My answers to Doc about what to read brought up an idea, there are some excellent short story collections that would provide an easy segue into the idea of breaking up the reading. If I were recommending some philosophically oriented, speculative fiction collections, I would probably start withhonorentheos wrote: ↑Wed May 04, 2022 9:56 pm…online reading groups and it's usually manageable provide a few things are addressed up front:
Book selection seems to work best under a nomination/voting system.
Reading discussing work best when broken into milestone discussions on a schedule. This encourages keeping up rather than waiting to the day before the discussion to try and binge read the entire book, but also discourages spoilers. If everyone knows the discussion will.be up to chapter x on Wednesdays it's easier to ensure participants are roughly at the same place in reading and are keeping pace….
Ted Chiang’s Exhalation
(NYT selected this as one of top 10 fiction and non-fiction books of 2019)
Axiomatic, Greg Egan
(I talked about this a little, in post to Doc, above.)
Impossible Things or Fire Watch, Connie Willis
(Apropos of an ongoing discussion elsewhere in the board, a story from the first, “Even the Queen,” has this description from Wikipedia:
“Three generations of women discuss the decision of one of their daughters to join the "Cyclists", a group of traditionalist women who have chosen to menstruate even though scientific breakthroughs (in particular, a substance called "ammenerol") have made this unnecessary. The title refers to the fact that "even the Queen" (of the United Kingdom) menstruated.”
The title story from her second collection is hands down the most impactful time travel short story I’ve ever read, excepting only Philip Dick’s offerings.)
Are collections an acceptable book club selection, in your online group experience?