The Stand - Reading Schedule

[Andrea]

Yeah Gwenyth!!!

[Trisha]

This will actually be our second and the doctor tells us that it is going to be a boy. We already have a little girl who is 1 1/2, and we have started building a munchkin library for her. We read together so much that now she will pick out her own book and read out loud in baby gibberish! Hahaha! We just got her a toddler chair with a cup holder and put it by her books and she sits in it and "reads". We thought it best to start her interest young :-)

[Kathy]

Congrats, Trisha! That's the way to do it! Definitely start them young! My boys were "reading" at a very young age and it was so cute! Great memories! (They are 21 & 15 now...lol):)

[Nathalie]

That's wonderul Trisha. I hope I can have that kind of bond with my kid later.
I hope both you and that baby boy will be healthy and happy!
Maybe call him Stu? or Larry? :D

[Andrea]

I'm so excited for you Trisha. Does the wee reader of the family understand about the addition? I am think she is too young to understand at this point :)

[Trisha]

Hahaha! I think that she has no idea what is about to happen. Right now she carries around her baby doll or stuffed animals, hugs them, occasionally tries to get it to drink her bottle, and eventually uses it as a step-stool to climb on to something. Will definitely have to keep a close eye on her :-)

[Kathy]

Awww, she sounds adorable! :)

[Amy]

Okay... so, I was excited to participate in this back in August when I got an invite... then, I decided to go back to school... it was a spur of the moment decision. Needless to say, I've been busy with nursing school chunksters.

I placed an online book order with Books-A-Million today, had a coupon, and got a MMP version of The Stand, uncut, of course. I've read it before, but have wanted to read it again. Plus, I no longer had a copy and my son has been wanting to read it too. I know I'm behind, but I read it in about 2 weeks last time, so I'm sure I can catch up ;o)

I love the idea of a book group dedicated to reading door stopper sized books a little bit at a time. There are so many that I've wanted to read... they are just so intimidating, you know?

Question: I noticed you have separate threads for each week. Is it okay to openly discuss the book each week without worrying about spoilers? In other words, is it best to visit a thread AFTER we have read that section? I hope y'all know what I'm asking...

[Andrea]

Amy, I know exactly what you are talking about, you explained it just fine... :)

While we don't have any firm rules we kind of go by readers common sense. By that I mean don't open a link until you have read that weeks sections because the threads do contain detailed spoilers and we would HATE HATE HATE to ruin it for anyone! If spoilers don't bother you feel free to skip around and add in where you would like. People who have read the book once, twice, or even more times have been great in not disclosing spoilers but giving slight (and I mean very slight) hints when they are able to do so without giving away anything of the story.

I think you will be able to catch up quickly and I'm looking forward to you joining our discussion! One we get a little further we may speed up a tiny bit. I have gotten a great number of requests to tweak the schedule so that we can get this book on the 2010 list instead of 2011. We're doing a wait and see on that front for the time being...

[Andrea]

We've been talking a lot about changing the schedule to take out the holiday breaks as well as making adjustments so that people can get the Stand on their 2010 read list instead of 2011. It would also be nice (in my opinion) to start the new year would a new book and the old year with a great book..hahaha

I just took out the holidays to see where that would bring us and it looks like we are still two weeks short of making this in 2010. I just wanted to start throwing around some ideas on how we want to make this work so people are happy. We could simplify things and just have everyone double up the last two weeks? I'm open to any suggestions.....

Please also keep in mind that a new classic will be starting in November/December.

The page numbers are for my edition and may not match yours.

Possible New Stand Schedule – Holiday Breaks Removed
Aug 22-28 (1) Ch 1-6
Aug 29- Sept 4 (2) Ch 7-12
Sept 5-11 (3) Ch 13-20
Sept 12-18 (4) Ch 21-25
Sept 19-25 (5) Ch 26-28
Sept 26-Oct 2 (6) Ch 28-34
Oct 3-9 (7) Ch 35-39
Oct 10-16 (8) Ch 40-42 p. 359-382
Oct 17-23 (9) Ch 43-44 p. 383-466
Oct 24-30 (10) Ch 45-46 p. 467-539
Oct 31-Nov 6 (11) Ch 47-48 p. 539-617
Nov 7-13 (12) Ch 49-50 p. 617-672
Nov 14-20 (13) Ch 51-52 p. 673-738
Nov 21-27 (14) Ch 53-54 p. 738-795
Nov 28-Dec 4 (15) Ch 55-57 p. 795-865
Dec 5-11 (16) Ch 58-60 p. 865- 911
Dec 12-18 (17) Ch 61-62 p. 912-956
Dec 19-25 (18) Ch 63-67 p. 956- 1004
Dec 26-Jan 1 (19) Ch 68-72 p. 1004-1042
Jan 2-8 (20) Ch 73-74 p. 1042-1091
Jan 9-15 (21) Ch 75-END!!! p. 1091-1141

[Loretta]

Andrea, currently it looks like the following weeks are particularly light: Week 8, Week 17, Week 19.

