Book Club guidelines

[Elspeth]

Guidelines

Reading

• The book club is open to all. Anybody is free to join any discussion at any time.
• Usually we'll be reading one book per month; some books may take longer or less long depending on their size. We may also occasionally read two related books simultaneously, and this may take two months.
• Each book will have its own discussion thread, and each thread will have a facilitator to stimulate discussion and keep the thread on track.
• Most discussions will involve a certain number of chapters each week (decided by the facilitator and posted in the thread); the chapters under discussion will be specified in the thread title. Members wishing to join the discussion should have read (or be reading) the specified chapters.
• While it's fine to discuss earlier chapters than the ones specified for a particular week, later chapters are off limits. Even if you've already read the whole book, please stick to the specified chapters when posting in the thread. Discussion of later chapters will be deleted by the facilitator.
• Threads will remain open after the end of the month for general discussion of the book. Members who haven't read the book are welcome to join the discussion at this stage. The threads may eventually be moved to the Library, with links in the book club forum.
• Each month's discussion will be followed by a live chat in the Book Club area of the chat room.

Book selection

• Books will be selected twice a year by the book club coordination team based on suggestions from TRF members.
• At the beginning of March and September, two or three topics will be announced, and members may suggest books on those topics as candidates for the following six-month period. In order to keep the number of suggested books to a manageable number, please suggest no more than one or two books per topic.
• Up to 18 books will be chosen by the coordinators from the list of suggested books and will go into a poll. Polls will be posted during the third week of March and September and will remain open for three weeks.
• The books for the following six-month period will be chosen from the popular books in the poll, with at least one book per topic. In order to provide a range of subject matter, the coordinators reserve the right to have the final say on which books are chosen, even if they aren't always the six most popular in the poll.
• The six books for the following half-year period will be announced in the Royal Book Club forum after the polls close and will be listed in the May and November issues of the TRF newsletter. We'll try to make sure that books which may be hard to find will be placed toward the end of the six-month period so people have time to track down a copy.