I'm in again. I want to say right up front that I will not be participating in any other book-clubs with books of this length unless they are a proven classic. i.e. War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Moby Dick or something like that. I realize that this is sort of a lame thing to say, but we could be on to the next book by now, you know?
That hurts man. I'm enjoying this shit and everyone should try new things! I also question your application of the words 'proven classic'. That said humanodon, I'm not sure about accelerating the pace. I think that'll siphon our already decreasing number of participants. Either way I guess, give me a deadline and I'll get there.
I hear you, but it's a whole lot of book to cover and it's already been a month since we started. I mean, at this rate, I'm going to have to return the book before we even touch part 5, which I think would be half way through October if we have a discussion every two weeks. I would strongly suggest that for the book club, we try to pick books that will: 1) spark good discussion of the book 2) spark good discussion of ideas and subjects that the book deals with 3) are manageable within reasonable time frames. I think that 1 and 2 are fairly well satisfied, but man oh man, this is taking a while to get through, no? Plus, there are clearly a lot of people starting classes right now and "huge novel" might not be the most appealing way to spend their free time . . . Anyway, two huge books in a row is probably about as much as our book club can handle, but as I'm out of the rotation after this book, I'll leave it up to the next person to decide.
Aw, come on! That's not what I meant by it! I'm just saying that with a book this length, suddenly it becomes a Commitment. I mean, three months man, that's the time frame we're dealing with. That's a quarter of a year. I honestly think that more people would participate if it was a book club, not a massive book club. I'm not saying that I think people would participate more if we were to choose lighter fare either; a whole lot of those books suggested were heavy, dense kinds of books because . . . I guess those are the kind of people interested in participating. The thing is we need to keep the pace up so that people stay involved. Too long in between and people forget.
I read your post on the other stuff you're supposed to be reading and it seems like you've got a heavy load. One of my worst semesters in school was when I decided to take a literary foundations course (classics) and a Brit. Lit course. One book a week for each class. If I had the opportunity to do things over, I would definitely not do that again.
I would love to be able to take courses like that, but most of my reading is on top of class because my college doesn't handle double majors very well. No room for interesting courses. I've been reading part two this afternoon and unfortunately it's much, much weirder than part one. Fuck.
#sorryforbeingnegative That said, I'm in for part 2 and hope to start digging it more.That hurts man. I'm enjoying this shit and everyone should try new things!
I love that you made the leap to me not wanting to try new things. I do something new every day by design, ever since that conversation with asvdveen. I'm enjoying this bookclub too, it's great. It's just hard when you have maybe an hour of free time a day to know that you're going to be filling it with a novel you aren't super jazzed about. That's all, nothing personal. That's part of being in a book club though. I'm simply suggesting a shorter book for our next endeavor. I've read plenty of 900+ page books, I just don't think they are ideally suited to a book club.
Took a bit of sounds_sound's philosophy of always saying, "yes." We have a lot of work to do around the house this weekend, but some friends asked us to go to a new restaurant today that we've not been to. I said, "yes" even though I really didn't want to. We had a blast. Now I'm going to go a neighborhood pool with my daughter that we've never been to. Both are new things. I'm not a big "pool" guy, but I know she'll love it. We were asked to go to the NC Zoo with some friends tomorrow and our first inclination was to say, "no" because it's supposed to be a hot day and again, we have a lot of work to get done, but what the hell?... we said "yes". Just like sounds_sound. edit: I also plan on cooking tomorrow night. Per this suggestion of doing "something new," I will attempt a new dish. Not sure what yet, but it'll be new to me.
Sounds great! It looks to me like you're not only overcoming the natural tendency to take the easiest road but also doing more activities for others. I, for instance, helped a good friend move to a new apartment. Even though it was four stories up and had no elevator, we got all his heavy wooden furniture up there with good teamwork. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat, because I know it means something to him to have people who can help him out, even with something superficial as moving furniture.