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Most book clubs are doing it wrong (2017)
- tdeck 6y ago> A book club run in the standard way isn’t efficient or practical — it’s just a good opportunity wasted. This kinda misses the point of most book clubs. The point is to have an excuse to meet and talk to people - the book is secondary. In fact many people come to book clubs without having read that month's book, just for the social outlet. Perhaps that's silly from a literary perspective but it still serves a purpose.
- prostheticvamp 6y agoI have the strong suspicion this person doesn’t participate in book clubs. Or much in the way of social events. Mistaking “book club” for “book class” isn’t a small category error.
- jasim 6y agoIt makes me sad to read that statement - strangers are insulting James Somers (the original author) simply because I posted one of his articles in this forum. He's written articles like https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-friendship-that-made-google-huge https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-friendship... which was one of the best pieces of writing on technology and humans that I've read recently. This is not the work of a recluse (the undesirable negative connotations aside).
- prostheticvamp 6y agoFor what it’s worth, I didn’t mean it as an insult.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> strangers are insulting James Somers I mean he's the one telling people that they're doing their hobby 'wrong'... I’m sure he can accept criticism if he’s going to issue it uninvited himself.
- monadic2 6y agoComments on Mr. Somers aside, he clearly and explicitly already had a book club experience that frustrated him.
- nertzy 6y agoI used to work on a software development team with James Somers and I can attest that he is both a great writer and able to handle criticism, valid or otherwise. I think he would appreciate the debates he is generating.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- gwbas1c 6y agoMakes me think of the episode from Malcolm in the Middle where "book club" was an excuse for housewives to get drunk together. Sometimes you need to pretend that you're being responsible!
- Thlom 6y agoLOL. Where I'm from they just call it club. It's basically women (not housewives, that is a forgotten concept around here) who have come together for one reason or the other (neighbors, got children at the same time and where in a maternity group together, childhood friends) who form a "club". Once a week or once a month they congregate in one of the members house and get drunk. It's probably great for them, but from my understanding it can be difficult to become a member of a club if you didn't get in one at the right time.
- MiddleEndian 6y ago>It's probably great for them, but from my understanding it can be difficult to become a member of a club if you didn't get in one at the right time. I think overall this is probably good for the clubs, assuming it's easy to create a new one. A bunch of smaller groups seems more pleasant than one increasingly unwieldy group.
- lonelappde 6y ago> can be difficult to become a member of a club if you didn't get in one at the right time. That applies to all repeated social events, doesn't it? Unless it is something that has an annual "new class", but that's also a "right time".
- drusepth 6y agoI'm now wondering how common the two (or more?) types of book clubs in the wild are. I've always treated book clubs more like a shared class and get extremely frustrated when someone shows up without reading the book/chapters ("they're just wasting everyone's time") or when conversation temporarily drifts to non-book-related topics. I go to book clubs for the insights and commentary I get on books from people with different life experiences, reading history, etc. There's plenty of other places you can go if you just want to be social. I've definitely seen more "social" book clubs, too. I just assumed they were "bad" or not serious, but I guess they're just targeted at people wanting something different out of the book club experience.
- watwut 6y ago> There's plenty of other places you can go if you just want to be social. There is not? People don't socialize without excuse and did not for years. People who want to socialize have to pick a hobby or interest and try there. It may be sport, bookclub, game, something technical, whatever, but it must be something.
- satvikpendem 6y agoWhat about going to a party? That is a purely social event without any hobby attached to it. Hell, you can find random parties to attend on Meetup or similar if you really wanted, which I've gone to.
- ozim 6y agoIf you are extrovert and you are OK with dozens of strangers around you it will work. If you have hard time getting along with random people and you need time to open up and get confident with others that is really bad idea. I think book club where mostly the same people who are also less outgoing is better option.
- satvikpendem 6y agoThat's understandable. I wish there were a way of separating these two types of book clubs then, a casual versus hardcore variety. I think by doing so, fewer people would be disappointed when it turns out to be the opposite variety of what they expected. Thanks for your viewpoint, it helped me understand the idea better.
