Book 31: proposals

[Adam]

I was recommended 'Godel, Escher, Bach' by a co-worker. It's supposed to be long and hard -- perhaps good for a chaotic Holiday season with travelling and ample reading time?

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

[Adam]

Also: Hallucinations and Disgrace

[Ben]

That sounds good to me. I still have no desire to read Disgrace, but the other two are cool.

[Mark]

What are we? Of what is a book club's DNA comprised? I confess, by way of introducing this topic, a dalliance with another club. It was only one meeting, one book, and I did not inhale!

We are people, we are a set of rules, we are this web site. That's my annoyingly complete and dry answer to the question: those 3 chromosomes. Something is not right though. The organism is dying. Is it a disease we can cure with some surgical correction to the rules? Is it simply the natural order of events - unavoidable senescence? That seems needless and sad. Instead, why can't we live forever like Oprah's book club? Is it not death but a transformation, moving on to a better place? Maybe a book club can be entirely virtual, a cross fire of reading and review discussion, borderless and of ephemeral constituency. This web site is such a place.

Well, it's not a better place as far as I'm concerned. I really miss the in-person discussions. I miss the written ideas, which are coming slower now, or more accurately, coming apace, but from a shrinking cohort. It is tempting for me to lay blame at the feet of the rules, our constitution which turns out to be insufficiently robust to perform it's binding function, to glue us together. In my opinion, "requiring" corporeal contact (a literal party), and enshrining book selection as a right and duty passed like a torch sequentially around the membership would have given this organism a stiffer spine. Those are characteristics of another book club I know, which began when I was a boy, and now looks like it will outlast us.

It's also possible that we're missing the mysterious "leadership" chromosome. It's no fun to be bossy like Oprah, but maybe somebody needs to. Maybe we need a dictator, and a vibrant lobbying community, and a hymn and a flag and jockeying for rank. The club I visited had a very strong meeting leader, but sheep-like membership who didn't even read! That's not us. We're "better" than that, but Idiocracy teaches us that the fecund, not the fit, survive. Do we need to work actively to expand membership? I've felt the purpose was to make us happy, and more was not the metric, but if we just wither away to nothing, that's not happy...

Or something else? Any thoughts?

[Adam]

My thoughts:
1.) I think around this time last year we had a bit of a lull too. Perhaps it has to do with the seasonal busy-ness.

2.) The past few books were too 'easy'. I'm not saying they weren't worth reading, but they didn't offer too many possibilities for discussion. It would have been fun to sit around and watch some Bond movies though! (we can still do this)

3.) Agree that in-person meetings are important.

The most successful books, I think, have been the ones that were controversial and/or hard to read. I wonder if there's an English/Philosophy/Ethics class or something online with a syllabus that we could get a reading list from...and 'essay' topics that we could discuss and/or write about?

[Williwaw]

I have always thought that "torch-passing" of the book selection would be more efficient than voting, and that it would have the potential for expanding our palates. Furthermore, everyone would eventually have the satisfaction of reading something from her/his own reading list.

It shouldn't be hard to find interesting books. It could be as easy as looking at each other's "to read" lists, looking at other book club lists, or perusing some literate publications like The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, etc. Adam's idea ain't too bad, either.

But if this club is already dead, each of us may as well migrate to greener pastures. I'm already on the hunt, especially since I'm at long distance. It's not practical for me to attend the parties. I always hoped that I could make it out there some day and meet you all, but that day will never come if we bail.

Sniff, sniff, sigh . . .

[Williwaw]

btw, I like Adam's suggestion that we should read less fiction.

I hate to suggest more rules, but maybe we could alternate between fiction and non-fiction? Or make every third book a fiction book?

Or we could make this really complicated and have a serial rule: fiction, philosophy, history, poetry, science, politics, etc. etc. That way we'd get a better distribution of genres.

Random thoughts.

[Williwaw]

modern library 100 best non-fiction books

time magazine 100 best nf

oedb best science books

goodreads best history books

[Williwaw]

Oh, I should have included this one, which includes Adam's beloved GEB:

pulitzers for nf

I could definitely go for GEB!!!

[Gina]

When we started this club, we each had months, and people could more or less choose on their month. I've been reading outside the club a little, but I'm ready to recommit, whatever the next book is. :)

[Gina]

My vote is for Hallucinations (fyi)

[Mark]

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

[Williwaw]

I vote for GEB!

