Book club planning thread and suggestions

[the last yatto]

personally i think we could go the free/creative commons/kopyleft book route for the first few, just to prove we can

[Kai]

So, since the author of the book we were discussing ended up killing the discussion,

Whats the next book?

[LMNO]

Ok, what really bothers me is that my Kindle has over 100 marginalia notes about PWC (no, really.  The Kindle notates them).  Rather than skim through the book, passively accepting memetics and the idea that "marketing is reality", I read the goddamn book.  I didn't automatically sing Ben Mack's praises, because I was thinking for myself, and worked at "tracking" the book, to use PWC's terminology.  I understood a large part of the references, and the ones I didn't, I made a note to ask about.  Much of what I know about these themes I learned on my own, jumping from book to book, asking questions, and discussing issues I had problems with.

  I was fully ready to launch into a major analysis and discussion of the themes, topics, and formal aspects of the plot, when it got totally derailed by the author who claimed I was "not the target audience", and refused to engage me in conversation regarding his book, all but saying, "if you don't get it, don't bother."  And then goes on to say he's looking for autodidacts!

This whole experience has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

[Elder Iptuous]

This whole experience has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

I totally agree...
it was unfortunate that he showed up to 'steward his reputation' 

i didn't have nearly that much marginalia, but i had some notes and was looking forward to the discussion, and although it could still be done (if the author stopped trolling ), i don't know if i really have the continued interest.....

so would you like to discuss what the next book should be?

[LMNO]

I'm gonna have to take a short break, but there are a pile of suggestions in the above posts.

[Cramulus]

I feel for ya lmno. I was surprised by how that exchange went. I hope it'll be the exception to how the book club works.


I'd like to propose a rule

well, a suggestion.

more of a "guideline".

I was really pleased that Ben Mack showed up.
 ...And then it went downhill from there.


In the future, if the author of a book we're discussing shows up at the forum, I think we should make an effort to be uhhhhh

more neutral and reserved.

I don't we can be fully blamed for how the thread with Ben went. Hostility or misunderstanding was reciprocated. He seemed to have a direction he wanted the thread to go, and we weren't on that page. If you ask me, it was a mutual communication fail.

I think the hostility and misunderstanding originated from simple communication failures and the expectation that we were supposed to be treating him like a teacher.

To me, part of that thread read like the hazing that newbies often get. It was the whole "learn to communicate with us" (not the other way around) vibe, and also the ad hominems. I'm not interested in subjecting authors to the same testing criteria that we hold newbies to. They're not coming here to participate in the greater forum, just this little slice that is about their work. So we don't need to challenge them, provoke them, break them out of their BIP, thicken their skin, or otherwise irritate them towards us.

unless they deserve it.

or it's funny.

or a million other exceptions.

I'm just apprehensive because I can easily see this developing into a trend where we read books and then piss off the authors. Posting on an internet forum and interacting with a dozen strangers is challenging, but let's reduce HOW challenging when it comes to talking with the people whose ideas we're discussing. Hostility is a self-feeding cycle, especially on forums. It's SO easy to throw a snowball that becomes an avalanche.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I'm gonna have to take a short break, but there are a pile of suggestions in the above posts.

Having met and talked to many, many authors thata I had great respect for... I must say you should be ready for this sort of disappointment. Out of maybe 15 authors, I can think of five that I've discussed their work with that hasn't turned into "Let me teach you what I meant in my awesome book". I think its probably a confusion of defending territory or seeing something clearly themselves, without realizing that the perception may not be as clear to the reader.

In some cases, I've decided that the author is justs an ass....  

As the fourth wall breaks down further and further, it will be interesting to see how groups that traditionally had a one way communication channel will adjust to fit communication in an equal environment.

Also, Cram those are some good points as well

[LMNO]

Well, I really wasn't expecting the author to show up.

I would expect that if an author was able to listen into almost any IRL bookclub, they might be taken aback as to what was being said about their work.

And you know what?  The book club can come to any conclusion, and say whatever the hell they want to.  To have a bunch of forumites like ours try to organize a book club is pretty impressive in the first place.  But we didn't want to be lectured as to what the book is about.  We want to discuss it.  That's the difference between a book club and a classroom.  Ben wanted a classroom; we wanted communication between equals.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Well, I really wasn't expecting the author to show up.

I would expect that if an author was able to listen into almost any IRL bookclub, they might be taken aback as to what was being said about their work.

And you know what?  The book club can come to any conclusion, and say whatever the hell they want to.  To have a bunch of forumites like ours try to organize a book club is pretty impressive in the first place.  But we didn't want to be lectured as to what the book is about.  We want to discuss it.  That's the difference between a book club and a classroom.  Ben wanted a classroom; we wanted communication between equals.

I agree completely. Over at Maybe Logic teachers seem to struggle between these two modes. Those that take the equals approach seem to have large classes full of lots of activity. Those that tend toward the traditional 'class' kind of environment often have very little actual participation. Antero, RAW, Pete Carroll, Lon Milo Duquette, Starhawk have run many classes with huge numbers of very active students... some other authors have big classes and almost zero participation... and the attitude of teacher vs equal seems to be the key differentiator.

[Cain]

My suggestion would be that once your work is publically available, while your interpretation of it is indeed an important one, its not the only one.  Other people have interacted it, added their own experiences and knowledge to it, and come to their own conclusions.  They may not be the ones the author intended, but that doesn't necessarily decrease their validity, as a critical approach to the text.  The work has gone public and so the author doesn't hold that monopoly of critical examination anymore.

