Around the World in 80 Books discussion

I was thinking...Should we determine which countries and states we are going to read about sooner? Maybe it would be easier for the challenge participants if we selected the settings (not the actual books) by the end of this year. We could continue voting for the books in the same way. What are your thoughts on this?

If so, how would be the best way to determine this? Polls? Random selection by list generator?

wonder if instead of doing a book, do a featured country and people could read whatever they like - then could discuss how various books portrayed the country - similarities/differences

I like hearing what others have to say about a book that I'm reading too. I'd miss that if we went in for parallel play as opposed to an in-depth discussion of one work.

Hmm like what we're currently doing? A few random selections using the generator, then put to vote?

Or you could ask for nominations like how you do for the books and then put to vote. That would result in lots of polls... or no voting, just using the first 24 nominations submitted? (12 each for countries and US states)

Or, instead of creating 24 separate polls, just one poll each for countries and US states. The most number of votes will be for Jan, 2nd most for Feb, and so on.

Just thinking aloud, hope it helps generate more ideas!

Maybe just random generate 12 states, not using the states we used this year for group reads. There are plenty of books from every US state to pick from.

For the countries, random generate around 20-25 countries, not using the countries we had a group read from this year. Vote on our favorites. (Some tiny countries might not have much translated literature, or books available in libraries, so that's why I would prefer that we voted.)

Like Lisa, I really value us talking about the same book. However, Dee mentions another kind of potentially interesting discussion. Maybe we could have a discussion topic for the country chosen in addition to the topic we have for the book chosen and do both? The country discussion could be added to whenever anyone wanted to throughout the year.

The pace has been fine for me. Knowing the group read country ahead of time would, however, possibly keep me from reading another from that country before the month.

I like choosing by polls.

Can the polls be kept up longer? I find that I won't check in for a while and I've missed out on some of the polls. Or can the poll link be emailled to group members? The 1001 Books group does this so I know when I need to vote by.

I second Connie's suggestion in message 5.

I totally agree with Connie's and Donna's suggestions. It's always a pity if I miss a poll.

I have been keeping the polls up for two weeks. Should we go for 3 weeks?

I say yes! :)

I like polls.

not only keeping the polls up longer, but maybe send a broadcast msg out - if it is only going out once a month to let us know about the polls, I don't think ppl would be annoyed (or I know that I wouldn't)

I totally agree - a broadcast msg would be a lot more helpful to me as I am easily distracted from what time the polls go up! I miss them more than I participate as a result!

I also absolutely agree. A broadcast msg would be a great idea.

Are y'all not getting the poll invitations? I have been sending them out for polls during the last few months. I know there have been some issues with people not getting them on Goodreads due to system bugs. I know at least some of the people are getting them due to the spike in poll votes after I send them. I prefer poll invites to broadcast messages, when they are working. I seem to get a better response.

Diane, I've been getting the poll invitations. Thanks for sending them.

I've been getting the invitations too :)

I've not been getting anything :(

What kind of invitations? I haven't gotten any....

Hattie wrote: "What kind of invitations? I haven't gotten any...."

Diane has been sending out notices when she sets up a new poll, and inviting us to vote on the poll. You can check your mail icon (a picture of an envelope) on the top right of the Goodreads page for messages sent by the moderators of your groups.

I don't get poll invites because some of my other groups were doing several polls a week and it was driving me nuts - I'd prefer broadcast messages for that reason

The poll invites come across on the "g" icon in the upper right corner of the screen. You may have to check your notification settings for the group and/or your privacy settings. You can control whether or not you get email notifications as well this way, I think. I know I wasn't getting any notifications for the longest time, then I started getting a bunch. I get a much better response from the poll invites because it requires just one click to get to the poll. I get about a 1/4 of the response with broadcast messages probably because it usually requires an extra click or two to get to the poll page.


It's funny how we react to different things. I never mind receiving notifications, but the volume of broadcast messages I receive my groups is rather annoying to me. I have left groups because of the ridiculous amounts of messages I've received.

Hmm... I just checked both my group and privacy settings and everything seems to be in order. Let's see what happens next poll time!

Hi all

I have just joined and have been reading around the world in 80 books for a few years now - keeping track on a spreadsheet - got a bit bogged down a few years back - so voted in the polls with view to read some countries I haven't got to yet :)