2022 Q1 and Q2 Group Reads Planning

As we have decided to organise regular group reads among classic-lovers, it’s time to start planning for the beginning of next year!

We have settled for a quarterly group read. We will decide over the course of November and December which will be the first two reads for 2022, starting in January and in April respectively.

The selection process will be in two phases:
- Phase 1 – from Saturday 6th to Friday 19th of November – nominating classics that we would like to see selected for our group reads.

- Phase 2 – from Saturday 20th of November to Friday 3rd of December – voting for the books we prefer.

The two books that yield more votes will be our group reads for January and April. The results will be announced on 4th of December!!!

As a rule of thumb, the person who have nominated a book selected for a group read will be expected to set up the group read thread, but this is not set in stone and should not prevent anybody to nominate books.

As a reminder, we’ve organised two group reads in 2021:
O! Pioneers by Willa Cather in Sept. (group read discussion here).
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones in Nov. (thread here, group read on-going at the time of writing).

So the range of possibilities is wide and can include more or less modern classics as well as genre classics!

Phase 1 - Nominees

Deadline: Friday 19th of November
Rule to participate: I suggest that each of the participants nominate up to three titles. Please, include both title and author in your nomination (if possible with touchstones).

Of course you are welcome to discuss nominations made by fellow readers, but for the sake of clarity, I will be able to take into account voting only when the nomination process is over.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

I think Chinua Achebe will get my vote!

Except for Dostoïevski, you've gone for fairly new classics. It seems an interesting trend in our nominations.

I am still not sure about my nominations. I was considering an African classic, but as you've covered it, I'm likely to change that. Looking forward to others' nominations!

Whoop, it's time! By the way, since it's every quarter, so every three months, shouldn't Q2 be April? Not that it makes a difference to me. March, April, either is good with me!

I'll nominate:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Princess Bride by William Goldman

>4 Tess_W: We've both nominated books by Dostoevsky XD

>6 Majel-Susan: Yes, April, you're right. Mistake fixed.

Another Dostoïevki nomination!

Time fot me to make my own suggestions.
For the moment, I'll limit myself to two nominations, and I'll see if I add a third one latter.

La Petite Fadette or Little Fadette by George Sand
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Bumping up this thread.
There are still a few days to go for nominations (up to Friday 19th of November).

Only two days left to nominate reads for our two first quaterly group reads for 2022!
New comers welcome!

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

>12 librorumamans: Hey, some more nominations, right on time! Welcome librorumamans!

Phase 2 - Votes

Deadline: Friday 3rd of December
Rule to participate:
I suggest that each of the participants place each nominated book in one of the following category:
- Books I really would like to see nominated. If nominated, I’m pretty sure I’ll participate in the group read.
- Books for which I'm highly unlikely to participate in the group read (whatever the reason is: book already read, not interested, etc.).
- Books for which I do not have a strong opinion. If nominated, I might participate in the group read.

With those rules, I hope that we will be able to decide on nominations that will ensure an optimum participation in the group read and that we will be able to decide if there are ties (which is likely, as we have 11 novels and we are few participants).

Suggested classics: (by author alphabetical order)
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
La Petite Fadette or Little Fadette by George Sand
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

And the vote is open!

And I cast my vote right away!

Books I really would like to see nominated:
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier
La Petite Fadette or Little Fadette by George Sand
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Books for which I reserve my decision to participate:
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Books for which I'm unlikely to participate in the group read:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Books I really would like to see nominated:
Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Books for which I reserve my decision to participate:
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky 😅
La Petite Fadette or Little Fadette by George Sand
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Books for which I'm unlikely to participate in the group read:
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Books I really would like to see nominated:
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
La Petite Fadette or Little Fadette by George Sand

Books for which I reserve my decision to participate:
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Books for which I'm unlikely to participate in the group read:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Already three votes and we all included Le Grand Meaulnes as one of our prefered nominees!
I can't remember if I read it all or large excerpts of it, but I've been meaning to read it more carefully for a long time and I got a copy a couple of weeks ago as my brother was donating most of his books! It seems that timing is perfect and I'll be happy if it makes it in our final two!

