World Book Day and an Idea
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Mark Twain
Today is World Book Day, the biggest annual celebration of books and reading in the UK and Ireland.
Ennis Book Club Festival is on this weekend with readings/talks by authors such as Lionel Shriver, Joseph O’Connor, Paul Durcan, Tim Pat Coogan, Diarmaid Ferriter and David McWilliams to name a few. More information here. I have something else on so can’t go to the events I would have been interested in. Pity. I read the quotation above on their brochure.
With all the talk of books, it’s such a pity to hear that Hughes & Hughes, one of the Ireland’s largest bookshop chains, has just gone into receivership. I met Derek Hughes a few times and he seemed to be a very nice, hard-working man. I hate to see yet another company go … 225 jobs just like that.
Now to the idea I mentioned. Would any blog readers be interested in forming a ‘BBC’, a ‘Blog Book Club’?
What I suggest is if a group of bloggers were to read the same book each month, write a review of it and post it on their blog. The book to be read each month would be selected by the members. We could agree that we would simultaneously post on a particular day/time each month, say midday on the first Sunday or some such time. It would be very interesting to read different people’s review of the same book.
It’s much along the lines of a traditional book club except this is done through blogging.
What do you think? If you are interested, please leave a comment below.
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I am definitely up for this, fantastic idea. I’ve been berating myself for not reading enough, this is just the motivation I need.
Delighted Marian, all we need is a few to get it off the ground.
Hi Lily, thanks for bringing this to our attention, love your idea of the blogging club. Count me in, will have to get those boys in bed early!!
Treasa, welcome to the blog and to the ‘BBC’. You’re bringing me back in time when you speak of getting those boys to bed
How soon they grow up!
Great idea, Lily, I’m in!
Count me in too
Great Cathy and Marie
Great idea Lily! I’m involved in something similar… http://www.ourcitylights.org/2010/01/slow-readers-book-club.html
So not sure if I’d manage to read all those set books – but keep me posted anyway, and I might do a few with you guys!
I would love to. I am part of a book club that meet once a month, Sept – May but find it hard to make the meetings at times and would love to do an online one. How interesting too to link to each other and read each other’s reviews. I saw on Twitter that there is a website doing a book club, was it the Irish Times but haven’t seen anything about it in ages.
Count me in – a good excuse to do a bit more reading. What I also like about book clubs is that I read books I might not otherwise come across.
Kirsty, no problem, I can understand you. Having too many books to read can take a bit of the joy out of the task. We’ll go ahead but feel free to contribute as suits you.
Lorna, Delighted you can join. I hadn’t seen an online bookclub in action like we are doing but feel it should work.
Ooh me too please
Val, delighted you are interested
Lily
As you know, I think the ‘BBC’ is a brilliant idea.
I hope you don’t mind that I shall be watching from the sidelines and who knows, you might even tempt me from time to time, to join in a book review!
Steph, Yea, I’m delighted that there was interest in an online book club. Within a day we now have eight members and books chosen for the next while. Yes you’re very welcome to be an occasional contributor like Kirsty above
This is a great idea – count me in and I’ll be challenged to read a bit more than the local book club monthly choice – which I try to do anyway, but it will open up a few new options. I’ll aim to be diligent!
Catherine.
Catherine, you are very welcome to join, should be fun. I’m smiling at your comment “I’ll aim to be diligent”!
Thanks Lily – tell me where are the selected books listed? I may have missed this – must check out another post re the BBC (Love the acronym – not sure the Beeb would appreciate it!) I’m hedging my bets with the diligent aim! I read plenty but lately it’s been erratic as circumstances took over my normal life. Marina Lewycka’s “We are all made of glue” was very good diversion in recent weeks – I love her wit.
Catherine
Catherine, March ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’, by Khaled Hosseini to post at noon on Easter Sunday. (I’m just writing an update post on the Bloggers’ Book Club. I thought exactly as you said, I’d better not incur the BBC’s wrath, they’d be able to afford more legal than me! Oh and a small matter of they being there first!) ‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Toibin is the book we’ve decided to go with for April and ‘Let the Great World Spin’ by Colum Mc Cann for May. That’s as far as we have gone.
One alternative is that we write our review of the book on our blog. Another alternative is that we use a list of questions posed for book clubs to promote discussion. Here (http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/thousand_splendid_suns.html) is a Penguin list for ‘A thousand Splendid Suns’. You have to scroll down a little to come to the questions.
Whichever way I think we should just try it and see how it evolves. I’m as new to this as the next! All a bit of fun just trying. Happy reading
Hello Lily. Came your way via Catherine’s blog. I’d like to join in too if I can. Haven’t joined a book club before so I’m looking forward to it.
Winifred, you’re in. Delighted that you’d like to join – there’s plenty of room. ‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Toibin is the book we’ve decided to go with for April and ‘Let the Great World Spin’ by Colum Mc Cann for May. That’s as far as we have gone.
I have a sister called Winifred
Just looking at next months book. The waiting list is the library is 2177 days!