Two things:
1. We have the #sffbookclub and some others. Is there a #nonfictionbookclub?
2. Is there a Mastodon Goodreads group (yes, yes, booo, Amazon...) or a Telegram (again, yes, booo, I get it) or Wire or other messenger group that would make talking about books easier?
@zephasaurus_hex Actual chronological comments on the book in one place (not everyone tags every comment) and a place to decide on more books to read together. Just yelling into the void "Who wants to read XY with me?!" seems not very fruitful
@Julia That last one was to part two. A non-fiction club sounds great, but also that's a huge category and would probably be hard to organize and pick books. Maybe smaller themes? Hmm.
@zephasaurus_hex @Julia Can someone fill me in on the problem with Telegram (I know nothing about it).
But regarding nonfiction, I read a variety.
1. I think a variety would be good because I think it would prevent us from getting stuck in book slumps. (I'm getting in one lately honestly).
1/?
2. I do think we might need to discuss ideas openly for themes though. Like this might sound weird, but I don't necessarily want to read books about Autism/Asperger because the books tend to... (Neurotribes was good, but now it's outdated because of the new info about Asperger 😫 ) Not saying I wouldn't participate if it was picked though.
3. biographies yes/no?
4. If we did convos off site, I think it would be good to at least put the "minutes" on-site.
@lapis @zephasaurus_hex @Julia
2) I'd say for autism and many other issues, books should be by people who have/are whatever the thing is.
Like, I'd love to read Ito in Autism Land (by a non-verbal autistic teen) with a group and discuss, and be very interested in similar suggestions by PoC, LGBT folks, disabled folks, etc.
@lapis @zephasaurus_hex
I don't actually know what's wrong with Telegram but ever since I joined Mastodon in November I get these tech bros popping up in my mentions to tell me how bad it is and that X is better.
I also think a variety is good and we might choose two per month, so people have a choice and may not sit out for a whole month.
4.: yes, very good idea! Like "previously on Double Daddies" 🤣
@Julia
People just need to tag their conversations with #books.
I have a LINE group for book conversation and to meetup in person in Taiwan.
There are so few people talking about books here, not sure how many hard core readers there actually are? Maybe they are just too busy reading to find time to post?
I was in a recent conversation about books today:
https://infosec.exchange/@cwcopa/100280781200443403
In #pleroma you can do text search without having to rely on tags and I often do that for many other topics that I want to jump in.
Even if I want to reply from Mastodon, I switch to Pleroma search.
@eliasg @Julia A number of us also use the tag #amreading.
@eliasg That's the problem: people don't tag all their book posts. So conversations are hard to follow.
@KelsonReads @Julia us it would be nice if tags were hidden or something. But without them posts can't be found.
I always check the #books tag to try to find new people to follow. So even if you don't tag all your book posts, yeah some of them so I can find bookish people 😊
@Julia If we can get a general "yea" on a Dreamwidth comm or if someone knows an alternative (I'm guessing we're not a Goodreads crowd, what with generally being a 'boo, Amazon!' group) that would work, I could set something up. #sffbookclub
@jake Man, that really is so old school and I kind of love it. I also still have my account, I think.
@Julia I did not know this was a thing.
But if it's a thing, I'm totally in.
@Julia Probably wouldn't be too hard to get one going. But how do you mean easier? What features are you looking for?