European Royalty discussion
European Royalty Nominations
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Changes to Nominating and/or Voting???
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I like it - I like having a wider variety of choices.
I'm a bit torn. Do we think lack of participation is due to the fact that our choices have been similar? If so, then yes, we should definitely change. But as it is, there's so little participation that I'd hate to make it even more dependent on participation, if that makes sense. I think I agree with open nominations but one vote per person. I've seen that in other groups and it seems to work well.
Another thing we could do is in the middle of the month vote on a theme/time period for that month and then all the nominations come from that. Or come up with a schedule, so we know April will be Tudors and May will be non-England and June will be non-fiction or something like that. That's another way to spice it up.
I'm open to whatever changes the group wishes to make or not. I'm in too many book clubs so I had to make some choices about what to read each month, which means that I can't always read the books that have been selected with this group; however, I have purchased some of them, and I do intend to read them at some point.I love the Tudors, but the focus solely on them for most of our book selections, has left me yearning to read about something different. However, if that's what the group wants, I'm not opposed to it. The majority should rule! Yet I may skip on some of those reads to keep my reading varied. I'm taking it month-to-month, but I remain a huge fan of this group (I think that I was its 2nd member). I also remain significantly interested in the topic so I hope to be able to participate more.
Sara, by the way, you are doing a great job! I miss talking with you about our passion for this genre, but I will continue to stay in involved as much as I can <*Hugs*>.
I'd be open to any changes in the nominations/voting. I do think "one vote per person" might be easier to track than 3 votes.I agree with Sera; I'm in 2 other book groups, and I also want to have time to read whatever I'm into at the moment, so I can't always read the selection when the group is reading it. I have read all except one of the group reads eventually, though, and then it's interesting to be able to look at the posts and see what others thought of the book.
I'm also a huge Tudor fan, but there are many other periods that interest me, and I love to discover new interests. Emily's "theme of the month" idea might help diversify the selections a bit, for those who have OD'd on Tudors.
I have personally OD'd on Tudors. I would like there to be a wider variety. I am not really in any other groups so I don't know how they all work. If there is a book selection that doesn't look interesting to me here, I just find something else to read until it picks up here again. I do like the only one vote per person. I thought it was that way already.
I would be interested in being part of the nominating group. I would like to know too how far "Europe" goes for this group and if there are restrictions on how far back in history. Just some thoughts...
Maybe we could switch it up and have some months without themes and some months with? Michele, I would be open to reading about royalty outside of the Europe arena for sure. And, no, I don't believe there are restrictions on how far back. We've read an Eleanor of Aquitaine book here before, I think. (Or maybe that was a nominee that didn't get chosen that I read anyway?)
We've nominated a book about Eleanor of Aquitaine and a book about Cleopatra in the past. Cleopatra might have been a little bit of a stretch, but it did seem to involve the Roman Empire to some degree, so it seemed okay (some people did vote for it and no one complained, so I figured it was fine). We're pretty flexible with what can be nominated as long as Europe is somehow involved (although it doesn't have to take place in Europe - please at least reference Europe though or people in Europe!) and there is some type of "royalty" (as far as I'm concerned, the Roman Empire is fair game - it's Italy, it's people in power, it seems to fall within the spirit of the group). It would be nice to get some non-fiction in there as well.One vote per person would be a lot easier to tally, so we can stick with that.
I think leaving the nominations open to everyone would work because I'm sure at least three people would nominate each month (which would then give us three books to vote on like we have now). Michele seems willing to nominate, and I will definitely nominate one, so that means just one other person would have to nominate each month to give us three choices to pick from (and I'm sure other people who come in and out of the group will nominate every now and then). If we have more than three, great, but I'm sure we can get at least three a month (the people willing to nominate right now is listed at about seven, but it's been hard tracking people down when it actually comes time to nominate - at least this way I can stop harassing people!).
Themes seem like a fun idea - how would you like to do it? I think planning it out ahead of time (to some degree) would be easiest. We could break it up by country (Spanish, French, Russian, etc.) in order to get out of the English rut. We could also have a non-fiction month every now and then. Or we could try a specific century for one month. We could also have some open months when anything goes.