- kickscondor 6y agoDid you finish the post? > Book club, for us, isn’t about reading the same book; it’s about reading a book together. > The idea is to make book club less an obligation than a sort of pleasant presence in our lives, this thing that’s always there. > That’s another reason to break a book into pieces: better to have too little to fit into a session than too much; god forbid you read something complex and demanding — do you really want to spend three hours in the unpacking, or to have the session break down before the unpacking’s done? I agree with the author's conclusions - and have a book club that operates the same way. And I agree with him because it's a better social experience. (A chance to catch up with others with happen to share book reading as a hobby without needing to do homework.)
- tdeck 6y agoI must admit I skimmed the post the first time :). I too have run a book group for the last few years, and we've toyed with this idea several times. The advantages are clear in terms of not having to hit a tough deadline, and being able to tackle longer books. I think it can work with anthologies of short stories and essays, but for longer narrative works I wonder about the following (perhaps you can provide some insight): - Will new people be willing to join in the middle of a book? - If people don't like the book, do they just have to stick around for the next N meetings? If not, does it lose its place in their routine causing them to forget about it? I think these concerns may be specific to more "open-access" book groups that anyone can join, rather than long-running groups of existing friends.
- kickscondor 6y agoOne way my group has done this is to tackle an author or a series together - that way we have some common ground in our reading. However, if you’re doing it long-term, I much prefer just talking about what you’re reading right now. Over time, you will start to read each other’s recommendations and the discussion will catch up. I’m sure there are a lot of ways to do this. (OH and it’s awesome that you fessed up about skimming the article - I am there with you the rest of the time. :D)
- nogabebop23 6y ago>> The point is to have an excuse to meet and talk to people and drink wine or coffee!
- black6 6y agoI’m currently reading Jacques Ellul’s The Technological Society (really a must-read these days, like Mumford’s Pentagon of Power and Kaczynski’s Industrial Society and its Future) and I underlined this summary of Homans: “‘Formerly, when a New England family convoked a ‘bee’ (that is, a meeting for working in common), it was for all concerned one of the most pleasurable times of the year. The work was scarcely more than a pretext for coming together.’ The activity of sustaining social relations and human contacts predominated over the technical scheme of things and the obligation to work, which were secondary causes.”
- sjustns 6y agoI have a reading list you might enjoy! https://www.are.na/justin-s-ptylb5wff1u https://www.are.na/justin-s-ptylb5wff1u
- redisman 6y agoFew observations from my bookclub: A bookclub is not a class. For most people it’s an excuse to get together, have a drink and talk about a thing they like in a lightly structured manner. What OP is describing sounds more like a study group. If I don’t like the book I don’t want to read it for months and months.
- CydeWeys 6y agoAlso, we can generally only find an hour per month that the people in my book club can meet up (and then they individually need to find many hours in the preceding month to read the book). I like the idea of a weekly club with partial book assignments, but that's more time than a lot of people are able (or willing) to give it.
- redisman 6y agoI will say that a book like Infinite Jest is a terrible choice for the usual, more casual bookclub.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- xyzzyz 6y agoI’m not sure about that: without that, how will anyone know that you’ve read Infinite Jest?
- redisman 6y agoProminent spot on the bookshelf? I love DFWs essays but never made it through the tome
- officemonkey 6y agoGoodreads. Duh.
- koheripbal 6y ago
- formalsystem 6y agoA book isn't something you're supposed to read and finish. It's a set of ideas you develop over multiple reads, if a book isn't worth reading multiple times it's probably not worth reading once. This is obviously true for non fiction programming books where you can spend years developing a library off of ideas from a single chapter but I was also surprised to learn that it's also true for fiction books. My girlfriend doesn't mind spoilers in novels because she reasons if a book isn't good enough with spoilers it's probably not good enough without the spoilers too. The goal should be to enjoy reading not read, it's deceptively unproductive to force yourself to finish a book.
- paulcole 6y ago> A book isn't something you're supposed to read and finish Shit, I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. Thanks for setting me straight.
- falcor84 6y agoYeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y agoI really enjoy reading fast books which have no value other than to make me chuckle or give me a thrill[1] where my aim is _not_ to be productive because well you know life isn't just a big ol hamster wheel ... though I agree that most books which I read which stay with me mentally and where I see myself going back to them are far from easy. These are in the class of being at least x years old (Jacques Ellul, Marx, Mumford, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kant, Zapffe, Heidegger, Foucault, Bertrand Russel, Cioran, Dostoyevski, Kafka, Orwell, Sinclair, J. Austin ...) and preferably in the public domain. A book which I never read at least twice isn't something I'd consider having an impact on me. But then sometimes drifting aimlessly with "wtf did I just read?" moments has more impact/effect on me than anything that is listed as a great classic. So there is no reason to be elitist imho (and I can't overstate the _humble_ here since 20 years ago I thought Dean Koontz novels were the bees knees). [1] "Bill Bryson", John Cleese, or the absolutely hilarious "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson.
