new member intro and comments

[Lindalee]

Hi. My name is Lindalee. I am a retired (on disability) librarian. I love to read especially sf.
SF is considered strange by most people in my town (Parsons, Ks) so wanted to join group where I could discuss it.
I have a couple comments/question.
Does the group often read books as new as the city and the city? I will not be able to join in this discussion because the book is too new. Our public library will only request books on interlibrary loan when they are at least six months old.
I noticed there was a topic on allowing out of print books. An OOP book would actually be more available to me then one as new as The city and the city.

[Kelly]

Welcome Lindalee. I also won't be reading City and the City unless a copy turns up on paperbackswap.com (which also has the occasional hardcover available). My library doens't do a lot of new new new SF.

We don't often read brand new books, and if you don't mind second hand reads, I've had great luck finding some of our titles online or in used book stores as well.

[Stefan, Group Founder + Moderator (Retired)]

Hi Lindalee, welcome to the group! We really read all kind of books here, from classics that have been around for decades to relatively new books. I'd say that a brand new book is more the exception than the rule, simply because many people will not vote for a very new book (all our book selections are nominated and chosen by the members - it's a very democratic process!). The novel by Mieville is probably an exception because we've read many of his books before, so we have some fans of the author. I usually don't nominate brand new books, but made an exception because this novel is so excellent.

You can find a list of all our previous Books of the Month, going back almost 10 years, in the folder below.

[Carolyn]

Welcome to the group Lindalee!
The nice thing about GR is that the discussions on past books are still 'live', so you can also choose to read one of those books and then join in the discussion threads for it and see who replies. Most of us are subscribed to threads that we've commented on, so we'll see if a new comment posts and we can respond.
Beyond Reality only recently joined GR though, so there aren't too many older threads yet, but you can always pick a book from the previous BoM list and start a new discussion on it. = )

[Stefan, Group Founder + Moderator (Retired)]

Good point, Carolyn - thank you.

For our newer members: to avoid cluttering up the board, I keep folders for 3 months worth of discussions only --- so that's the 2 current Books of the Month, as well as the two previous months' books (6 folders total). After that, I move the individual topics to the Previous Books of the Month folder - and that's also where you can always start discussions about those older books, or in the General SF&F Discussion folder, where pretty much anything related to SF&F that's not a current book discussion can go.

[Megan]

Hey all! Looking over the past list of Books of the Month for this group I know I have found a great place to pick up reading suggestions. I'm a librarian, and in that capacity (and by natural inclination) I read widely in all kinds of genres, but Science Fiction and Fantasy are my go-to comfort reads, every time. I'm currently re-reading the Miles Vorkosigan books (I'm ahead of y'all - up to Brothers in Arms). Other amazingly good recent SF/F reads were Kushiel's Dart, The Blade Itself, Old Man's War, and The City and The City.