THE STEEMIT BOOK CLUB PLAN (V1.0)
Welcome to The Preliminary Steemit Book Club Plan.
Based on the Comments in response to my IntroduceYourself post, it’s officially time to start the first Steemit Book Club.
And as agreed almost unanimously in the comments, we are going to kick it off with this literary monsterpiece:
Here’s how I’m thinking it will work.
Let me know your feedback in the Comments section below, and based on the discussion there, I will make any changes and then post: The Official Steemit Book Club Plan.
Question: How is this book club going to work?
Answer: We will have conference calls every week to discuss the book, as well as a simultaneous Steemit.chat. Afterward, a recording, summary, and the reading assignment for the following week will be posted on Steemit for anyone who missed it.
Question: When will these calls be?
Answer: Monday evenings at 6:30 pm PST/9:30 pm EST/2:30 am GMT/11:30 am (Tuesday) UTC. We will be using Freeconference, which offers international toll-free numbers in most countries as well as a web link to join the call.
Question: Who gets those Book Club Steem Dollars?
Answer: All Steem Dollars generated from weekly Book Club posts will be divided equally among book club members after finishing each book. In order to receive a share of the Steem Dollars, the book club member must:
- Stay in the book club until the completion of the book.
- Attend 75 percent of the calls or chats.
- Read the entire book.
Question: That’s pretty cool: So you get paid to read and incentivized to finish the book?
Answer: Is that a rhetorical question?
Question: What book are we starting with?
Answer: We are starting with the book ranked by the Modern Library as #1 on its list of the 100 best novels of all time. Another book by the same author holds the #3 spot:
However, Ulysses by James Joyce is no easy reading. Trying to just pick it up and read it on your own is like being thrown in the middle of the ocean without anything to float on. So most readers who pick it up toss it aside soon after. But with some guidance and orientation, the book becomes crystal clear, and opens up as a fantastic puzzle, adventure in reading, and community experience. It promises to lead to some great discussion and interaction.
Question: Where can I find the book?
Answer: I’d recommend getting the Gabler edition of Ulysses. Besides being my favorite, it has line numbers in the margins so we can all communicate clearly and be “on the same page”: https://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-original-James-Joyce-ebook/dp/B017WQ5WTI/
If you don’t want to pay for the Gabler edition or can’t find it in your country, you can find an earlier edition of Ulysses for free via Project Gutenberg: https://archive.org/stream/ulysses04300gut/ulyss12.txt
And free on the Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Ulysses-James-Joyce-ebook/dp/B002RKT6QK#nav-subnav
Or in any format you prefer: http://manybooks.net/titles/joycejametext03ulyss12.html
Question: When do we start?
Answer: Ideally, Monday, September 5th allows everyone to get the book, but it’s also Labor Day in the U.S., so if anyone prefers, we can start on Monday, September 12th instead.
Question: Is there any other way I should prepare to read Ulysses?
Answer: You don’t need to. Everything will be explained. But if you want to get a head start, read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (which is a prequel of sorts). And if you’re really eager, read the stories in Dubliners (some of the characters pop up in Ulysses). And maybe re-acquaint yourself with The Odyssey, which Ulysses parallels in the modern day.
Question: Anything else I can do to prepare?
Answer: You can pick up an annotated guide to the work. And keep this image handy. It’s your “map” to the book:
Question: Is there anything I can do?
Answer: If you are a Joyce scholar or a professor who teaches the book—or if you know of one—it would be great to have an expert guest on some of the calls. Let me know in the Comments below. Would be amazing.
Question: What’s the reading assignment for the first call?
Answer: We will read the first pages together as a group on the call, and afterward there will be weekly reading assignments.
Question: What’s the next book going to be?
Answer: It could be any book worthy of discussion. Infinite Jest was recommended in the Comments section of the Introduce Yourself thread, and I like the idea of reading books together that we might not otherwise finish on our own. But I’m open to any great work. The remaining members will decide together in the last weeks of the Ulysses calls.
Question: Anything else I should know?
Answer: Yes. I’m going to invite my entire Inner Circle mailing list (www.neilstrauss.com) to join Steemit and be part of the Book Club. There are a lot of people on that list. I hope some of them will become great additions to the Steemit community.