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- tehjoker 6y agoI think this sounds like an excellent approach for reading a long book that is worth dissecting, but unfortunately it's a time intensive approach. I suspect the once a month approach is a time-conscious approach rather than what we would select for a serious reading.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- searchableguy 6y agoAre there any good online programming clubs? It would be fun to work on a project together every weekend.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y agoanyone know of some good online book clubs? I have this idea in the back of my mind for a while, which is a mailing list or forum where members agree to read a specific book every 2 weeks and then write a review about it or discuss it online. every member gets to suggest a book as what to read next and whatever suggestion gets the most votes will be read. it would be highly specific to keep the communities small enough and to really dive deep on certain works/authors. this could be done using categories. a category has certain rules for the books to be read, and could be titles which are at least 100 years old (my pet peeve), in the public domain, and limited to n-authors, ... one could then also have all future readings be descendents of that category/author (e.g. in follow-up readings read only/everything that an author has cited, or things they have read etc). kind of like a snow-ball system. but there are many ways how to structure this to make it interesting for different crowds.
- DanBC 6y agoYou could probably set on up on Tildes? (Although it might be a bit quiet at first). https://tildes.net/~books https://tildes.net/~books
- DyslexicAtheist 6y agocool thanks, this looks interesting. never heard of it. much appreciated.
- viridian 6y agoHey Dan, do you have a link to register on tildes? Seems to be invite only for me.
- satvikpendem 6y agoI found this while searching reddit: https://www.old.reddit.com/r/books/comments/3ibtw5/the_many_bookclubs_and_reading_groups_around/ https://www.old.reddit.com/r/books/comments/3ibtw5/the_many_...
- wrsh07 6y agoI know John Green and Rosianna Halse Rojas run https://www.lifeslibrarybookclub.com/ https://www.lifeslibrarybookclub.com/ It's more of a broadcast style bookclub (although iiuc, you can contribute to discussion via discord), but it could meet your needs
- mcnamaratw 6y agoNever mind all that! How about IJ? Have you folks made any progress at all on guessing what maybe actually happens? For example do we know anything at all about Hal and Gately digging up JOI's head? Even for example what possible use that would be to anybody?
- cjf4 6y agoAny book club that gets people to read and show up is not "doing it wrong." I'd be interested in a format suggested by the author, but I think I'm the only one in my book club that would. The fact that I'm regularly reading and talking about books with a group without any particular literary bent is something very valuable to me, even if we don't mine every hidden treasure of the books we read.
- dorchadas 6y agoSeriously. I would absolutely be interested in a book club like that, especially one that went through the "Great Books" or whatever...But I'm also the only one of my friends who really reads outside genre fiction so sadly no chance of that happening soon unless I can find one at the local university that's open to the public.
- wrsh07 6y agoYou could start or join a remote bookclub / study group Especially given current circumstances, this would possibly help you meet the analysis goal
- dorchadas 6y agoAye, but I've found those generally tend to have worse engagement over time than in-person ones. Much worse, which is the problem. Though maybe I am being too pessimistic about it; might look around and see what there is to be had. I'd love one with a more academic bent.
- officemonkey 6y agoOne alternate way to do a book club: 1. Meet every 3 to 6 months. 2. Everyone bring books to swap. 3. Everyone bring a list of books they really loved. 4. Each person takes turn talking about the books they loved while sitting around a dining room table with snacks and drinks. 5. It's fun if other people have read the same books. It's even more fun if they disagree. 6. Last time I did this I added 10 books to my "To Read Pile" and traded books with friends. 7. Everyone wanted to do it again.
- alextheparrot 6y agoI’ve had a similar experience to this with “Six pack and a paperback” style parties — everyone brings some beer and a book to share. After a couple of them with similar people, there’s inherently a dialogue about which books you previously had taken or brought, why you chose to bring a particular book this time. The general context is very literary focused by framing.