[Kai]

Well, I really wasn't expecting the author to show up.

I would expect that if an author was able to listen into almost any IRL bookclub, they might be taken aback as to what was being said about their work.

And you know what?  The book club can come to any conclusion, and say whatever the hell they want to.  To have a bunch of forumites like ours try to organize a book club is pretty impressive in the first place.  But we didn't want to be lectured as to what the book is about.  We want to discuss it.  That's the difference between a book club and a classroom.  Ben wanted a classroom; we wanted communication between equals.

Thats totally the truth.

When he first walked in, I was excited. I had some questions, and some criticisms as well (a critique is not complaining btw, its a formal essay on the critic's interpretation of the work in whatever context they choose (author, historical, whatever) highlighting both the "good" and the "bad", what they liked, what they thought was valuable about the work, and what they thought was not, or didn't add anything to our culture or to the work itself), but as soon as we started talking it became obvious he didn't want a dialogue, he wanted a classroom. He wanted us to get interested in his seminars (notice how he kept pushing for a formal Q&A session?), he wanted us to fund his endevours, either intellectually or monetarily. He was looking for recruits.


[bitchfest](Also, maybe I just pride myself on giving concise answers to questions and defining my terms as best as possible while I go, but he was totally not concise with his replies, nor were they often relevant. When he finally did answer my question it was very easy for me to make a summary interpretation of what I had read, because then I had closer to the whole story. Not to mention being talked down to.)[/bitchfest]

My suggestion would be that once your work is publically available, while your interpretation of it is indeed an important one, its not the only one.  Other people have interacted it, added their own experiences and knowledge to it, and come to their own conclusions.  They may not be the ones the author intended, but that doesn't necessarily decrease their validity, as a critical approach to the text.  The work has gone public and so the author doesn't hold that monopoly of critical examination anymore.

This is the rule I was running under too. Value and meaning are not things that are only determined by the author.

[Jenne]

I'm gonna have to take a short break, but there are a pile of suggestions in the above posts.

Having met and talked to many, many authors thata I had great respect for... I must say you should be ready for this sort of disappointment. Out of maybe 15 authors, I can think of five that I've discussed their work with that hasn't turned into "Let me teach you what I meant in my awesome book". I think its probably a confusion of defending territory or seeing something clearly themselves, without realizing that the perception may not be as clear to the reader.

In some cases, I've decided that the author is justs an ass.... 

As the fourth wall breaks down further and further, it will be interesting to see how groups that traditionally had a one way communication channel will adjust to fit communication in an equal environment.

Also, Cram those are some good points as well

IAWTC

[Jenne]

Maybe if the authors are invited or do show up, a different author Q&A thread would be separate from the club's general comment thread on the book?  And author is aware that the general thread is not a Q&A but a place to natter about the work in question unfettered by author's ego?

[Jenne]

Also:  just a thought--would it be possible/warranted to split this thread off so that the author's comments and the replying posts are in a different thread from the club members' general commentary to each other?

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

For what it's worth, I can imagine a number of far less pleasant things for the book club to degrade into aside from a method to mutually troll authors. Although authors are not going to be forum members, without some level of understanding about the social atmosphere here, very little communication will likely get through due to cultural communication fail. Ben Mack appeared to use perhaps one of the least optimal styles for communicating to us -- a combination of hippie loveydovey word choice that doesn't go over well in this atmosphere, txtspeak that gets on the nerves of our resident grammargodwins, marketingspeak that puts nearly everyone with a television, radio, or internet connection a little on edge, and the worst of DK-style "I have an education, bow down to me" response style. I should reiterate that this probably works on lots of people -- it does not work for us. It's perfectly reasonable to meet authors half-way, but it seemed to me that most of us were terribly civil to Dr Mack most of the time, and that for the most part we *did* try to meet him half way. We, as the larger group, cannot universally bear the brunt of communication.

So, in a situation where an author appears arbitrarily, and communication doesn't seem to be working, we could do far worse things than troll the hell out of him/her. An author's job is communication, and we aren't exactly requesting that the authors show up. If the author shows up of his own free will, and then doesn't meet us half way in trying to communicate, s/he's no different from an arbitrary newbie who doesn't want to communicate.

That said, a newbie if not scared off may stick around, while an author is unlikely to. There's no reason a communicative author who wants to stick around shouldn't, and I don't mean to argue that trying to prevent this is a valid goal, but there is an (implied) limited timespan here. So, the 50 post thing probably shouldn't count, or at the very least, we needn't really stick to it as much (it's not a rule, after all). An author is just another poster, and to hide behind published materials or degrees isn't a particularly rational thing to do here, given that plenty of people here have that kind of clout. If we really wanted to be elitist, everyone could stick their degree level in their sig, but in general I think the consensus has been that many of the things that are meaningful in terms of second circuit shit-throwing-general rankage in the Real World (TM) are not meaningful here. Plenty of sophomoric assholes who can't spell have doctorates, and plenty of active posters with a good track record and a lot of community support aren't even out of high school.

So, for the tl;dr version: authors are just posters with RL clout, and if they deserve it, they can be trolled the same as anyone else, which may be a good idea if nothing else good is coming out of having them around.