Okay. We’re coming up on the proverbial “birthday week“. The number one thing that I tend to ask for, for my birthday week, is a period where I won’t have to write any major essays. Glyph, bless his heart, has given me an essay that will cover, get this, not only NEXT Monday, but the Thursday following that and the Monday following that! The topic of his essay (it’s a corker, lemme tell ya) is Sandman. I think that his essay is *EXACTLY* what we need to kick off the bookclub and, as such, I’d say that I can finally announce that the first essay wherein we discuss the first two issues as found in The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
Now, there are two final things that we want to hammer out for ourselves:
1) When it comes to the names for the club, there were three names mentioned that had people say something to the effect of “I second that one!”
Jason’s “Inklings”, Reformed Republican’s “Somniloquy”, and Glyph’s “Oneiricon”. Three titles have been nominated and seconded. Please leave your votes in comments.
2) Is there anybody who wants to write the write-up for issues #1 and #2? (Don’t worry, if nobody wants to, I can. I will always be the write-up guy of last resort.) What are we hoping for from the write-up of issues #1 and #2? For the Fringe Bookclub, I had posts where I broke down the episode in such a way that you could have missed the show that week and gotten most of the nuance… I had posts where the fundamental assumption was that you saw it and I just pointed out the stuff that I thought was shiniest. Heck, I don’t know which template would work best for reading chapters of a book. Do those of you with experience with this sort of thing have any advice for me/us?
Somniloquy
That one.
I have to find my copy of Sandman #1 (or an alternate) before I commit to writing the essay. Give me 24 hours.
Hey JB, a suggestion if you don’t mind – as some people are relying on library copies and so can only keep each book a limited time, you may want to do one book per installment (that is, treat each TPB as a ‘chapter’).
Trying to limit it only a couple issues might make it hard for people who need to get the book back to the library to time everything right so that they have the book in hand for that installment of the book club, unless we are meeting very frequently (like daily). I own the books so I can go whatever pace you want, but for the library folks it could be tough.
Folks? What’s the consensus on this?
Also at 2 issues per installment, we are looking at 37 installments…does that seem like a lot?
There’s ten ‘books’, so I think two sessions per book would work best, unless there there are people who can only get the books on one-week loans. That gives us 20, which is about the same as for a season of a TV show.
This sounds like a good compromise.
Also, I liked Inklings, even before I knew its history, but Somniloquy probably sounds the most ‘MD’ (perhaps unsurprisingly.)
Under this particular system, Kindly Ones would still require 3 sessions, I’d think.
But if this is how we’d like to do it…
I should have been more clear, sorry. My vote is still one per book for 10 total sessions, but if enough people prefer to go in smaller chunks instead, Katherine’s idea seems like a good compromise.
There were several things I was thinking when it came to the more, smaller, chunks:
There are people out there who may be purchasing the Sandman books. Instead of devoting one post to the ten bucks they spent, I’d be devoting *FOUR* posts to the ten bucks they spent. A month’s worth of entertainment for two-fifty/week!
I had also really wanted to let anybody/everybody who was inclined to take over the discussion to feel like they could nudge in and take over the post for any given week. Someone who might feel safe taking over the two issues in the middle of a 10-issue arc might balk at the idea of writing up an ENTIRE story. Now, of course, perhaps that one was folly but it was a nice daydream.
My vote is for Somniloquy.
Another for Somniloquy.
And for doing one TPB per post.
And for looking very much forward to Glyph’s corker of a triple post.
(Though, since I will be in Canada as Glyph’s posts are posting, and then catching up on schoolwork when I get back, I will probably trail behind y’all for the first installment or two.)
Oneiricon, if not as pleasing to the tongue as Somniloquy, Seems more Sandman-y to me.
Somniloquy.
No preference on name, but I did just download the collection on my iPad and will look to at least crack it (or whatever the iPad equivelant of cracking is) on the plane today.)
Oh, and I can do at least one of the write-ups for Book 2 (The Doll’s House) if you like.
Guest posts are always awesome.
In terms of what the write-ups should contain, I think it can vary a bit between people. We don’t need to do full summaries if they’re just describing content, though the witty Fringe summaries were entertaining and something comparable could work for Sandman if people want to do that.
I’m leaning towards “play your strengths”; set out maybe some basic guidelines, and then have people doing the write-ups decide what they want to focus on.
Yeah, I’d say let people go with what they feel.
I already know that Patrick for example would be really good at focusing on the ‘art’ (layout/panel/color) side, whereas I am not too knowledgeable about that. So I would like Patrick to do his thing, because I will get more out of that.
For me, I am leaning toward making the summary/recap part very basic (after all, people have read the story, and Gaiman’s a better writer than me) but then drilling down to scenes or lines or references or themes or stray observations that I might want to riff on or highlight.
I guess it’s implied, but I can do a writeup(s).
Inklings. but maybe that works better for the overall bookclub
As far as I’m concerned, we’d have a different title for each book we’d read like for real.
But if we’re watching television “bookclub” is good enough.
I like “somniloquy”, and would vote for two session/book.
I love the birthday week idea. Happy birthday (soon).
I am willing to do one or more writeups. I am volunteering now so I don’t chicken out when I see other people’s much more awesome writeups.
“Somniloquy” works.