☯Emily ’s Comments (group member since Jul 27, 2011)

☯Emily ’s comments from the Classics for Beginners group.

Thank you for all the feedback, and especially for the theme suggestions.

We all have to work on improving the discussions. It gets discouraging for the discussion leader if there is little or no discussion. The moderators set up the threads, but we aren't always available to read the books chosen, so it would be great if the nominator could at least start the discussions by providing info about the author or the book or providing interesting articles or links.

The voting is very close this month!

This is the thread for discussing The Pickwick Papers. If those reading the book want more threads, please send me the breakdown of chapters. Thanks.

Oh, thanks, I'll correct that. I'll put one thread up for the book in case others are reading it now or will read in the future.

I can set up a thread, but I didn't hear from the person who nominated the book nor did anyone else (other than you) indicate they were reading the book. I am not reading the book, so I would need to know how to break up the book into threads. You can IM me with suggestions on how many threads to set up.

It was interesting to learn in my Ancient Greek theater class that the great playwrights, like Sophocles and Aeschylus did not create original works, but got their ideas from their ancestors' stories. They would take a myth or legend and rework to create something both familiar and new for their audiences.

Holls wrote: "The book choices have always been very good. Like Phil, I don't vote for a book if I don't intend to read it. I also won't vote for or re-read anything I've already read as my backlog is too long f..."

Like your ideas for themes. There are not a lot of choices of African literature that are 50 years or older. There is great literature coming from that continent over the past 50 years, so maybe there can be an adjustment of the time frame.

Kirsten *Dogs Welcome - People Tolerated" wrote: "I think we should keep the tri-monthly as there are so many large books we should read.

Also, I think if we mean by broadcast messages the ones that show up in notifications, I think we should kee..."

Thanks for the suggested themes.

If we have long books that win, then we can read them over a two month period. I think three months is too long for most of the books nominated (except maybe for War and Peace!)

My inclination is to eliminate the tri-monthly read since there is little or no participation from the group on the selections. Any disagreements?

Do you find the broadcast messages we send out useful? How could they be improved?

Would you rather have fewer broadcast messages or more? Should they be sent out at the start of nomination period as well as the start of polls?

Would you like to see "themed" months, like we have had occasionally? We had one for the November read and once we had one for female authors. If you are interested in a themed month, how often should we have one? What themes would you like to see?

The moderators are beginning to prepare for 2017 and we are asking the group for help and/or suggestions in planning for the new year.

1) What do you like about the group? What would you like to change?

2) Can you give any suggestions on how to improve the participation in the group discussions?

3) Do you participate in the group nominations and voting? Why or why not?

4) Should we continue to have a tri-monthly read?

The winner is The Stranger by Albert Camus. Please join me in discussing the book on November 1.

Kirsten *Dogs Welcome - People Tolerated" wrote: "When sending out the e-mails telling us voting is open, it would help if you added a link. I can find the poll - that's no problem - but it sure would be handy to go straight there!"

We'll try to remember that suggestion in the future.

Alma Q wrote: "How about The Confessions of Lady Nijō (if the nominating period hasn't ended yet)? Not sure how easily available it is, but definitely an under-read classic in translation..."

Are you willing to lead if the book wins?

Kirsten *Dogs Welcome - People Tolerated" wrote: "I nominate Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert"

We read this in August 2013.

Myst wrote: "I'm sorry, I didn't realize there was a request for non-english titles as the rules never really change. I just skim past the first post to see what's been nominated.

So may I adjust my nomination..."

Faust is fine. Occasionally, we change the rules for a month. We try to highlight the changes in the first message.

Are you willing to lead if Faust wins?

Myst wrote: "How about The Castle of Otranto?"

I don't think this qualifies since it was written in English and was not a translation. Do you know something that I don't?

No problem.