Here's my thought right now - I haven't heard from Catherine about posting for this month (and I never heard from her last month when it was her turn to post then, so she may not be around right now at all). Let's try letting anyone post one book to nominate if they would like to (I'll start the thread now so people know where to go and what to do, and I'll get rid of the current Aug 15-Sept 15 thread that has one person nominating). We can let people nominate one book until August 2 around 9pm Eastern. At around that time, I'll make a voting thread and list all the nominated books, and people can vote for one book until August 6 around 9pm Eastern. Discussion can start on August 17. Why don't we make the theme be anything non-English (since we all seem to be a little tired of the English right now!).
With the next group read (Sept. 15-Oct. 15), we can then get back to our normal dates, and we can iron out how to set up the themes (which we can keep discussing in this thread). If for some reason this doesn't work out, we can always go back to the way we were doing things before.
Oh, and thanks everyone for your input! I really appreciate it! And I'm sorry if people wanted to nominate three books by themselves under the old system, but you can still nominate books under this system, and you won't have to wait 6 months to do so!
Sara, I was away attending a conference, may I still join the ER group for the new system for nominations??
Of course! We're leaving it open to anyone now, so you (and anyone else) can nominate one book each month if you want. Voting ends today for the Aug 15 - Sept 15 read, but I'll post a nominating thread at the end of the month for the next read, so feel free to jump in and nominate a book at that time. I think this will work out better because people can nominate when it's convenient to them (and the people who want to nominate don't have to wait 6 months to nominate!).
Okay, I thought of some themes for the next coming months. Please let me know what you think.Sept 15 - Oct 15 read: 1800s (any country, non-fiction or fiction)
(I picked this first because I told Laura I would get her nominated book into the next round of voting, and this was the best theme to fit it in)
Oct 15 - Nov 15 read: Non-fiction (any country, any time period)
(I originally thought of putting this later, but then I realized we were getting close to the holidays and people might not have time to get into a non-fiction book at that time)
Nov 15 - Dec 15 read: French or Italian (any time period, including ancient Rome, non-fiction or fiction)
Dec 15 - Jan 15 read: German, Austrian or Russian (any time period, non-fiction or fiction)
There can be some flexibility with the themes. If a book covers both the 1700s and 1800s, or 1800s and 1900s, it's fine (or, like Laura's book, if it switches between the 1800s and another time period, that's fine too). Same with the countries - as long as a good portion of the book focuses on the chosen country, it's fine if it starts somewhere else or ends somewhere else (it's hard to avoid when royal princesses were constantly being shipped off to other countries).
Please let me know what you think!
Sara, I think that looks great! I'm so excited to expand my reading.
Do we have a list of titles that have already been read as a group? Might be a good idea to have a list that people can consult, or does it matter if it's re-nominated?
If you go to the bookshelves of this group, there is a shelf called read-w-group. Those are the books we have read together. I will go ahead and make a thread of those books as well though. Thanks for the idea!
Ah, I thought that the "read" was books (phonetics) "red" with the group, rather than "reed" with the group.
Are people interested in changing how the nominating and voting are done? When we started having one person nominate books each month, there were less then 20 people in this group. We now have almost 200. We could change how the nominating works. We could have a period of time for anyone and everyone to nominate 1 book (say from the 28th through the evening of the 1st) - that could give us a little more diversity of books (just make sure the book is easily available on amazon or at bookstores). Then I could list out those nominated books in a thread, and people could vote for their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice from that list through the evening of the 4th, our current voting deadline. We could use point values (say a person's first choice gets 3 points, 2nd choice 2 points, 3rd choice 1 point), add up the points, and hopefully there would be a winner. (We can come up with some sort of tie breaker idea if people want to go this route.)
What do people think? There really isn't time to start it this month, but if people like this idea, we could start it for the Sept 15 - Oct 15 read. This could get more people involved in nominating, and I wouldn't have to chase down individual people each month. People who don't want to nominate still don't have to nominate, but those who do want to can do so whenever they have the time to. We can always leave the voting how it is (one vote per person instead of 3 picks). Please let me know your thoughts on this.