If you have time, and an interest in future book club meetings, please take a look at the links in the MeTa post, and at my last comment in the thread, and memail me your email address.

I hope this is just a bump in the road. I have enjoyed reading the book club discussions despite my not reading the books.

Same.

DG's comment got me thinking about the MeFi sidebar not always having a "static landing place" here at MeCha. What if we allocated a page in our Wiki for the book club? Then the MeFi sidebar could direct there and whoever creates the discussion threads could add links as necessary.

youngergirl44, I'm intrigued. What kind of links were you thinking about? Links from discussion page back to wiki or . . . sorry to be dense.

The Wiki could be the destination for the MeFi sidebar link. Then the Wiki page could be a list of all the discussion threads that take place here. Something like:

-----------------------------------------------

** Book Club Page **
General information about book club. We're currently reading Green Eggs and Ham. The discussion will take place on 10/18/10.

- Past Books & Discussions
-- 8/18/10: Oh, The Places You Will Go (link to discussion thread on MeCha)
-- 6/18/10: Horton Hears a Who (link to discussion thread on MeCha), (link to a second discussion page if there is one)

-----------------------------------------------

We apparently read a lot of Dr. Seuss. Hopefully that makes sense and the suggestion itself is ok with the mods. Let me know if I need to clarify more.

That sounds like a great solution, youngergirl44.

Just a friendly admin reminder: sometimes threads go badly, but in general, we enjoy a good relationship with MetaFilter, the site whence we spawned, and we do want to maintain the general goodwill. So as a request to all, any further comments on how things are going over there should stay over there, and that way we'll keep things tidy here and focus on the future of the book club, which so many people enjoy, and how we can facilitate it.

I'm confused... if it was a MeFi book club, why was the discussion thread for On the Road held at MeCha? Was it originally supposed to be on MetaTalk (that would seem like a strange use for MeTa)? Just curious.

Going forward (if you want), a MeCha book club linked to MetaTalk sounds good. In fact, it seems rather nice of the MeFi mods to allow a link to what basically amounts to an off-site club, imho.

Also, not to pour salt, but a more contemporary reading list (as others mentioned in that other not to be spoken of place) might spark more interest than the tried-and-true. (Might I suggest Mr. Peanut, by Adam Ross? Just started it, but it's wicked good.)

Having any of the wikis have a singular landing place for the book club would be great from our perspective. MeFi Wiki or MetaChat Wiki, just let us know.

I love youngergirl44's suggestion if the mods are OK with it. (It is more work for you.)

And Pips, this all started at shothotbot's suggestion in MeFi, in the MeTa thread I linked to in my most recent post there, that a group of MeFites track the Open Yale course on the American Novel since 1945. Many MeFi people were enthusiastic about that idea. In the initial thread, we decided MeCha would be a good place to actually hold the discussions. After that, when shothotbot couldn't continue the project, I picked it up. We kept using MeTa to set up the discussions and MeCha to hold them, because this was a MeFi book club from the getgo.

I'm pretty committed to finishing the current syllabus, but I can always read more than one book at a time if you want to launch another book club here now. Or, after the syllabus for the Open Yale course is done, I'd be willing to organize a more generalized book club without such a closed selection list.

And frankly, I don't feel any salt from you, so no worries.

Thanks for the clarification and history, bearwife... I do hope you continue. It's a worthwhile endeavor, and you led a very nice discussion.

I kind of like the idea of using the Yale class syllabus, both because I'm always an advocate of "yes you really should try to read those books they talked about when you were in school," and I think having the lecture videos could be a good discussion spark.

(Frankly, I'm wondering what other schools do that sort of thing...I've been really thinking of tackling "War And Peace" soon, I may make it my winter project, and if there are good college lectures about it available online that would be fun...)

Also, re: "Franny and Zooey" as next choice. Suits me fine, I just read it for the first time back in the spring. Only question I have would be about the length of time between the actual discussions? F&Z is pretty short...only took me a week, tops, and I'm often a slow reader. I wonder if people's interest might be maintained more with shorter reading periods when possible?

I'd rather have a shorter period between discussions too, dnash, but I'm a fast reader and I don't like to impose my pace on others, so I'd been allowing a lot of time. Last time I was in a live book group, we allowed a month or so between get together. We wanted to allow enough time for people to get the book as well as read it. But yes, probably 6 or so weeks is too much time. How about we tighten it up with the next book after this one (Barth's Lost in the Funhouse) to a month between?

Jessamyn and Miko, I was debating with myself how to ask this, and I already appreciate the sidebarring Jessamnyn did over at MetaFilter, but can I combine the suggestions I see here from mods and in the MeTa thread and request the following?

1. Is it possible that the MeTa sidebar link to the current MeTa thread for now, and in a week or two to a MeCha wiki spot?

2. Could the MeCha wiki read as youngergirl44 suggests, only listing our past MeCha discussions (Black Boy, Wise Blood, Lolita, On the Road) and that we are currently reading Frannie and Zooey plus the associated Prof. Hungerford lecture for a planned October 18 discussion here?

