What's our next group read? - Summer 2013

[Erin]

Hey folks! Summer is quickly approaching (where did the beginning of the year go?!) so it's time to start thinking about what we want to read as a group for the coming months. Like last year, we'll be voting on what to read for June, July and August, so let's start a new discussion on what we want to read this summer!

Anything you read last year or recently that you think the group would love to read? Or, more importantly, discuss? Nominate your top picks here and I'll get them into polls for voting.

[Erin]

Looks like no one has any thoughts yet, so I'll go ahead and kick off with some thoughts.

My favorite read so far this year has been Ben Aaronovitch's Peter Grant series, starting with Midnight Riot. I got the rec from a couple of VBCers, so I think there may be some agreement on this book =)

A few other possibilities are some of the award nominees for this year (published last year). I've got on my to-read list The Expats, The 500, and The Yard. The Yard kind of looks right up our alley for historical mysteries.

And in that historical mysteries vein, I realized we have never discussed any Maisie Dobbs! So that's a possibility as well. It looks like quite a few of us are fans of that series.

What do you all think?

[Lenore]

I'd never heard of any of these (except Maisie Dobbs), so I looked them up on Goodreads. I'd vote for either Midnight Riot or The Expats, because the first sounds like fun and, as to the second, I've been an expat wife, so it sounds like I'll relate. Or trying Maisie Dobbs, which I have not yet done. The advantage to The Expats and much (although not all) of Maisie Dobbs is that they are readily available in audio form, for those of us who are listeners rather than eyeball-readers. As for The 500 and The Yard, they sounded awfully derivative and hackneyed to me. (But maybe that's just me.)

[Erin]

So far, what's going in the poll for next month is:
Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
The Expats by Chris Pavone
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

Any other recommendations for books to read for June? Maybe some throwback reads? I've been meaning to pick up books from Margaret Maron and Deborah Crombie. Anyone interested in those? And if so, which books?

[KarenB]

I don't know what's available on audio, but it would be fun to do a read of some of the classic age authors - Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Bell, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, etc. and then maybe a read of some of the Dashiell Hammett, etc. from the States.

I love both Margaret Maron and Deborah Crombie and would suggest Bootlegger's Daughter for Margaret Maron and whatever Deborah Crombie's first novel is, I can't remember right now.

[Erin]

One more rec from me. It just won the Edgar for best YA mystery and several authors and reviewers I follow rated it very highly. It's about a young woman who's a spy during WWII. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein.

We don't usually do YA, but it sounds like a great read.

[Elisabeth]

Erin wrote: "One more rec from me. It just won the Edgar for best YA mystery and several authors and reviewers I follow rated it very highly. It's about a young woman who's a spy during WWII. Code Name Verity..."

My sister absolutely adored this book. I think it's the only one she's given 5 stars to. :) I am unlikely to read it because it involves torture, but those with stronger constitutions might find it worthwhile.

[Sabrina]

Code Name Verity sounds great.

[Lenore]

What makes a mystery YA rather than mainstream? The age of the protagonist?

[Erin]

Lenore wrote: "What makes a mystery YA rather than mainstream? The age of the protagonist?"

Pretty much. And they tend to have slightly less complex sentence structuring so they are more approachable for a wider reading audience. I've found they're usually a little lighter on the details for stuff that could be disturbing too. Not always, but often.

Personally, I tend to really like YA because they often get to the meat of a plot faster than your usual fiction. A little less description and meticulous world building; a little more focus on the characters and what they're doing. YA often deals with very complex thoughts and themes, but they're usually approached in a way that's more subtle (or sometimes totally straightforward to the point of slapping you in the face with a moral...but there's a spectrum in any genre). I think I may have brought this up in our discussion of dystopian fiction last year, LOL.

[Laurie]

Kate Atkinson's Life After Life is simply spectacular. It shouldn't work as well as it does, but I found it utterly compelling.
--Laurie

[C.P.]

Laurie wrote: "Kate Atkinson's Life After Life is simply spectacular. It shouldn't work as well as it does, but I found it utterly compelling.
--Laurie"

I too want to read that one.

[Elisabeth]

Laurie wrote: "Kate Atkinson's Life After Life is simply spectacular. It shouldn't work as well as it does, but I found it utterly compelling.
--Laurie"

Intriguing. I'd read that.

