****Let's Start Thinking about 2015 Theme Reads

It's November, so it's time to start thinking about 2015 theme reads. This thread is designed to figure out how we want to structure them, as I've seen a falling off in interest/participation in the second half of the year. Do we want to continue with theme reads as we've been doing them? Does anyone have any ideas for generating more interest in them? Should they still be quarterly? Should they be different in other ways? All ideas are welcome.

A big thank you to Rhonda/banjo, lilisin, StevenTX, and Kay/RidgewayGirl for leading this year's theme reads. They've all been fun and interesting.

I'll keep this thread up for a week to 10 days before starting a thread asking for ideas for topics for 2015 theme reads based on whatever we come up with on this thread. Then by the third week or so of November, I should be able to put the voting thread up, and so by early December we should know what we're doing next year and people can start planning their reading.

I look forward to seeing all your ideas!

For me, the latter half of the year was just really busy. I'm mostly late with my reads so usually post about a week or two after the thread is 'closed.' Most of the discussion's already been done by then and people have moved on to the next thread.

I do think maybe we want to look at a different way to do things than quarterly reads. Don't get me wrong, I love the quarterly reads and would have no problem joining them again next year (albeit sometimes a little late). But I was thinking that we might generate more (and year-long) discussion if we had two or three year-long reading themes instead of quarterly reads. I was thinking maybe a year-long read from a region/country and another one with a theme.

>2 Samantha_kathy: I have also not gotten to the global reading that I'd planned these last few months. I agree with the idea of longer reads...

To throw some ideas out there, I would be interested in reads focussed on India/Pakistan. ALso would love an immigration themed read--but perhaps that has been done?

Thanks for kicking this off, Samantha Kathy and Rhonda. After we figure out how we want to organize theme reads for 2015, I'm going to start a separate thread for ideas for topics -- so hold those good thoughts, Rhonda! (We did do an immigration theme a couple of years ago, but we also decided theme reads worked better if they were less broad -- of course, that's up for rethinking too!)

So keep those ideas coming!

When we're on the topic of organizing reads. If we're going for longer reads we could maybe have 4 themes, of which 2 are broad and 2 are narrow. Something like:

Theme 1: broad geographical region (for instance, South America, Eastern Europe, Asia)
Theme 2: broad theme (for instance immigration, religion, war & peace)
Theme 3: narrow geographical region (for instance, Germany after WW2, Japan, the Netherlands)
Theme 4: more narrow theme (for instance feminism/women's rights in the 20th century, decolonization period in Africa, biographical fiction of 20th century people)

As for timeline of the threads, we could then have all 4 threads as year-long reads. Open it up in January and have it run until the end of the year. We could also have 6-month long threads, 2 running from Jan-Jun and 2 threads running from July-Dec. It would then make sense to devide it up like this:

Jan-Jun:

broad theme + narrow theme

July - Dec

broad theme + narrow theme

The pairings should then be theme 1 + theme 4 and theme 2 + theme 3, so we have one geographical and one thematic thread running at the same time.

Just a suggestion to throw into the group :D

As a stimulus to thinking, I'm reposting what I posted on the equivalent thread last year, which referenced a discussion at the end of the previous year. Here's what I wrote last year:

"Last year's requests for improvement ideas didn't yield a lot of responses, so this is what I posted as our direction for coming up with ideas. Your thoughts on these are welcome!

1. We should continue having four quarterly theme reads in 2012, possibly with a year-long theme too. We didn't come up with a year-long theme after all.
2. We should try to narrow the focus of each read, e.g., Regions in Conflict - Africa or Regions in Conflict -20th Century, rather than just Regions in Conflict. One poster thought we did better when we focused specifically on a region.
3. We should encourage theme read leaders to pick 3-5 recommended reads offering differing perspectives on the theme, preferably some of which the leader will read himself or herself. Participants interested in being able to discuss specific books with others could then choose from among these recommended reads, but everyone would be able to read any book that fits the theme. Some of the theme read leaders did this, but I'm not sure how well the following along worked.
4. We should encourage people to discuss the books they read in the context of the theme rather than simply posting reviews. The perennial problem!

Here are my questions, but please comment on whatever seems important to you. These are designed to stimulate conversation.

1. What did you enjoy most about the 2013 theme reads? What would encourage you to participate more in 2014? What didn't work as well for you and what thoughts do you have about how to improve it?

2.Did the idea of theme read leaders recommending reads and identifying the books they plan to read work out for you? Do you think it helped stimulate discussion?

3. And the perennial question: How can we generate more discussion on the theme read threads as opposed to just lists of what you've read or posts of reviews? (I plead guilty here too.)

Discussion and other ideas ENCOURAGED!"

