TGATJ: October 2016 Pick: The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

[Rob, Roberator]

Looks like the October pick will be The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker.

[terpkristin]

Cool, another that's been on my TBR stack for awhile. I hope it goes better for me than AFUtD did.

[Mel (booksandsundry)]

OMG! Veronica listened to my suggestion! I'm so excited. I adored this book.

[Leesa]

I really liked this book!

[Rob, Roberator]

I already own this from some sale or another, so works for me.

[Stephen]

This book was amazing.

[J]

Oh no! you guys picked The Golem and Jinni. That is on my TBR and I can think of no excuses why not to read this.

:)

[Dara]

This book is so good!

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

It looks like a fun read.

[Phil]

Tassie Dave wrote: "It looks like a fun read.

"

I wish I could "thumbs up" this.

[Trike]

Phil wrote: "Tassie Dave wrote: "It looks like a fun read.

"

I wish I could "thumbs up" this."

That can be taken one of two ways.

...and so can that.

[Joyce]

I've been wanting to read this for quite a while now. Terrific!

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

Trike wrote: "That can be taken one of two ways.

...and so can that."

It is a "Fantasy" novel ;-)

Oh! It's a boy Genie. :-? Ok, not my fantasy then ;-)

All jokes aside, It does look like a book I will enjoy.

[Elizabeth]

I had this on audible a while back, and returned it because I couldn't stand the narration. But, my tiny country-town library had it in! So I'm excited to give it another go in dead-tree format.

[Walter]

I won a copy of this one around the time it came out in a Goodreads giveaway and read it, so this month it looks like I'll be getting a bye.

I did enjoy it, btw.

[Colin]

I notice that the UK edition is spelled differently.



Perhaps we need a separate 'TGATD' thread for our discussions!

[Heather]

Nice, I had checked this out a couple of days ago.

[Darren]

Good book.

[J]

Tassie Dave wrote: "

Oh! It's a boy Genie. :-? Ok, not my fantasy then ;-)"

Ah, but it's a girl golem -> fantasy back on, yeah?

[AndrewP]

Colin wrote: "I notice that the UK edition is spelled differently.



Perhaps we need a separate 'TGATD' thread for our discussions!"

That's funny. When I first saw the announcement I thought "that's spelt wrong". I assumed it was just a play on a characters name.

@Elizabeth: Thanks for the heads up on the Audible version. I will listen to the sample first.

[Shaunesay]

Excellent! I have this!

[John (Taloni)]

All this excitement, I might have to read it! My first reaction was "nah." Anyone else really love it, or anyone who didn't?

[Kevin]

I read this when it first came out. It's slow burn an character driven and very, very good.

[Joanna Chaplin]

I ended up getting audiobook and ebook and whispersyncing. I didn't want to wait for my next commute to get the next piece. I actually rather liked the audiobook narrator. Like an old professor reading to me in front of a fireplace in the sort of library you get in an old estate.

[Robert]

OMG this was one of my favorites. It's a great book.

[Michele]

Love this book - fantastic writing and a very interesting setting, and nothing happens quite like you might expect it to. It is a slow-paced, character driven story though - so be prepared.

I was actually shocked when it was named for next month - I was so sure we had already read this book for the club. Was she an interview?

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

Helene is happy we're reading it. :-)

https://twitter.com/helenewecker/stat...

Apparently RN means "right now". I had to Google that.

[Joanna Chaplin]

Tassie Dave wrote: "Helene is happy we're reading it. :-)

https://twitter.com/helenewecker/stat...

Apparently RN means "right now". I had to Google that."

That's cool, I always sort of wonder if authors notice us reading their books. And if it's an older book, if they notice a bump in sales. Are we statistically significant?

[Shad]

Joanna wrote: "Tassie Dave wrote: "Helene is happy we're reading it. :-)

https://twitter.com/helenewecker/stat...

Apparently RN means "right now". I had to Google that."

That's cool, I always..."
There are 22,871 members in this group. If 1% of them read the monthly pick, that is almost 3000. If 10% of those who read it purchase a new copy, that is still around 300, which would be a pretty significant month for an older book.

[AndrewP]

2,287 is almost 3,000? Core math at work :)

[Shad]

I guess I transposed the 2 and the 8 in my head when typing that. A little over 200 is still a significant number of people for an older book.

[Phil]

The fact that you keep calling this an older book is freaking me out. It's only 3 years old which is still almost new in my mind. To me an older book would be something like A Skylark of Space from 1928.
I'm not saying you're wrong in your usage but it makes me do a double take every time.

