our own book club???

[bronte]

Would anyone be interested in a group of us that frequent this site to form our own "book club"? I was thinking this: someone would suggest a gothic novel and give a time period to read it....it should not be an obscure book but something we could get at a public library (even if we have to do an inter-library loan) or a cheap used store. Then after we all read it we could discuss it on here?? Anyone out there interested? Or is it a stupid idea?

[Gothic Tiger]

I'd probably be up for that. I mean, this is the genre of books I enjoy reading. I've stayed away from other book clubs because of the random...and I mean random...selection of books. I love to read, but I love to read what I like!

[AliceChell]

I'd try it , bronte.

[random capitals]

I'd be interested, bronte.

[Charybdis]

Count me in, though I don't have a lot of variety in the books I have access to. So if it's a book by Holt, Stewart, Michaels or Whitney I definitely would like to participate.

[Des Esseintes]

I was thinking of something like that myself but I was thinking of electronic texts which could be linked to from here or Emailed or downloaded. That way, we'd all be able to have copies of the book for free. Of course, that means either reading it on your computer or some other device or printing a copy. I wasn't sure how everyone felt about that, but personally, I read a lot of books on my PC and I have really rare ones printed at Kinko's if I want a hardcopy.

Anyway, I'd be up for a book club here.

[Charybdis]

That's a great idea, Des Esseintes! I have a Bebook to read ebooks, which can handle about any format. I propose you select the first book from your collection and we can all get started!

[Des Esseintes]

Well, Bronte raised the book club idea 1st so I'd leave it up to her whether she likes the idea and how she wants to run things.

I should probably remind everyone that if we did use electronic texts it would probably limit us to public domain texts like those found on Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive or pirate electronic files. I suspect a lot of the romance gothics of the 20th century won't be available electronically and we might be limited to older works. Personally, it doesn't bother me because those are the ones I like but I know most people here seem to prefer more recent works.

[bronte]

Des Esseintes, I don't mind if you choose what to read. Go ahead with your idea.

[Charybdis]

Ebooks by a few of the better known gothic romance authors can be found on the sites where you would expect that stuff. Also emule and torrents are good sources. I just saw several Holts and duMauriers on 4shared. But I don't think we would endanger this forum when we send each other files through private emails.
I'd prefer that, because except for the Brontës, I don't expect the public domain will offer a lot that I would like to read.

In my search today I came across Arcad1a Falls by Car0l G00dman in lots of formats. How about we start with that one and I'll send those who need it, the book in their preferred format? I could also upload it to megaupload, as the complete set of formats is almost 20 MB.