- captn3m0 6y agoA friend who's been running a book club swears by (4). He goes around and asks the same question every week: "What did you read, and how did it make you feel?". It gets people talking about the _why of the books_, particularly why they found it interesting, or what ticked for them. This makes for a more engaging discussion.
- twic 6y agoSomething i do: 1. Find 10-20 friends 2. Go on holiday for a week in a cottage in the middle of nowhere with terrible internet speed 3. Bring a dozen books each and put them in a huge pile in the middle of one room 4. Eat a lovely big meal together in the evening 5. Mercilessly shame anyone who is doing anything other than reading a book, cooking, or performing essential biological functions before dinner time You don't all read the same book, but there will be plenty of overlap, and it usually works out that there are a few books that many people have read.
- officemonkey 6y agoI WANT TO GO TO THERE
- satvikpendem 6y agoI see other commentors saying book clubs as primarily social gatherings and about the book second. This strikes me as odd. If you want a social gathering, why have the pretense of reading books, just organize the social gathering, perhaps a weekly meeting at the local pub or someone's home. When I attend book clubs, it's about the literary aspects of the book first and any social interaction is incidental, such as if I really like another person's opinions, I'll go chat with them afterwards. Indeed, I would be particularly annoyed if I spent time reading a book and went to discuss it, and all I got were people not talking about the book, either in depth or at least shallowly, and I'd find another book club. In regards to the ongoing nature of book clubs, discussing every chapter, I think is is a great idea, and the best avenue I've seen it happen through is a medium like Reddit (or Tildes.net), with a nested forum post for each chapter that people can not only look back on now but in the future. Indeed, r/bookclub and even other media related subreddits, like r/anime or your favorite TV show like r/gameofthrones, have such weekly threads for reading or rewatching the requisite media. This feels to me the best way to accomplish the author's goals. Of course, there is no real social interaction, but again, if you want social interaction, go to a social event that is explicitly (or sufficiently implicitly) stated that it is for socialization, such as a pub gathering. No one's going to be reading books with their friends at a pub.
- sszz 6y agoHmm I’d say all the book clubs I belong to are social first, book second; one club spends the majority of each meeting roasting the people who haven’t read the book, another good portion debating our selection procedures, and a minimal amount of time on the book itself. Different flavors for different people!
- satvikpendem 6y agoIf that's the case, why have a "book" club at all, rather than make a social gathering? Let me be clear in that I also attend social events, but they're called social events on the face of it. If I'm attending a book club, I expect to talk about books.
- CalChris 6y agoI was in a classics reading group. We met weekly and plowed through material. It was not a democracy but instead run by a guy who knew his stuff. I read a lot of stuff I didn't want to (way too much gore in the Greek tragedies for my taste). It wasn't an excuse to meet and kvetch. It was closer to a class. It was about the books. Every other book club I've been in has been a pale imitation. The one I'm in now is stocked with PhDs and Berkeley profs and isn't even a drone fest. It doesn't even reach a high school level of engagement with the material. Our sports club is sidelined because of the quarantine. So I'll admit, they're not very good at this. I'm going to suggest that we read books about the sport next time.
- dorchadas 6y agoThat classics reading group honestly sounds amazing. I wish I could find something like that in person, or online.
- twic 6y ago> way too much gore in the Greek tragedies for my taste At my secondary school, the drama society put on a production of Oedipus Rex [1]. The scene where Oedipus blinds himself was so graphic that some of the younger pupils screamed and fled the hall. [1] Which title my Greek teacher was furious about. It's either Οἰδίπους Τύραννος or Oedipus the King, there's no reason to use a Latin name.
- clairity 6y agowhat the author describes resembles salons[0] more than book clubs. salons have some (negative) connotations of idle aristocracy, but can be modernized to simply be a bunch of people getting together expressly to discuss interesting ideas around wine/beer/coffee. those ideas could be a few chapters of an interesting book. i've always wanted to start a salon (insert lots of excuses for why i haven't here). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)
- dragonwriter 6y agoArguably, real-world “book clubs” are largely petit bourgeois salons, without the name with the (as you note) negative connotation because of the association with the pre-capitalist aristocracy.
- twic 6y agoI would say the opposite. To me, the characteristic of a salon is free-ranging discussion on whatever the participants find interesting. What Somers is suggesting is a tight focus on a defined topic.
