Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Last chance to vote on a year's worth of books

Voting has been open since the end of August, and you have only one more day to vote. Anyone reading this blog is welcome to vote, so click on your favorites of these twelve ... and also your least favorites in the next poll down the sidebar.

From The Other Side of the Bridge to The Freedom Writers Diary, we've traveled the globe together. Help me remember (in the comments) where we've been.

The Other Side of the Bridge (OSB)
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (BSP)
Cold Comfort Farm (CCF)
Pictures of Hollis Woods (PHW)
In Lucia's Eyes (ILE)
People of the Book (POB)
The Camel Bookmobile (CB)
Windfalls (WF)
The Devil in the White City (DWC)
Jim the Boy (JTB)
Suite Française (SF)
The Freedom Writers Diary (FWD)
We have completed a year together, but I think that's enough ... at least for me. I'm sorry, Shirley, but the interest just isn't here. Thanks, Marylyn, for your major effort to make Book Buddies work during August. Thanks to those of you who have read and commented on books we've shared. For now, however, I have decided to devote more time to writing ... and to leading the writers in the Chattanooga region who (foolishly?) try to write the draft of a novel in the 30 days of November. Read about it on Bonnie's NaNoWriMo* 2008 blog.

Essencia Island will continue to be a place for book buddies to talk to each other, so drop by there anytime you want to chat.

13 comments:

Bonnie Jacobs said...

Where have we traveled in books this year? We started out in Canada with The Other Side of the Bridge (OSB).

Do you remember where we were in the other books? (The complete list of BB books is in this post.)

Jennifer said...

BSP = Germany and Poland (I think the camp is in Poland)

ILE = Italy

CB = NYC and Africa

WF = Cali

DWC = Chicago

JTB = Upstate NC

SF = France

I'll miss the BBs! *hugs* to everyone!

alisonwonderland said...

POB - Africa

FWD - Southern California

Bonnie Jacobs said...

OSB.... Canada
BSP.... Germany and Poland
CCF.... Sussex, England
PHW.... Long Island
ILE.... Italy and the Netherlands
POB.... Europe and Africa ***
CB..... NYC and Kenya
WF..... California
DWC.... Chicago, Illinois
JTB.... North Carolina
SF..... France
FWD.... Southern California

*** The "book" in POB is the Sarajevo Haggadah, so let's not forget Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Back to Vienna, Austria.
Preceeded by Venice, Italy.
Before that were Terragona and Seville, Spain.
And earliest was Africa.
Modern cities where Hanna (the main character) went included Boston, London, and Jerusalem.
POB took us all over the world!

alisonwonderland said...

for some reason, i was thinking "CB" when i typed "POB" and said Africa. POB did, indeed, take us all over the world, which was much of the fun of the book. and wasn't Hanna Australian?

Bonnie Jacobs said...

You're right, Allison! So we need to add Australia to the POB list. Wasn't she there at the end of the book?

Shirley said...

I am sorry to hear that Book Buddies is ending. However, I appreciate having the years we've had together.

Thank you, Bonnie, and the posters for some mighty fine reads and discussions.

My computer died and is in the shop. My daughter is letting me use her laptop, but I haven't gotten very comfortable with it yet.

I had started Profiles in Courage, but now I don't know if I'll finish it or not.

Best wishes to each of you!

Marylyn S said...

Bonnie,
I will miss BookBuddies, but I will be home for Christmas so if you have time for a visit let me know.

your friend Marylyn

Jennifer said...

I do hate to see BBs end. If anyone wants to continue reading together very informally, I'd be willing to. Providing Bonnie is okay with it and is willing to keep the blog open.

Bonnie Jacobs said...

I have never considered deleting this blog. No, I hated it too much when Oprah threw away years of our discussions, so this site is here to stay. All I intend to do is quit trying to entice you to talk, so I won't be trying to provide incentives to get you interested in a book. If the discussion improves now, then we'll know I've been the problem all along.

Go for it.

Jennifer said...

Oh Bonnie, you have so not been the problem! You've been a wonderful leader here.

So we don't have a lot of people reading here regularly anymore. A few of us can still have a nice meandering discussion.

I just hate to give up the BBs. This is the first book club I was ever in.

Who else would still like to read something here?

Bonnie, you're totally welcome to but you don't have.

So I was thinking (and anyone else can throw stuff out there) about not limiting the time frame to a month. So we kind of start reading when everyone has their book. So if book is long, or dense, or it's December, we can take a bit longer.

I like the voting on book choices. But I also think we could all just put our TBR soon lists out there and discuss and decide something we'd like to read. Or one reader lists books and we vote on those (new reader listing books each month-ish).

I know what would work for me with discussions would be one post for each chapter (or X many pages) and discussion of the chapter in the comments. Along with another post for discussion questions (maybe each questions gets a post, answered in the comments). This way discussion of like parts/questions is in the same area and not separate, no matter where anyone is in their reading.

Anyways, I hope a couple of you are interested in keeping the BBs alive with me. I'm not trying to become the leader or anything. I am just hoping that the readers will do it as a group (although, I would certainly do the organizational posting as need). Let me know what ya'll think? Or any other ideas?

PS Sorry about any spelling/grammar mistakes.

Shirley said...

I'd love to have Book Buddies continue. The main question is whether Bonnie is as well. I had thought from her posts that she had earlier been discouraged, then kept Book Buddies going, but realized that there weren't enough posts to make it a very satisfying venture so had decided that the best option was to discontinue the group. What do you say, Bonnie?

Shirley said...

I had read the messages out of order (most recent first) so didn't know about Bonnie's comment. Bonnie, you are definitely not the problem! I suspect that there are more readers than posters (something I have been guilty of as well). Come on, Book Buddies, let's get this board more active and keep it a viable book discussion forum!

I have been reading less as I have been working more hours and when I am home I have been trying to get some other projects worked on (sewing, quilting, computer projects such as the birthday stories for my nephews and my annual cookbook until my computer crashed so that is on hold). My main read each month was with Book Buddies. The books I have around waiting to be read are non-fiction which would not make for very lively discussion. For example, when I stopped reading Profiles in Courage, I started reading The Quilters Catalog--A Comprehensive Resource Guide by Meg Cox. Interesting and is the type of book that will easily be read between other books, but wouldn't generate much discussion unless the others are quilters.

It would be great if changes can be made to allow the Book Buddies to continue!