What's next after Homo Deus?

Homo Deus discussion is welcome to continue on (as are all OLOB discussions!), but I'm looking ahead to our next read. This is where you come in. If you have specific books to suggest/nominate (I see we've already got one out there), feedback on how this read went, and how we can improve next time, here's the place to post it!

Below, I'm also including three specific polls, to help me narrow down a slate for next time. I'm looking to head back to the slate, then member voting model we've used in the past.

If yes, let me know your preferred genre(s)!

I think LibThing is so huge that it can support several book clubs for chosen (by votes) major genres. Perhaps one for literary fiction, one for non-fiction, one for fantasy/sci-fi, one for romance, etc.

>5 mcfitz: Member-wise, that's certainly true, and our members are welcome to (and often do) create their own book clubs. However, staff-wise, we're just not big enough to support multiple group reads like OLOB. It also sort of defeats the name—One LibraryThing, One Book—if we even could disperse it.

Contemporary Southern Gothic novel

fav genre: historic fiction (NOT romance), sci fi/fan

Science fiction :-)

The founding of the Republic was a fight between two very different views of mankind. The founding documents reflect these compromises but because of the absence of official notes the divergent views and the compromised conclusions are not well understood. More education is needed in this area. With the death of Forrest McDonald we lost an insightful mind. Who has arisen to fill his dead shoes? I would like to read more content in this area

I'm David, by the way written by Jorgi.

It's been noted in the past that if you have books against each other in a vote the most popular one almost always wins. A book in 20,000 members' libraries will inevitably have an advantage over one in 2,000.

This is worth keeping in mind if we're returning to a member vote: whatever they are, the books up for selection will need to be similarly popular to avoid such a skew.

I still think the best choice is something that was published about a year ago and has just been released in paperback. It's easier and cheaper to get ahold of a copy, there are enough reviews to decide whether the book is actually worth reading, and it's still new and shiny enough that people are excited to read it.

The hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution is coming up so as for genre/ theme why not either Russian literature or Revolution?

More important than genre or subject, I think, are a couple other details:

1. Accessibility of the book. It should not be a brand-new hardcover, which will be too expensive for many to take a risk on a book they might not otherwise read, or too long to wait at the library.

2. Someone on staff needs to have read the book beforehand so they know it's not a total stinker, and can answer readers when there are questions like "This is getting off to an awful start, is it worth continuing?"

3. Readers need to be able to actually start discussion threads, rather than just answering questions from the staff. "What do you think about X" can often just result in everyone answering the question and not actually interacting with each other.

>18 lorax: Points are well taken, with the exception of #3. Readers are welcome and encouraged to start discussion threads, after discussion has officially started. Are we just not making that clear? Should I stop asking folks to hold off until the discussion start date? I feel like that might put us into a less organized free-for-all, but I'm willing to try it if folks think it would work.

The questions I post are just designed to get discussion started. They're not doing the best job of that, though.

>19 lorannen:

Readers are welcome and encouraged to start discussion threads, after discussion has officially started. Are we just not making that clear?

Well, I didn't understand that, but that could just be me being boneheaded. But when on Day One there are a bunch of Questions From On High it seemed to me that that was the direction discussions were supposed to take. (Maybe even something as simple as turning off your Official L for the discussion threads would help, so it's more clear that this is something we're all talking about rather than something you as staff are leading?)

There are so many really good fiction books - well written, great stories, engrossing -- so I will vote for fiction

Good thinking

Right on. Those are the rules for my home bookclub. Also we alternate between fict. & non-fict.

Yes, I agree....would love a Historical Novel set in some ancient time that's NOT a Romance. And I also love the Science Fiction/Fantasy genres.

Could you apply "LibraryThing Recommendations" to all the libraries in LT at once, and generate about 5 (fiction) books to vote on?