- divan 6y agoWe run a group in Barcelona where we meet once per week and read the book aloud. It's technically not a "book club", but rather "pronunciation improvement group" – while we read, an organizer who is a native-speaker corrects the mistakes on the go – but as we'd finished already 4 fantastic books together, we obviously had a plenty of opportunity and time to discuss what we're reading, I would qualify it's as a book club for sure. This club format is not just great for improving English (you develop listening, reading and speaking skills at the same time), but also have become one of the most favourite activity of mine during the week – we usually meet in some lovely place in the Saturday morning, drink coffee with croissants, meet wonderful smart people, discuss life and books, while enjoying views on Sagrada Familia. Having this experience, idea of reading silently at home and then meeting once to briefly share the opinion about a book, doesn't sound exciting at all :)
- Gooblebrai 6y agoHow much time do you spend reading the book vs the other activities?
- seedie 6y agoThis sounds awesome and would be something I'd definitely join. (Sadly not being based in Barcelona though :) What books did you read and how was this event initiated?
- cwhiz 6y agoThe method described in this article sounds more similar to a college study group than a book club. To each their own on how you enjoy reading a book with friends. It’s pretty arrogant to just say “if you enjoy it this other way, you’re wrong.”
- mattl 6y agoDid you ever finish Infinite Jest?
- dade_ 6y agoReading that book needs a support group, not a book club. It was strange, I think someone recommended the book to me, I started reading it, and immediately regretted the purchase. Then, by chance watched 'The End of the Tour' and realized who the author was. That attempt, I made it to the YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT so many times I lost count. The book reminds me of reading unformatted code, something from a decompiler.
- divan 6y agoAnother great experience I want to share is the online bookchallenge I participated in, organized by Dmitry Dubilet (founder of Monobank). It marries simple economic incentives design with love to reading books. The idea is that each participant sends some money into the pool – 10 euros in that particular case – and commit to read a book from the list in 3 weeks. (There was a prepared list of diverse set of books like "You must be joking, Mr. Feynman" or "Freakonomics"). By the end of the challenge, a simple oracle mechanism was used to determine who read a book or not – everyone was randomly assigned a few people who have chosen the same book and had to make a call to talk about a book and check if person have read it. Once verification was done, money from the pool have been divided between people who read the book. I especially loved that concept due to the fact that it's almost exactly what people in cryptocommunity try to do with tokens and cryptoeconomy – create economic incentives (in a new way), new oracles (mechanisms of connecting economic system to the offline world) and change peoples behavior in the socially beneficial way. But this time it was done just with a mobile banking app and a Google Forms.
- frabbit 6y agoI think that's simultaneously the most depressing and hilarious thing I have read on HN.
- aleyan 6y ago> The discussion goes on for one or two hours before it runs out of gas, and then the group picks the next book, and you agree to meet in another month or six weeks. I have been running a book club for the past year and a half and that is a fair summary of how it goes. It is definitely hard to keep a discussion on topic for more than a couple of hours without it becoming a generic social event, especially if there are late arrivals. Productivity of work meetings tends to approach zero after an hour; so why should it be different for book clubs? Denser books should require more discussion, but doing it in a single session is hard. The social aspect is fun and is a part of why I run the book club I do, but it is a competing priority with the book itself and different people in the club prioritize the two differently. The prioritization changes for everyone as time progresses and the amount of alcohol consumed increases. Recommendation of having smaller meetings while the book is in progress deserves a trial. I will adopt it for the next book in my club. While we are holding these virtually, it seems that people are having easier time parceling an hour of their evening time so this will be practical. There are a few things that differentiates my book club from the authors description of how a typical book club operates. Firstly, I select the book that I want to read and I think my friends will enjoy that is of appropriate time investment. This means there is no griping about book selection and having to competing desires of multiple people. Secondly there is a set schedule: 7:30pm on the first Monday of every other month at my apartment. This means there is no griping about choice of venue (an issue in NYC) and rescheduling to fit prior commitments the participants have. I make an announcement on Facebook and people have a choice to participate or not. This has been working out rather well with turns outs of somewhere between half a dozen to a dozen friends depending on the book. Conversations have been good and organizational investment very reasonable.
