Post on your blog whether or not you ever been a member of a book club. Also discuss whether you prefer joining a in-person or online book club.
Making my first stop by browsing through the list of Harris County Public Library branch book clubs, I was intrigued to see that the Barbara Bush Library Afternoon Book Discussion would be talking about Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson on Thursday, February 26, 2009 starting at 1:30 p.m. Three Cups of Tea is a book that I’ve recently read and wrote about on this blog (on Sunday, December 28, 2008). I was also intrigued by the listing for Tremendous Tuesdays: Silly Science Play with Color on March 17, 2009 at the same branch, but since it’s a “program for children 8-12 years who love learning about science,” and I’m five times the upper age limit for the intended audience, I figured they probably wouldn’t let me in.
I visited the Houston Great Books Council site and only got about half of the answers on their challenging Literary Trivia quiz. I liked their selection of Shakespeare sites.
I was impressed by the large selection of titles on ReadingGroupGuides. I looked up the guide to Three Cups of Tea, and found the discussion questions and the summary to be very useful. It was interesting to find the identical discussion questions at Reading Group Choices. On a hunch, I checked the site for the book’s publisher, Viking/Penguin, and found the original copy for the summary and questions in Penguin(usa)’s Book Clubs Reading Guides.
Readerville is an interesting site. I found the clear English sentences of its Terms of Service to be a refreshing change from the usual legalize found on most sites. I wandered about it for some time, lurking in the discussions, then getting sidetracked in the War & Peace forum to an “Essay in the New England Review by Michael Katz that contrasts and compares” recent translations.
I’m already a member of LibraryThing and I’ve been posting book annotations to Goodreads for a few months now. In contrast to Readerville, Shelfari’s terms of service are more extensive and include this little warning: “Shelfari reserves the right to change or modify any of the terms and conditions contained in the Site Terms or any policy or guideline of the Site, at any time and in its sole discretion.” Although I’m a member of Facebook, I was unable to find Living Social: Books on Facebook. But, then again, I’ve never had much luck finding a group on Facebook. I did find an Italian “Books on Facebook” group with a few members in College Station, unfortunately, I’m illiterate in Italian.
My own book club experience has been face to face with humans; I haven’t yet explored the online version. While I was living in West Virginia in the mid-1980 I was a member of a Wednesday morning book club that met at the downtown English Lutheran Church about two blocks from the library where I worked. My next experience was with a group in the library. The Main Library in Nashville, Tennessee had a group that met regularly once a month to discuss books selected by the members. I am happy to report that the club is still meeting.
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