:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66500191/1198213739.jpg.0.jpg)
Hello all.
We have no basketball, pretty much no sports at all. TV shows are cancelling, pretty soon all we’ll have is podcasts recorded over Skype talking about how there’s nothing to talk about.
We talk a lot about basketball here, but right now there is no basketball. (It could be the next professional hoops anyone sees is from the CBA in China.) So perhaps we ought to find something to talk about of our own?
How about a book club?
Why don’t you post your suggestion of ONE BOOK that we should read, and then come together to discuss here on TDS. The idea being, we’ll come up with a book this week, and sometime next week there will be a thread to post polite, considerate, comments about it.
I do mean that. I’d hope to keep the discussion open, and honest but also somewhat formal, polite and focused solely on the text. Exclude things outside the text, such as literary criticism, various interpretive theory, and even history. Support arguments, observation, praise or criticism, from inside the text itself inasmuch as you can.
My academic background is New Criticism and I believe in it. I think close reading of the text, and only the text, is a good way to discuss things without wandering off into the woods of infinite regress and redaction. Particularly now, where the merit of a work seems inconsequential in light of a creator’s politics, personal beliefs, etc. First understand what is being said in a work itself, before entering into other qualifications or dismissal.
It can be any genre, but I’d prefer it if the book was something that could be read by a diverse variety of people without discomfort, or pre-screening and warning.
Anyway, let’s see if we get enough people to get this started.
After a couple of days I’ll put up a poll of books suggested below and we can what the group would like to read.
I’ve added the poll below, as suggestions seemed to stop filtering in. If you had multiple suggestions, I picked one. If you suggested the second book in a series, I left it alone.
Poll
Which Book Shall We Read Together?
This poll is closed
-
9%
"Blood Music" - G Bear (L Person)
(4 votes) -
7%
"Hellhound On His Trail" - H Sides (E88)
(3 votes) -
2%
"Head On" - J Scalzi (C77)
(1 vote) -
2%
"The Emissary" - Y Tawada (IHTM)
(1 vote) -
2%
"Winds of Winter" - YR Dremin
(1 vote) -
7%
"Speaker For The Dead" - O Card (CDLDR)
(3 votes) -
2%
"Spangle" - G Jennings (M. Boognish)
(1 vote) -
14%
"Lud In The Mist" - H Mirless (Xiane)
(6 votes) -
9%
"Starship Troopers" - R Heinlein (R.T. Great)
(4 votes) -
9%
"The Simarllion" - JRR Tolkein (O. 88)
(4 votes) -
31%
"Mark Cuban: The Life & Success Stories of A Shark Billionaire - D Dagen (L. Doncic)
(13 votes)