERY cluttered so I doubt you'd like it. I turned off all the notifications so I wouldn't get all the traffic. Besides, although the list is huge, they still assign only one book each month. But you can either read it or one of the others from the list as you mark off your 1001 list. At least that's my own interpretation and how I'm going to proceed *smirk.

I think the trick for less clutter (aside from the obvious - just pick a well organized group like Amara's) is to find one with few people. This one was small when I joined but it's getting bigger now, yet it seems to stay organized I think.

Thanks, I agree that the Recommended Groups thread could be very helpful!! =)

Thanks Amy for the help, I will check it out!
And I agree, I was part of 2 groups where they had thousands of members... It was such a mess. LOL I couldn't find anything anywhere. And the notifications were a bit annoying, and the mods kept sending private messages all the time, I decided to give up. Left both groups. Smaller groups seems to be better for me! ;)

Marie-claude wrote: "Thanks, I agree that the Recommended Groups thread could be very helpful!! =)"

Behold!

Amy wrote: "I think the trick for less clutter (aside from the obvious - just pick a well organized group like Amara's) is to find one with few people. This one was small when I joined but it's getting bigger now, yet it seems to stay organized I think."

I really hope to keep this as organized as possible as it grows. (You'd never know it from looking at my room, but I am a very organization-oriented person.) That will likely mean bringing in a few new moderators at some future point, and I'll keep everyone posted if/when that happens. ;)

Teehee, I totally get where you're coming from... Sometimes I wonder if I'm having some minor OCD issues. :P

Amara wrote: "Marie-claude wrote: "Thanks, I agree that the Recommended Groups thread could be very helpful!! =)"

Behold!

Amy wrote: "I think the trick for less clutter (aside from the obvious - just pick a we..."

Your doing great! I love how organized we are, fellow organizational freak here, and I like the smaller group too. Have you considered capping it at some point to keep people active. Just wondering..no issues with it right now :)

Thanks, Michele! :)

Michele (chelemybelle) wrote: "Have you considered capping it at some point to keep people active."

I'm not sure at this point. There's just so many factors to consider on a decision like that, you know? On one hand, there's no real harm in having a bunch of lurkers who never post, whether that bunch is a dozen or a thousand.

On the other hand, large groups tend to deter some people, especially groups that seem artificially inflated by inactive members. So that would be a point towards either culling or a cap.

But on the other (third? lol) hand, I'm not sure it would be fair given the nature of the group; there's nothing in the premise that demands or even prompts discussion, so it's perfectly valid to think that someone might be joining the group just to challenge themselves to keep up with the themes, but that they don't want the hassle of engaging with other members, or they're too shy, or any number of other perfectly valid reasons.

So I'm fairly torn. The one thing I'm considering is culling people who have infractions (as in, they posted spam or broke some other rule) and then don't post for a full year.

I'd love to hear your (and anyone else's!) opinions on the subject. :)

I'm new here, so I'm part of the possible over-population problem, I guess. I've been part of a couple of larger groups and ultimately left them because the boards were overflowing with random chat that had nothing to do with books or reading. There are chat sites/programs for that stuff. I agree that people who infringe on the rules or who are generally disruptive on the boards should maybe be subject to something in the range of temporary suspension to complete removal from the group, depending on infraction/problem.

Siobhan wrote: "I'm new here, so I'm part of the possible over-population problem, I guess."

Don't worry about it; as long as you're participating and non-disruptive/destructive, we love to have you (and all the other recent joins) here! ;)

As a relevant side note, holy crap, why didn't anyone tell me GR featured our group!? (Since it's my group, I can't see it in the featured section without logging out. I didn't know until someone said so on the poll today!)

Marie-Claude aka MC wrote: "I'm still new on this website and was wondering if anyone can recommend another bookclub I could join?! I LOVE this group here and was wondering if there are any other similar ones out there? I rea..."

Marie-Claude, I'm in a Goodreads group called "Pick-A-Shelf". It's like this one except you have to choose a book off of a Goodreads shelf that is chosen. There are always a wide variety of books on the chosen shelf (because the shelves are made up of however people "file" their books).