3. And can I take Miko up on her additional suggestion in MeTa that "we do have one "sticky" post navigation sidebar called "site news" and could place something there that would stay up longer, if that's desired"?

Thank you very, very much. My plan is then to wait until close to 10/18 and put up a quick reminder at that time in MeTa of the 10/18 discussion, as well as the information that the next book and timing of the next discussion will be hashed out here in MeCha around 10/25.

Is it possible that the MeTa sidebar link to the current MeTa thread for now, and in a week or two to a MeCha wiki spot?

I think so, yeah. I don't have direct access to the MeTa sidebar [as opposed to the MeFi front page sidebar] so I can get pb to do this, but might need a reminder nudge when it's time to move to the wiki spot.

Dear bearwife, I am not a book club person at all, but I want to give you a hug for all of the crap it takes to herd all of these damn cats.

Some days it seems like my job is entirely made up of "Why don't we have ponies? I want a pony" to be followed in quick succession by "You picked the wrong pony" and "Okay, now that you've gotten the pony here, YOU take care of it." And most of the people you're dealing with are perfectly nice, but they're going in 58 directions before you've gotten a chance to catch up or propose a strategery.

So I feel ya, a little too well, and I hope you continue to enjoy the discussion and pleasurable reading that comes out of this.

I'm happy to sponsor the MeCha end of that deal, but will probably require the help of BP and the mods to stay on top of each action in a timely way.

Just so as not to lose the momentum I dummied up a Wiki page to start working on. This page is not locked to editing, so I encourage anyone interested with a little time to edit it to reflect the real details. If you've never edited a Wiki, you can find tutorials online, and though it's a tiny bit wonky at first it's also ridiculously easy. It's kind of like wishing things into existence.

And I agree with what Madamina says, bearwife - organizing stuff can be a thankless task, and people can be much too quick to critique something that would not even exist were it not for the care and effort put in by a few. It looks to me like the goodwill far outweighs the snark and that we can make this transition work nicely for all people and sites involved. I'm psyched - I love seeing the book discussions happen and reading the responses, even though I haven't much bandwidth right now for reading along and viewing the lectures. I'm glad they're around and glad we have a good camping spot for them on MeCha.

3. And can I take Miko up on her additional suggestion in MeTa that "we do have one "sticky" post navigation sidebar called "site news" and could place something there that would stay up longer, if that's desired"?

Oh yeah, as to this, what do you want this to link to? I'm thinking the Wiki page once it's done, since that would be a central repository for everything book club.

Good to see you back on board with this, bearwife. Even though I don't participate, I've been interested to read the conversations about the current book. Yeah, organising things is a thankless task and some will always criticise, so thanks.

Dear bearwife, I am not a book club person at all, but I want to give you a hug for all of the crap it takes to herd all of these damn cats.

Yes, this. Although I'm not reading the books I do enjoy following y'all.

You are all lovely people and you are right about the proportion of supportive and pleasant responses to . . . other. A most sincere thanks to all of you. And Milo, your suggested link route sounds great. I will take a look at the wiki tomorrow when I'm looking at this site on my laptop instead of my Droid
.

Miko, sorry I misspelled your name in my last comment. (Actually, my Droid's spelling corrector did that and I missed it.) Anyway, I really like the wiki mockup. I will try to learn more about wiki work and add details later today. And yes, I think it would be great if the sidebar link was to the MeCha wiki.

Also, Jessamyn, besides thanking you, too, so much for all the help, I promise when the MeCha wiki is in gear I'll send a contact form asking to reroute the sidebar links in MeFi to it.

I edited the wiki! I am so excited! Miko, please let me know if it looks OK to you. I have no pride in my editing. If so, I'll ask Jessamyn next week to reroute the MeFi sidebar links to the MeCha wiki.

If anyone is still looking at this thread, please check out the beautiful wiki work by lriG rorriM. Now there's a person who knows what she is doing!

Thanks for this, bearwife, riG rorriM, and Miko! And bearwife, many many thanks for carrying this banner.

I find myself surprised how excited I am for F & Z --- to hear Hungerford's views, sure, but even more excited to hear what MeChazens have to say about it. I just re-read it a few months ago and thought that there was a powerful undercurrent that I simply couldn't get ahold of.

I learned a tremendous amount about Lolita during and after the thread here --- partly from listening to others' viewpoints and partly from re-examining or supporting my own thoughts on the novel. This is delightful!

Some days it seems like my job is entirely made up of "Why don't we have ponies? I want a pony" to be followed in quick succession by "You picked the wrong pony" and "Okay, now that you've gotten the pony here, YOU take care of it." And most of the people you're dealing with are perfectly nice, but they're going in 58 directions before you've gotten a chance to catch up or propose a strategy.

I wish I could favourite this because godDAMN that is a good description of my job.