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

AndrewP wrote: "2,287 is almost 3,000? Core math at work :)"

Core Math/Maths at work? and you picked up on the rounding to the wrong thousand, but didn't pick up on that 1% of 22,871 is only in the 200 s not close to 3000 ;-)

I'd think 10% or more of the group probably read the book.
If 10% of them buy the book, then your numbers still end up being close to the right figure.
A few hundred extra sales.

[Mark]

Anybody have a Goodreads API key? Use method group.members, then review.show_by_user_and_book. Methods can't be requested more than once a second, and there are 22,863 members right now (did someone chase a few people away today?), so at a minimum, it will take more than 6 hours (probably much more because several seconds per request and super speedy DSL connection) to check each member for a review of a given S&L pick. Maybe count only reviews during the month and shortly after month's end. What else?

[Trike]

"Are you mathing? There's no mathing in Fantasy! J.R.R. Tolkien was my mentor and he told me a giant eagle couldn't carry two hobbits to Mordor! That was when my parents drove all the way down from Michigan to see me read the book! And did I correct him by using math? No! That's because there's no mathing in Fantasy!"

(Apologies to Tom 'NSFW' Hanks.)

[Stephen]

This book is one of those "Word of Mouth" books, after reading it you will know a friend or relative that will love it, so you will buy and give it to them.

[AndrewP]

@Mark: I started keeping track of the number of ratings from when a SL book was announced and the end of the reading month. Even just looking at the non-trendy ones (ones very few people outside S&L are likely to be reading) there is no consistent trend.
For example, only 262 people rated Updraft, but 3,043 people rated The Time Traders. As the later was available free on Kindle I suspect price and availability are the major factor.
I would be interested to see if you can pull the exact results from the Goodreads database.

[Lena]

oh this is a wonderful book! I think you'll all really enjoy it. The audio book is narrated by George Guidall and it is perfection! Happy reading!

[Joanna Chaplin]

Phil wrote: "The fact that you keep calling this an older book is freaking me out. It's only 3 years old which is still almost new in my mind. "

Of course G&J is a recent book. I was being more general. I was wondering if we, as a group, constituted a noticeable bump in sales. For a newer book, I suspect that we're completely lost in the noise. But an older book might see a bump in its long tail of purchases over time and the publisher might wonder why. But we'll probably never be Oprah's book club.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

It's a great read, and a great crossover read for people who don't typically read fantasy. It can also feel like a historical fiction novel with a few fantasy elements.

[Fried]

In Spain this book is called "The travellers of the night"
Also in France is "The woman of clay and the man of fire"

Obviously because of reasons...

[Kristina]

Started it and loving it so far!

[Dharmakirti]

I read this and loved it.

[Imbunche]

Starting it today. I hope I'll like it even though I'm not really a fan of historical fiction.

[Brendan]

Finished. It was okay.

[Phil]

I really enjoyed this when I started but I 'm about a third trough and seem to have hit a wall where I just don't care anymore. I don't find the Jinni particularly appealing and the Golem has virtually no personality. I'll continue but I'm finding it a bit of a slog.
I keep seeing people compare it to The Night Circus which I also didn't like all that much. I guess "magic realism" isn't my thing.

[Rob, Roberator]

You guys know this is an announcement thread right? You can create new threads to discuss the book in more detail...

The idea of these threads is to let people know what the next pick will be as soon as possible.

I wonder if it would be a good idea to lock these threads after the first of the month.

However I'm not trying to force people to discuss the book in a certain way.

Any thoughts on this? Do you find the announcement threads useful? Do you like to comment about the contents of the book in the announcement thread instead of creating a new one?

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

Sorry Rob ;-) I'm one of the worst at doing this.

Locking it is probably a good idea, after the month starts.

I'll delete my post and start a thread using Phil's post to get the conversation rolling.

[Brendan]

Rob wrote: "You guys know this is an announcement thread right? You can create new threads to discuss the book in more detail...

The idea of these threads is to let people know what the next pick will be as s..."

Its unintended functionality, not a bug.

[Phil]

Rob wrote: "You guys know this is an announcement thread right? You can create new threads to discuss the book in more detail...

The idea of these threads is to let people know what the next pick will be as s..."

Sorry about that. I thought about making a new thread but didn't want to make one that was primarily negative, particularly since I think I'm of the minority opinion on this one.
Maybe in addition to the announcement thread you could also make a general discussion thread at the beginning of the month.
Oh, and thanks for making that other thread Dave.