Totally curious..how do y'all keep up with what you need to read when and challenge books? For instance I have 3 author reviews i need to read, blue theme, book for another group and a 10 book summer challenge (this one does have a widget with an assigned shelf). I read almost exclusively on my IPad these days (for new books anyway) so I try to put them in order on there.
Anyone have any tips for how you keep up with what your doing??

I'm not a very useful person to answer that one; I'm both lazy and behind schedule with reading right now. ;) And I'm lucky in that I have practically nothing but free time, so I don't really need to either worry or plan ahead.

I do, however, have a small weekly planner that I managed to successfully keep up with for a month or two, but that's fallen by the wayside lately.

Amara wrote: "I'm not a very useful person to answer that one; I'm both lazy and behind schedule with reading right now. ;) And I'm lucky in that I have practically nothing but free time, so I don't really need ..."

Haha Amara, that's what summer is for right? Being lazy! I'm just a obsessive organizer who always is looking for "the better way". I was actually thinking of making a shelf named "what's on tap" to order my books as I want to read them. My TBR is filled with so many that I just want to read my "on tap" would be ones I actually have already and are planning for botm/challenges. I'm crazy, I know :)

Definitely not crazy, or maybe we both are...? lol I keep re-vamping my shelves every few months, trying to establish some kind of perfect system, but there are just too many books there now and the task's in definite "unmanageable" territory. So I've attempted to get recent to-reads at the front, though even that doesn't seem to be working out anymore. I love creating systems; it's just that I have a hard time forcing myself to stop re-creating them and start using them! ;)

For keeping track of non-book goals, I use 42goals.com, which I like despite the fact that it's not optimized for certain types of goal-tracking, including reading goal-tracking. (But it's great for wordcount goal tracking!)

Amara wrote: "As a relevant side note, holy crap, why didn't anyone tell me GR featured our group!?"
It's been on the featured groups for at least a week - that's how I joined. :)

And the whole time I didn't know! ;)

Amara wrote: "Siobhan wrote: "I'm new here, so I'm part of the possible over-population problem, I guess."

Don't worry about it; as long as you're participating and non-disruptive/destructive, we love to have y..."

Thanks for the "pick-a Shelf" suggestion! I want to join more groups but don't want too many restrictions. I also found this group because it was featured.

Lynn- Thanks a lot for the Pick-a-Shelf suggestion, I'll definitely look into it!! It sounds like another very interesting concept!!

Amara- Congrats on being one of the featured group!! How exciting!! I guess that explains how you got so many new members recently, this group is growing so quickly!! And I am amazed at how everyone is interacting here! AND the OCD in me would like to say that she is very happy to see the forum being so neat and organized still!! Well done!! Hehe.

Michele- I have somewhat a way to keep track of everything... I am part of only 2 groups so far, but I'm kind of OCD on stuff like that and I really need to know where I'm going. So what I have done on GR is that I have my TBR lists that has all the books that I find interesting and eventually want to read. And then, I created a shelf that is called 'downloaded'. This is the list where ALL the boooks I have purchased are located. So whenever I know what book I want for my groups, I buy it, and instantly put it in my downloaded list. I remove it from my downloaded list once I have read it. That way, I know how many books I have that are waiting for me on my tablet and/or PC. It works well for me so far! =)

Tammy- I am a mod for a group that doesn't have too many restrictions. It's called Lovers of Paranormal. Yes, our BOTMs are all about fantasy, paranormal, dystopia... However, there are 4 books every month to choose from. And also, we have lots of giveaways and there is currently a challenge going on and you can read whatever you want. You have to read as much books as you can until Sept. 6th and whoever wins gets a prize. We try to keep it fairly easy for people to join and really don't want to have too many restrictions in order to keep people motivated. But again, the BOTMs are mostly paranormal stuff though! =)

Marie-Claude aka MC wrote: "Amara- Congrats on being one of the featured group!! How exciting!! I guess that explains how you got so many new members recently, this group is growing so quickly!! And I am amazed at how everyone is interacting here! AND the OCD in me would like to say that she is very happy to see the forum being so neat and organized still!! Well done!! Hehe."