And with two votes, GEB takes the lead!

(I guess we failed to abolish the vote in favor of monthly dictators.)

[Mark]

Riveted! (again with the steam airships!)

[Mark]

Hey how about this? What if everyone gets to cast two votes, or one anti-vote, against a book.
But, your two votes can't be cast for the same book.
Unless someone anti votes you, then your second vote is reinstated with full force.
And if you vote against an anti-vote, then you still get your second vote. Simple!

[Gina]

Down with voting!

At least with monthly dictators, you can't just be a ghost-person who silently determines books but never speaks to the rest of us! HEY SILENT PEOPLE - WHO ARE YOU REALLY?!

I'll take February.

[Williwaw]

Mark wrote: " Riveted! (again with the steam airships!)"

Are you CRAZY, Mark? If you are proposing that, I'll add "Operation Trojan Horse" by John Keel!

[Amy]

I feel that meeting in person is crucial to the survival of the group. I will post more thoughts when I'm at an actual computer, and not my phone. Autocorrect is really starting to frustrate me.....

[Mark]

There was a meeting last night and y'all didn't come. You know who you are. Anyway there was an uprising and the constitution has been overturned and a new egalitarian government installed in the Morsi/Putin style. As one of many benefits, you won't have to trouble with any more messy "voting" to decide which book you'd like to read next because your benevolent leader will just tell you! So stand by for that. Meanwhile, if you know what's good for you, you will listen to this in preparation, and also because the first 5 minutes contains a moment so happy it will reach out through the speakers and pierce you with joy as bright as the antarctic sun. After that, meh. However you should listen to it all because it's Sapporo to the next book you need to read. (Oops: "apropos," not "Sapporo," but isn't autocorrect fun?)

[Williwaw]

manufacturing bliss
Doodles double up as life saving air bags, too!

[Mark]

That's a GREAT post! Fav line: "When the cheez doodle was discovered.."

Discovered? Could it be this comestible has lain latent in the properties of the universe ever since the big bang? This is a question of deep philosophical import. As with ineffable stuties in math and ethics, this is a clarion demanding courage and humility! No, we must not shy away from the had questions: was the Cheez Doodle invented, or discovered?

[Gina]

Mitch: great post! I'm picking up House of Bush, House of Saud today. I think that doing the monthly dictator thing will be empowering: you can choose books on your month that wouldn't necessarily win a popularity contest - and in effect force the group (participating members, at least) to learn something new.

For February I've decided to go with: The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness.

http://www.amazon.com/Center-Cannot-H...

It's not as light and fluffy as Oliver Sacks, but it directly addresses Schizophrenia, which I've been curious about for awhile - in fact, since Mark recommended this book: http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciou...
And with the recent string of mass shootings, many of the perpetrators of which appear to exhibit symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, the subject is timely.

Some may know that I was mildly obsessed with the documentary Touching the Void and specifically, the survival mechanism of THE VOICE. Sometimes otherwise "normal" or mentally healthy people (usually under great stress) experience a voice, an auditory hallucination which seems to be a commandment from outside the person, though they are alone. These people claim not to recognize THE VOICE, but to be compelled to follow it. I think it's the subconscious, and I want to know more about it.

Q: What if you had a direct line to your subconscious, that other person - your more apish aspect who shapes your dreams and many of your decisions? Many months ago, I woke up late at night as I often do, and wrote this:

In the dark meat of the walnut of your brain, under your skin and inside the tough but not unbreakable shell that is your skull, the dumb and genderless God sits in tireless judgement. It is a child or childlike. It is not brave, much less all-powerful, its wisdom is entirely questionable and when you die it dies with you. Its domain of rule is only you. Nevertheless, this is the deity you worship with books and beads and incantations, because its happiness means your happiness, and its displeasure is capable of making even an externally picturesque life a living hell.

So, my question to you is: are you ready to meet your God?

[Mark]

Nice,Mitch and Gina. I'm lovin the dictatorship already.

[Amy]

I'm still traveling, so will keep to a short post. At least I'm on an iPad (instead of my cell phone) this time. Speaking of iPads, this is my first iAnything.... Anyone have any apps they recommend? I have put the basics on already-- Facebook, Words With Friends, Chess, my bank, Goodreads, etc. Are there other must-haves?

I like this new leadership direction we are taking....