Introduction to Group - Important

[Joe]

The idea of this group is simply to read and discuss Science Fiction & Fantasy award winning books. Award winning books can and usually are indicative of the times in which they were written. Therefore reading them will hopefully improve everyone’s understanding of the genres, the way they’ve evolved and learning about society and cultures in locations and times other than your own. (That makes it sound less simple but it really is)

There will be between two and four group reads per month. Group books will be announced mid way through the current month. Hopefully this should be long enough to allow everyone to get hold of them, via bookshop or library.

Also, I’m a BookTuber and this group complements an almost identically named series I have begun over on YouTube. There will hopefully be Liveshows, with like-minded people, discussing the books of the month; these will be announced beforehand, obviously, and linked.
My video introduction for this can be found here: https://youtu.be/PGm2HG4PAR4

I created a Google spreadsheet to track progress with the awards which are currently part of this project. Creating a Goodreads shelf for this purpose is perfectly good but doesn’t contain stats and nice graphs, and well, who doesn't like those? Click Here for the spreadsheet.

[Joe]

At the moment the focus is on five awards:
Hugo Award
Nebula Award
Arthur C. Clarke
Philip K. Dick Award
James Tiptree Jr. Award

There will be more in time.

[Linnea]

Great initiative, Joe! I'll try to participate as much as possible, but I won't have time to read all of them unfortunately. :P

[Nick]

Sorry if the answer is available somewhere and I've been dense and missed it.

I was just wondering how you were choosing which books to read each week? And if the March books are posted anywhere yet?

Will you be hosting threads to discuss all the work that's nominated for a prize at the time of the nomination or is this group strictly for reading back over past winners? I mean, I really enjoy buying the Hugo pack and reading the short stories, side works, looking at the art and everything that gets nominated - but I don't have anyone to talk about with those things because most people I know aren't interested enough to read all that stuff.

PS. I watched the video, and your bookshelves are beautiful. I am consumed with envy!

[Joe]

Nick wrote: "Sorry if the answer is available somewhere and I've been dense and missed it.

I was just wondering how you were choosing which books to read each week?..."

Regarding the choice of monthly book; I've been choosing them based on what I hope and think could provide interesting discussion. This could well change with maybe a small poll in the near future.
The next months books will be announced two to three weeks into the month, generally on a Monday (Monday 21st in this case).

That's a good idea to discuss the various award nominations, hadn't thought of that. I'll go find out when each awards nominations are announced and update the post above with that information.

Also, thank you :)

[Nick]

Thanks, this is super helpful to know!

[Nick]

The Hugo Award has always been a bit hit and miss for me - some of the modern stuff seemed to be just winning a popularity contest, but some of it I thought was popular for good reason.

So far, out of the five awards we're reading the winners of the Arthur C Clarke award have got the highest average score from me.