I would suggest we add one of the next week's chapters to those weeks, and then keep the number of chapters for the following week static.

So in other words, it would look something like this:
Oct 10-16 (8) Ch 40-43
Oct 17-23 (9) Ch 44-45
Oct 24-30 (10) Ch 46-47

and

Dec 12-18 (17) Ch 61-63
Dec 19-25 (18) Ch 64-68
Dec 26-Jan 1 (19) Ch 68-73
Jan 2-8 (20) Ch 74 - END

I think that removed one week anyway....

[Andrea]

Loretta, I also thought that about week 8 but I wasn't sure if it is too late to ask people to read 90 pages this week? What does everyone think?

If everyone could let me know within the next 48 hours then I adjust the schedule and also add week 17 and 18 (about 90- 100 pages) and that will have us finishing by New Years!

I'm going to hold off on posting this weeks link until we figure out what we are going to do.

[Andrea]

Thanks for the help Loretta :)

[Nathalie]

I'm all for it!
I'm reading the weekly rantions in one sitting anyway and a few extra pages wouldn't hurt me.
I'd love to be able to have it finished by new year.
I hope I'll be able to join the classic read also, but we got a move in November/December so that could set me back a bit.

Very well done, Andrea and Loretta.. Yeah team chunkster!!

[Andrea]

Thanks for your input Nath! Where are you moving to?

[Nathalie]

Not far from where I'm living now. Belgium is just a speck on this earth :)

But we're renting now and we'll be moving into our own home which is a exciting!

[Andrea]

Ohhh yay congrats! :)

You must be so excited to have your very own speck!

[Nathalie]

I am.. We've been renting so long, that sometimes it felt like it would never happen.. but then it all fell into place and before we knew we had bought the house to raise our future children in. :)

I'm completely ready to start my own family, I've partied enough for a lifetime :D

[Andrea]

Me too Nath!

[Nathalie]

Strange how it suddenly comes upon you.. One day you want nothing but to go out and have a few drinks and you don't care about the future.. and then you wake up and you find yourself bored when you're out in the town and you find happiness next to your husband on the couch watching How to train your dragon! :)

[Andrea]

Yup, very true indeed! Right now I'm focused on the school and career thing. I'm hoping by next year we are focused more on some sort of Wedding plans and family. I'll be 36 by then and Brien will be 34 so we are going to have to not dilly dally...hahah

[Kathy]

I've been trying to stick to the schedule, but it's so hard! I just wanna run w/ it! Currently, I'm about a month ahead! Sorry, guys!

[Andrea]

That's okay Kathy! Because I'm running the discussion I've been strict with staying where everyone else should be.

[Nathalie]

Andrea.. I'm 26, married for one year to my highschool sweetheart,who is 28, but we decided not to start a family too soon. We wanted to live together for a while first, see if we can bear an entire lifetime together :)
We had our difficulties, but we can say that next April we'll be together for 10 years and still going strong.

Most of our friends have babies already, or have bought a house quite early on, but we just agreed that we had time enough for such things and we decided to live it up a while so when we could settle down we wouldn't have any regrets.

[Andrea]

Nath, Brian and I will be together 5 years this Spring and we hit a couple bumps but nothing major and we are very much best friends! We've been putting things on hold while I finish college. I'll be done next month and I'm looking forward to moving on with the rest of my life and having a good education, job, husband, and maybe a child or two..

[Nathalie]

I truly hope you'll have it all :)
I couldn't wait until my education was done, but I'm not the careertype. I would be perfectly happy being a housewife.

[Andrea]

oh Nath, i would love to be a stay at home mom! When it looked like that wasn't going to be in the cards I really focused on my career path and now I'm hoping I can have a nice balance of both :) Thank you for your well wishes :)

[Tasha]

I'm a sahm and absolutely love it! I went to college, got several degrees but then decided I actually didn't want to work in my chosen field anymore(psych) and went to work full-time doing something completely unrelated to my degree and loved it! Then, by the time my second child arrived, I decided to stay home with the kids and have never been happier :) thankfully I have a great husband who enjoys being the breadwinner while I stay home with the kids. We unschool/homeschool so the kids are home everyday, all day so I am def a busy, busy momma!

[Andrea]

That is great Tasha! I bet you are busier than if you worked full time...lol

[Amy]

I got my copy today!

[Andrea]

Yay Amy! We are looking forward to having you join us. I didn't get anyone who was against the new schedule so I'm going to post it tonight if I have not heard anything back. That would mean this week we are discussing up to page 466. Of course you can just post under the threads as you catch up! :)

[Nathalie]

Me and my husband have decided that once we have the children we want, I'll work parttime :)
He's a great guy!