>18 raton-liseur:

I've read different translations in English; if we choose it, this time I'll try it in French, at least as much as I can.

Books I really would like to see nominated:
Things Fall Apart
The Brothers Karamazov
Moll Flanders
The Outsiders

Books for which I reserve my decision to participate:
The Book Thief

Books for which I'm unlikely to participate:
all the others! (Mostly because I have read them at least once and life is too short for re-reads!)

>19 librorumamans: I'll also (for obvious reasons) read it in French. I've never participated in a group read with a mix of readers in French and readers in English, that might be an interesting experience!

>20 Tess_W: There is not anymore unanumity around Le Grand Meaulnes. It's now in second position, with only 3 participants out of 4.
Things fall apart seems now more consensual, with strong interest, except from Majel-Susan who is undetermined.
Choosing in order to please everybody will be difficult.

>21 raton-liseur: If it comes down to Le Grand Meaulnes and Things Fall Apart, I would prefer Le Grand Meaulnes to be in April, if that's good with everyone. Turns out I might be a bit busy in January!

>22 Majel-Susan: I'm sure we can do it that way.
But first, let see if there is more interest and more votes!

>21 raton-liseur: Really, don't take my opinion into account. I've just read so many of the nominated ones that if one is chosen, I'm ok with not participating! Really, I am. I'm already participating in several group reads for 2022--so if it's something I haven't read--good; if not, there's always quarter two. As we did in the Shakespeare group, why don't you just put it up for a vote? We used Easy Polls. You could have each member select 2 and then you have quarter 1 & 2 reads! P.S. There will never be a consensus--that's the nature of it!

>24 Tess_W: I agree, we won't have consensus, the idea is just to have as many people participating as possibe (we are a small bunch for the moment), so if there are runners up, we'll select the one that is likely to attract more paticipants.
I tried to tailor the voting to take into account the number of participants vs the number of nominees, hence not using the LT voting system or another external survey form.

If there are no more votes, we have two novels that are fairly clearly identified: Things fall apart (3 highly interested participants + 1 hesitant) in January and Le Grand Meaulnes (3 highly interested participants + 1 no) in April.

up! - Votes open till Friday!

I'm happy to read Things fall apart and Le grand Meaulnes in any order.

up! - ONe day left for voting!

>27 librorumamans: What they said!

We've had more than enough time to vote as we are "only" 4 voters. We are heading for a cosy group read!
As it was already announced, here is the plan for our Q1 and Q2 group reads for 2022:

Q1 - January 2022 - Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe
Q2 - April 2022 - Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier

Things fall apart has been suggested by >4 Tess_W:. Are you happy to set the group read thread up some time during the second half of December?

Same for the Q2 novel: Le Grand Meaulnes has been suggested by >12 librorumamans:. Would you like launching the thread around middle or end of March?

I may join you all in April - I read Things Fall Apart last year and don’t feel like reading it again so soon.

I'm really happy with our two novels for the first half of 2022. Le Grand Meaulnes is on my shelves and I've been meaning to read it for some time. It's a French classics, and an unforgivable oversee in my reading records!
Things fall apart was not on my radar, but I’m very happy to discover a new (to me) African author and a classic from that country. I was in the bookshop yesterday and purchased it, so I’m fully equipped for those book reads, I have the books and the enthusiasm!
I hope you're all happy with the outcome of the vote and ready for those interesting reads!

>31 raton-liseur: Yes, I can do that!

The thread for our Q2 group read for Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier is now open!
Please join and I hope you'll enjoy the reading!

The last group reads have been fairly quiet, but out of curiosity, I'd like to check if there is interest for further group reads, let's say for Q3 and Q4?
If so, I can try to set up a voting thread in the coming days in order to get ready for Q3, starting in July.

Here is the link to the thread to organise our Q3 and Q4 group reads. Please, come, nominate and comment!