Thank you! :D

I use my TBR to keep anything that looks good. I then create shelves for other stuff. Currently, I have a shelf which holds all the books I need to read for a specific challenge. I also have a July shelf that I put everything I want to read this month, for various challenges I am doing. I also have shelves noting the format of the book I have (e-book, hard copy, audio or borrow from friend or library), which makes it easier to find the book when I want to read it. That is one of the great things about Goodreads shelves, one book can be on many shelves. Once I have finished a book, I remove it from the current shelves (like the monthly one).

Michele (chelemybelle) wrote: "Totally curious..how do y'all keep up with what you need to read when and challenge books? For instance I have 3 author reviews i need to read, blue theme, book for another group and a 10 book sum..."

I pick which challenges/group reads I'm doing at the beginning of each month select the books and if I have the books they go on the desk I have at home for library books with a note for which challeng or group its for. If I don't have the books yet I write the challenge/book on paper and it goes on the desk to. But i have to be sure to kinda limit myself on how many challenges or group reads I do or I get so caught up on getting them done i don't seem to enjoy the books as much.

Michele (chelemybelle) wrote: "Totally curious..how do y'all keep up with what you need to read when and challenge books?"

I use a table I created in Word. I list the books I plan to read and then have columns indicating everything I need to keep track of for each book - like what challenge/group it's for, if I've marked it read on GR, if I've posted a review for it, etc. I have a master copy of the table that I print out each month and fill in with the info for that month.

And do you really want to know how I decide what to read for the month? lol (Obsessive compulsive, much.) I list the books that I have to read that month, like for challenges, and then calculate the number of pages and how long it will take me to read them.

For example, say I have 6 required reads that are each 300 pages. That's 1800 pages, and if I read 150 pages per day (about 3 hours), it will take me 12 days to read those books. I then have 18 additional days left in the month, so I add a few more books to the list using the same method of calculation.

It's my birthday!:D

Happy birthday Sammy! Hope it is/was a great day for you (not sure where in the world you are)!

Hope you have an amazing day. Mine is next week Friday!

Thanks everyone, but it's the middle of the night where i live but im sure i will (and i love the dolphins)

I was wondering if anyone else was doing shelves for this group's challenges specifically. I was thinking of creating shelves for each month, with the theme in the title, because after I have (hopefully) done this for a while I think it would be fun to go back and see what all I read for the themes.

I also want to see how many I'm reading for each theme. I think I'm only going to put books I'm reading or finished reading for the theme and not possible candidates. I know someone had mentioned having a shelf to keep track of ideas for completing the themes.

Just wondering if others were doing something similar. :)

I won't have a shelf specifically for these themes as they are easy enough for me to keep track of. I use shelves to keep track of all the books I plan to read in a month as they normally cross various challenges.

Dana wrote: "I was wondering if anyone else was doing shelves for this group's challenges specifically."

I think I love this idea! I'm in!

Jana wrote: "Dana wrote: "I was wondering if anyone else was doing shelves for this group's challenges specifically."

I think I love this idea! I'm in!"

Cool! Now I can be a nerd and see what you've read, too!

Wow, you all sound really dedicated!

Does anyone here ever re-read books? I swear, I spend about half my time re-reading books I loved ... again and again and again ...

Her Royal Orangeness wrote: "Michele (chelemybelle) wrote: "Totally curious..how do y'all keep up with what you need to read when and challenge books?"

I use a table I created in Word. I list the books I plan to read and then..."

That is dedication! I love your OCDness ;). I'm not that organized yet, I'm still picking books at random but I can totally see me getting to the point..I love spreadsheets and lists!

Sarah wrote: "Wow, you all sound really dedicated!

Does anyone here ever re-read books? I swear, I spend about half my time re-reading books I loved ... again and again and again ..."

I love re-reads! Since getting more into book clubs and reviewing I haven't taken the time but I think I'm going to start re-reading one book a month (perhaps those I haven't officially typed reviews for yet)!

Sarah wrote: "Wow, you all sound really dedicated!