- crazygringo 6y ago> Most book clubs are doing it wrong... You have one meeting per book.... The problem is that there’s no time to cash in on anyone else’s insights. > My book club started four years ago to read Infinite Jest. Well SHEESH -- most book clubs aren't trying to read 1,079 page long books. Of course you're going to need to break that up. But the idea that anyone else is doing it "wrong" is both nonsensical and incredibly arrogant. Book clubs are usually concerned with much shorter books that are more easily accessible, where of course you can understand each others' insights afterwards. And for me, the goal isn't just (or even primarily) to understand the book better or "cash in", as it is more to understand your friends better and enjoy time together. Even if you haven't read the book at all, you can go to hear what they have to say and discuss the topics raised generally. (If your goal is primarily to understand the book better, you'll probably get a lot more out of reading reviews, analysis, etc. online that meeting with friends, unless your friends happen to be English professors, writers for the New Yorker, etc.)
- wrsh07 6y agoYeah this is written from a pretty narrow perspective Relevant questions: what bookclubs was the author familiar with? and what books were they reading? The bookclubs I'm familiar with are all run by and for the sake of their members, and if the goal is either encourage regular reading or just social, they'll checkpoint at the same pace regardless of the book (eg every 2-4 weeks) and decide how much to read depending... on the book? The idea that most bookclubs wouldn't do this seems very bizarre to me, and I just can't imagine the sampling the author had done prior to this post
- viburnum 6y agoThat's a study group not a book club.
- sdenton4 6y agoMy experience with a non-fiction book club was somewhere in-between the 'study group' and 'social club' extremes. We ran the club via a meetup group for about three years, with a 'core' group of ~10 people (of which about half would show up each month). Each month would also bring a few random meetup people who we would see once and never again. a) Many non-fiction books are effectively a 'very good essay' in the first couple chapters, followed by N*100 pages of lower-quality expansion on the initial topic. It's completely OK if most people in the meeting don't read the whole thing. It's also much easier to skip around in non-fiction books, since the chapters are often more modular. b) We would have a rotating 'moderator' who generally read the whole book, usually before it got picked up by the group. The moderator generally picks a subset of 'good chapters' which people can read if they aren't going to get through the whole book. Usually intro + chapter 1 + two later chapters with the best points. c) For non-fiction, outside experience is often just as valuable to the discussion as having read the book. Having a really relevant person involved int he discussion is fantastic. d) We also had a some great experiences with inviting the author to the discussion group, for books written by people who live in the area. We would often get ~20 people to turn out for these ones, and the authors were very happy to come talk about the thing they care about to even our small group.
- twic 6y ago> Many non-fiction books are effectively a 'very good essay' in the first couple chapters, followed by N*100 pages of lower-quality expansion I wonder if an essay club, rather than a book club, would work. You pick something short enough that it's easy to read, but still with enough ideas in to talk about. You then have time to either dig into the text really deeply, or use it as a prompt for a largely unrelated but still interesting conversation, HN comments style.
- OkayPhysicist 6y agoI had a theology course at university like that. We got a list of 2-3 "suggested readings", of which any given student read 0-2. Then there was loosely structured time to discuss in small groups, then a more structured class discussion.
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- iandanforth 6y agoFrom the comments here it seems like we've got a case of an overloaded term. Just like you need terms like "intramural" and "club" to differentiate the type of sports team to which you belong there seems to be a need for a common and well understood differentiation between book groups which are primarily social and which are geared toward analysis and/or study. The objectives of the two groups don't seem to mesh well at all so perhaps they are deserving of their own terms.
- crazygringo 6y agoMe personally, I'd use "book club" for the social one, and "study group" for the academic one. The author seems to be describing a study group, not a book club.
- navbaker 6y agoI’ve never belonged to an actual book club, but have followed along as a podcast I listen to did a virtual book club. They did it as the article suggests, reading a small portion of the book each week and discussing that one portion for around an hour and a half. If anyone’s interested, it is the Grey Company podcast, which began as a podcast discussing the Lord of the Rings card game, but branched out to doing the afore mentioned read through of Lord of the Rings. Also of interest is Tolkien Road, a podcast which reads through and discusses the Silmarillion and other Tolkien works in a bit by bit fashion.
- kashyapc 6y agoVery timely topic. Please excuse me for hijacking this to gather some input on the following: I'm curious to hear if anyone has stories, success or otherwise, and methods on organizing a non-fiction study group. (Assume: small groups, serious and experienced participants.) Bonus marks for any "bear in minds" and "gotchas" when a plague forces you to resort to online group readings and discussions.