Special thanks to the-alien for helping to make this happen.
Brave New Books would like to be involved. We would be willing to sell and ship books for Steem.
I think selling and shipping books for steem is a great idea. There needs to be more of an economy, and I'd be interested in buying books right now.
Dystopia futures are always interesting to read about, it is surprising how many parallels metaphorical or literal that you can draw to Modern times. Which parts do you find that are very similar to your way of life?
I see the Irish are being punished with a 2.30am kick-off time for spawning Joyce and inflicting Ulysses upon the world. Fitting I suppose. (I jest).
Actually, left field question here. Is that a young Norma Jean reading the book in the photo?
Haa, good point.
And Marilyn Monroe is reading Ulysses in the photo. She had her own system for reading it, explained here: http://time.com/3809940/marilyn-monroe-james-joyce-photo/
@neilstrauss, great idea! :)
Really liked your image of Marilyn Monroe. That Time article had a link to more pictures of Marilyn reading: http://mycroft.com.au/2011/10/photographs-of-marilyn-monroe-reading/
This is a wonderful idea! Always love some encouragement to pick up and finish a good book :)
Exactly! Let's all encourage each other :) I think this is gonna be an awesome Book Club!
Thank you for making this happen! I'm really looking forward for this :)
Yeah, I will have to consider how much of my identity I want to make available to the steemit crowd/book club crowd, any suggestions of how to best keep my identity slightly private?
Ridiculously excited, steemit just gets better and better. I am in, please.
Haha that's great @meesterboom! You're in of course. :) And you're right, steemit keeps getting better and better.
I know this is on a bit of a different line, but has anyone thought about doing a Steemit book exchange as well? I would certainly be willing to help out as much as possible. Maybe I will enlist some help from those involved here.
When I love a book, it's hard for me to part from it, like an old friend whose wisdom I like to consult from time to time. That said, I support the idea and would glad to provide duplicates I have of my favorite books and my own books to get the circulation going.
I feel you there. Completely understandable and I am the same way. I'm looking at my bookshelf and there aren't a ton that I would want to part with. I'll let the idea fester on the back burner and see if I want to pick it up again at a later time.
Hi guys if you are starting with the list of top 100 books, you might check also https://www.gutenberg.org/. There are a lot of classics that you can download for free :)
Thanks, @thebluepanda - a lot of the public domain books are free on Kindle, Kobo, and other apps too.
Omg, this is so cool. I am in! Do I need to do anything aside from saying I am in, getting the book, and staying posted? :D
Hi Laura!
I'm glad that you're in :) There will be another post I think as the date gets closer. But I will post about it before hand about it on all the groups (private and public) so you won't miss it :)
I'll even P.M you the details if you want as the date gets closer.
So glad that you're joining. It'll be a great experience. :)
Btw, sorry Neil for jumping in, and if I'm overstepping.
Yes, please pm me! i have been buying books again and own hundreds and hundreds but I like it when I have people to discuss them with and motivation/deadlines to finish them and I especially love classics! Seriously, so excited. :)
I will! And I'm happy that you're excited about this, I am too :) And you're right, that's the point. to discuss it with each other every week :)
Once a week is a bit of a challenge but I like that. I used to read like 4-6 books a month and lately it's been a shameful number and not due to lack of time. squeeee
I might have missed this idea, but with contemporary books, what about having their authors join as "Special Guests" when possible? For example, I'm already in discussions with the author of the book I reviewed here — https://steemit.com/science/@freeradical/the-moral-case-for-fossil-fuels-an-unabashedly-biased-book-review — and could probably talk him into "appearing."
Don't think anyone mentioned: That would be great to discuss contemporary books with their authors.
Hi Neil. I am in the UK and would like to join in, but there are time zones to consider. This will be in the middle of the night for me, can you tell me what US time zone this will be "broadcast" on?
Looking forward to this one. I find that a read of the Annotated Ullysses goes a fair way to understanding it.
great idea, i have not read this book so far. I'm still not sure to be available at this time. Do we need to read the book in english or a translation in our native language is also possible ?
It's hard to read in English when English is your first language, so I can only imagine what it would be like reading it if English isn't your first language. Feel free to read a translation if that works better for you. Would be interesting to find out how they translated some of the more experimental passages.