Does anyone here ever re-read books? I swear, I spend about half my time re-reading books I loved ... again and again and again ..."

There are a few series, mostly from my childhood, that I re-read every few years. Basically, if I enjoyed a book and own it, I'll eventually re-read it. ;)

The only book that I have re-read is Twilight... The first one. And I have a reason for it... I read the entire series in French. And someone gave me the first book, the paperback version, in English. It's a free book, so I took it and read the first book in English. It was after I saw the first movie too. It was interesting, re-reading a book in another language, after I saw the movie.

But really, I personnally don't see the point in re-reading books. I mean, I already know how it's going to end so I can't really see myself enjoying it as much...

Marie-Claude aka MC wrote: "But really, I personnally don't see the point in re-reading books. I mean, I already know how it's going to end so I can't really see myself enjoying it as much..."

Oddly enough, knowing the ending doesn't affect my enjoyment at all. I get a little annoyed if I accidentally come across spoilers (leaving them lying around is disrespectful, in my opinion), but it doesn't really change the reading experience too much for me.

I guess it's just that I don't enjoy getting to a resolution as much as I enjoy the little details that you might miss the first time and only notice once you've gone back through the book and combed it with a better knowledge of the world and the characters. To me, a book is well-written if I can go back through it and find something new--a detail, a perspective, an overlooked implication, just anything new to consider or experience--with every re-read. ;)

Oh interesting point you bring up here. See, I've never even think about it that way. To me, I read for the excitment a new book gives me. I read to get to the end and satisfy my curiosity. I think that's where my passion for reading comes from, the excitment it gives me. Perhaps I should try and re-read a favorite book of mine... And see how I feel about it then. Maybe it'd change my perspective and I'd see it differently the 2nd time around! =)

Oh and I HATE spoilers too!! It's something I really struggle with on GR. I try to stay away as much as possible from the 'book discussion' tab on the home page. That's where it gets horrible... In the group discussion, people seem to respect that and don't post spoilers. Or when they do, they hide it! :P

Mostly the extent of my running into spoilers on Goodreads is people who leave them unhidden in reviews, which really frustrates me. One of the primary reasons people read reviews is to gauge their interest in a book... which is obviously going to plummet for more people if an inconsiderate reviewer blows the whole ending! >:(

I hate spoilers as my first reading of a book is all about discovering that world and discovery is diminished if I have already discovered stuff I shouldn't know. Re-reading is returning to a world I already know and love to find new details and just emjoy it again. Like when you reminisce with friends over favourite memories, re-reading is doing that with characters. It reminds me of one of my favourite quotes. It is from one of the books in Game of Thrones series... It says something like, a man who reads lives a thousand lives, while a man who never reads lives only one. If one was awesome, enjoy it again and again

I definitely re-read, though only certain books. Either I really really loved them or they're part of a series that I need to refresh my memory on before I read the newest book.

As far as spoilers go, I tend to read reviews on GR very carefully, since people tend to talk about what happened in the book. I agree that it would be nice if everyone used spoiler tags, but they won't. If I think a spoiler might be coming up, I'll just stop reading the review.

I'm a compulsive re-reader - I'd say upwards of a fifth of my total reading time is devoted to reading things I've already read. (This is perhaps a high guesstimate, but certainly within the realm of possibility . . . I think it would average out that way, anyway.) I just like to revisit what I enjoy, like watching a fun film or TV show episode multiple times. Relatedly, one the other groups I'm in is a book challenge predicated on volume, and part of the reason I picked that one was because re-reads counted.

It probably helps, though I've never thought about it this way, that I have never cared about spoilers. (Though I work really hard to not include them in reviews, probably as overcompensation for the fact that I would personally not care at all if I read any. It seems better to err on the side of caution.) Actually, if I'm trying to figure out if I want to read a series, sometimes I will purposefully seek out story arc spoilers to make sure that I'm not going to get invested in a group of books only to have some character development or plot shenanigan piss me off three or four books in. I've come to think that it's not very hard to figure out where most books are going, so my reading is more about, if I can be cliche, the journey, rather than the destination. :::shrug::: It can be comforting to know, I think.