- xapata 6y agoI and 2 friends had a political science reading/discussion group that lasted a while. The most important things were keeping the reading short and polemic, and asking a question that we'd all respond to in writing via a short essay before gathering to discuss. Oh, and drinking heavily. The writing was necessary to keep us on track while drunk.
- twic 6y agonomen usoris reprehendo sicco
- kashyapc 6y agoI see, keeping the reading short and focused plus an essay sounds effective. (I'm not good with alcohol, so I'll skip that part ;-) I can stay on track reasonably well without any external stimuli.) This evening I'll be out at a nearby nature reserve with a fellow serious participant to talk about organizing an advanced study/discussion group on Greek & Roman philosophy -- mostly Hellenistic. Thanks for the input, xapata, much appreciated.
- MilnerRoute 6y agoI always wanted a club where everyone was reading the same ebook -- and left comments and highlights that were shared throughout the text. Amazon's Kindle has this capability -- but I've never heard anyone who's actually taken advantage of it.
- MilnerRoute 6y agoAlso, I think it'd be cool to see the highlights and comments left by celebrities or "authoritative" readers. I'm really surprised this hasn't become a thing... https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/677-share-your-kindle-notes-and-highlights-with-your-friends-beta https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/677-share-your-kindle-no...
- sharker8 6y agoI've tried the "book chunk club" approach too. Same problem. The right size chunk is a hard thing to optimize.
- tragic 6y ago> You would never run a class this way As a literature graduate, this made me laugh. Maybe literature courses are more leisurely stateside, but for me it was a book a week (not 4 to 6 weeks, as OP suggests). That was literally how classes were run. And it was stupid for the reasons outlined. I remember my class on Ulysses mostly because a) I was acutely conscious of not having been fully keeping up in the 250 pages before the closing chapter and b) when I arrived at class it became clear after about 2 minutes that only I had finished it, because I had read it over the summer break because I was really keen on those bragging rights, but everyone else has tried to read it in one week, which is a doomed endeavour if ever there was one. It would have been a better experience for everyone concerned if more than one person had done the reading, but that was not realistic on the assumption that Ulysses can be polished off in the same time as The Power and the Glory.
- jamesjyu 6y agoI fully agree with the author on the problem, but the suggested solution of doing periodic readings together is a hard sell for busy ppl to commit to - I find synchronous reading boring. There are a few ways to increase the chance of a book club: (1) Reduce the reading length per session. (2) Provide a carrot to encourage ppl to do the reading. These two levers led a few friends and I to start something called Short Story Club [1], which is really starting to take off now. It's relatively easy to get folks to read a 30-40 page short story, and we try to provide a free copy so people don't have to make a purchase. IMO short stories are super underrated and overlooked - many of them pack a punch bigger than the average novel. We start each session with small group discussions over Zoom. For the carrot, we get the author of the short story to come on the Zoom and do a Q&A session, letting attendees ask their questions directly via video like in a real event. So far, we've focused on science fiction, and we've gotten Ted Chiang, Ken Liu, and Cory Doctorow to join us. So, even if you're not doing short stories for your own book club, a better way is to chunk up big books and meet periodically. Make it an event: if in person make an effort to cook or provide good snacks, music, whatever it takes to make it easy for people to commit to. And have good discussion points ready. [1] https://www.shortstory.club https://www.shortstory.club - if you're interested, we have Hugh Howey coming next week to discuss WOOL, one of my fav stories
- magicroot75 6y agoPersonally I'd go a step further and say if you want to really read the book together you should read it together on Kindle and make shared notes and highlights as you're all reading so you can note where others, or you, are struggling. This would truly help it become a collaboration moreso than a retrospective.
- theriddlr 6y agoI've been to a tech 'code and bitch' ('stitch and bitch'). The premise was really obvious because everyone knew not to bring a laptop.
- Noos 6y agoWhat the author wants isn't a book club. He wants a secular Bible study. Most people don't treat reading like that, though.
- cafard 6y agoI am charmed by the idea that my neighborhood book club would ever consider Ulysses or Pale Fire. Now and then somebody comes up with something I haven't read and enjoy encountering. Mostly I like the club for a) not interfering with my ordinary reading, and ) a chance to get together with neighbors over dinner and wine.