I haven't participated in the theme reads much in the past, but I've been drawn into two of them this year (Travel and Post-war Germany) because they are themes that I was already very interested in anyway. Both have made me aware of authors I might not have tried otherwise, as well as providing a push to read things that have been on my TBR pile forever. The reviews - as they tend to be in this group - are interesting in themselves, and useful. So the format definitely isn't a failure, even if it's rare to get a proper discussion going.

What underlies "the perennial problem" of reviews and no discussion is probably that we are all engaged in discovering the subject from different directions and we all feel sure that everyone else knows more about it than we do (after all, they've read that book they just reviewed and we haven't). No-one wants to launch in with big generalisations about a subject we've only scratched the surface of. So one way round it might be to hang a theme off a book, so that at least we all start off from the same point and can disagree about how we understand it, before we read outwards from there. Or failing that, reasonably narrow themes where most of us will overlap at least a bit.

The other thing that traditionally helps with a good discussion is a competent, motivated and knowledgeable facilitator. Unfortunately, this isn't a course where the students all do their homework and turn up at the same time every week and the tutor gets paid to be one jump ahead of them. It isn't fair, or reasonable, to expect a volunteer facilitator to have the knowledge, the authority, or the free time to run a group in that way. We're all going to be on the journey together, and the most we can reasonably expect from the theme leader is an introduction and a few suggestions to keep the process running.

I found the Travel theme read rewarding. My participation was somewhat serendipitous, the theme just happened to coincide with several books I happened to be reading anyway. But I did come away from the discussion not only with many new titles to look for, but also some new thoughts about travel literature in general. I'm now, for example, especially on the lookout for travel narratives from non-Western European/American perspectives.

Possible general theme, since it is in the air, so to speak: Disease, Plagues and Epidemics.

>8 southernbooklady: Interesting theme--do you have ideas for books? The only one I can think of, off the top of my head, is Blindness.

Lots of nonfiction; fiction--not so much. And non-European, even less so. I suppose that's why I brought it up--I'd like some suggestions.

>10 southernbooklady:
Technically, I suppose La peste counts as non-European. But that's even more over-familiar than Blindness. I'm sure there are some worthwhile novels out there dealing with the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

I know my participation has been limited (like Samantha_kathy, I've really been struggling for time during the second half of the year), but I was glad that the reads were there so that I at least had the option of participating.

I really like the idea of year-round reads, because that allows a greater opportunity to participate before the thread is wrapped up.

One possible theme that would really interest me is recovered writers - i.e. writers who have gone out of print or who were not much recognised in their day who have since been rediscovered. There are many Russian emigre writers who fall into this category, women writers in genera (consider Persephone's specific mission to recover such writers), and other - Stefan Zweig and Antal Szerb are another two. The recovery can simply be consist of translating into English a writer who was very popular in his/her day and age but never reached an English-language readership.

I also really like the Diseases, Plagues and Epidemics theme.

I like the recovered authors theme.

>12 anisoara:, >14 RidgewayGirl:
Yes, "recovered authors" could be good. Most of us will be new to them, whilst the books should be readily available.
(I went through a Zweig phase about thirty years ago, so he isn't high on my list of people to rediscover, but I think he's a bit of a special case. Most "recovered" writers are rather more genuinely obscure.)

In 2012, we had a year-long read on Classics in Their Own Country in addition to the quarterly reads. The Author Theme Reads group also often has a year-long author in addition to quarterly authors.

For those of you thinking about a year-long read, are you thinking of it instead of quarterly reads, in addition to quarterly reads, or somehow complementary to the quarterly reads?

My concerns with only having a year-long read are that if it doesn't intrigue some RG readers they won't participate at all during the year and that readers might be enthusiastic at the beginning of the year but drop off as the year goes on (that's what happened to Classics in Their Own Country).

Keep those ideas coming -- even if you would like to continue the way we have been, that's good to know!

I'm very happy to have a year-long read in addition to quarterlies. If I can participate in a quarterly, I will, though at least I'll have the option throughout the year of jumping into the year-long. If it were also complementary in some way, so much the better, though I don't think it's necessary. It may become complementary simply as a consequence of taking place at the same time as other reads.

I like the quarterly themes, but I'm fine with any alterations as well.

I'd prefer quarterly themes over a year long theme, for the reason that Rebecca mentioned.

A Plagues, Diseases and Epidemics theme would be of great interest to me (would we be limited to fictional works?). I'd also be interested in an Iberian Peninsula theme, as I plan to read more books by Spanish and Portuguese authors starting next year.

I'm going to post all the ideas for theme reads when I start the next thread, as this thread is mainly for how we structure the theme reads next year. I may do a poll later this week.

I've started a NEW THREAD to gather your ideas for what our theme reads should be next year. Please put your thinking caps on and come on over.