[Erin]

I just posted the poll for June with invites to the group, so you all should have gotten a notice. If I missed anyone, though, the link is below. And I left it open to write-ins, so if you think of something else to read, feel free to let your voting voice be heard. Please head over and vote!

http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/83...

P.S. The selections for July and August will probably be very similar if not the same, so it'll probably be a matter of which you'd like to read soonest =)

[Erin]

Okay! Votes are in; poll is closed. And the June selection is...Kate Atkinson's Life After Life.

So here's an important question: Do you guys want to vote again for July and August with their own polls, or would you rather just take the next top voted books from the poll that just ended? The selection of options is going to be the same, so I suppose the question is more do you think the distribution of votes will be different?

Let me know if I should get polls put together!

[Elisabeth]

Oh dear, there are over 500 holds on this book at my library! I may be a little behind...

[Lenore]

"Only" around 65 holds at mine (for the audio version). I guess you and I will be coming late to the party.

[KarenB]

I'm winning with 46 holds.

What was the next top voted book? If it was a less currently popular one, we could do that for June and save the Kate Atkinson for July when those of us who have put a hold on it may have a better chance of reading it.

[Erin]

Next top vote was a tie between Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron and Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear.

We could definitely push Life After Life to later in the summer. Make it the August selection and give people more time to get hold of a copy? ...though I probably ought to make that question a poll...

Thoughts, anyone?

[Margaret]

Erin, I think postponing the book currently unobtainable in the libraries until August is a good idea.

[C.P.]

I would third (fourth?) the "delay until August" option. I currently have more books than I can read, and I would love to give that one my full attention.

[Camilla]

I'm going to throw my hat in the Maisie Dobbs ring.

[Erin]

Heads up friends! I just spotted the ebook edition of our August read for $8.89 on BN.com and Amazon. So if you're an ebook reader, this might be a great time to pick it up before our discussion.

ETA: I probably should have been more specific. That's Kate Atkinson's Life After Life

[C.P.]

Erin wrote: "Heads up friends! I just spotted the ebook edition of our August read for $8.89 on BN.com and Amazon. So if you're an ebook reader, this might be a great time to pick it up before our discussion...."

Thanks! Snagged my copy.

It's $14.99 at the iTunes Store, so I am guessing that's supposed to be the regular price. The Kindle price, if not cheap, is therefore quite a discount—less even than the paperback (as it should be, but some publishers have trouble grasping this concept).

[MaryL]

Does anyone know if the author gets the same cut on ebooks as print? I know for a while authors either got less or nothing with paperback editions, but that got fixed.

[C.P.]

It would be set in the author's contract and probably varies from publisher to publisher and author to author. But what it does mean is that the author can't get his/her rights back after X number of years out of print. Because e-books don't go out of print....

[Erin]

MaryL wrote: "Does anyone know if the author gets the same cut on ebooks as print? I know for a while authors either got less or nothing with paperback editions, but that got fixed."

I think LRK did a blog post about this a while back. They get a cut on ebooks, but not the same cut as the print editions (just like how they get less of a cut on paperback than hardcover).

Interesting point about the time to get their rights back for ebook, C.P. I hadn't thought about that. Although, really, ebooks could go out of print the same way paper does; the publisher could just stop making available. That just wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, since they don't have to actually do anything to let it continue being available like they would for print.

I keep hearing about contracts taking quite a bit more thought these days for the ebook rights debate. I'm guessing authors are trying to make sure that they have a finite number of years of ebook ownership in their contracts. Or else a much higher cut. Will have to ask around!

[Sabrina]

Like someone else said, I think it depends on the negotiated contract (I could be wrong).

If, for example, an author had negotiated a set percentage for all sells, no matter the format, then it would make sense that they would get less money for a paperback vs hardback.

I know some Indie authors are doing quite well for themselves. Depending on what distribution route they go, they make 60-70% on each book sell. So if they set their book at 3.99$, they get something like 2.79$ per book. Whereas, I've heard of traditional authors who only get like 1.50$ per book.

With the whole changing publishing industry, it seems, like Erin mentioned, contracts are getting more complicated. I know an indie author who recently sold language rights to her book but is keeping ebook rights.

The indie author of Wool negotiated a contract to keep ebook rights while selling the erm, what's it called, real book rights, lol. Anyway the books that are sold in bookstores. The word escapes me...