Great African Reads discussion

hello everyone,

working full time with a toddler is not working out well for groups I moderate. I need your help getting this back on track. How do you want to finish out the year? We could do one last Tour d'Afrique book.

Should we postpone the rest of our Kenya feature? Is there anyone who would like to "take over" that project for me, and anyone who would like to take on any other project we would do next year...another featured country? the China in Africa idea?

I do want to stick this out to finish our Tour d'Afrique, but after that (it will end in the middle of next year), I may want to hand the group off entirely to someone else. It's very hard for me to stay motivated anymore, and that is not fair to the group. Thank you for your ideas and please accept my apologies for having completely dropped the ball in the second half of the year.

Keep going - you're doing a great job. Posting less frequently does not diminish the books in any way!

Marieke it is totally understandable! You have done a great job for so many years!

I like the China in Africa idea if anyone is prepared to do the work. I have read 2 books in that line and China is changing Africa fast. Hope that you find someone to help and thanks for your efforts.

Didn't know where to post this but wanted to say that the new banner is wonderful!

Thank you for the candor, Marieke, and all you do to keep this going. I really value this group so it's much appreciated. I vote to stick out the Tour d'Afrique but wouldn't mind a side focus on China. Like Razia said even if the moderator can't post often, simply keeping things going and curating possible reads for us is really valued.

Marieke, you've really been a champion long-haul mod. Thank you. It is perfectly understandable that the wonders & responsibilities of life take precedence.

I can only jump in and out of the Tour at this point, but I do follow along the posts and try to catch up on books I missed (in the very, very long run). Wish I could offer to run a portion of the tour but I'm back to work and don't have capacity to commit. <3

Hang in there, Marieke. You have done such a wonderful job with this group, but you have other priorities to attend to. Do what you need to do. I would love to help you however I can.

Sending big thanks, Marieke, for all you've done for this group. Enjoy your family and don't worry about it too much!

Thanks all of you for understanding. i have been thinking a lot about this group and how it has changed over the years. it is not active like it used to be. but i get the sense that its activity level does not detract from its value. and we really have created a rather amazing resource, if i do say so myself. :)

some little things have changed/are changing for me at work and it looks like i can carve out a bit of goodreads time each week after 3pm on Mondays...so i'm going to use that time to do my best to keep the group up to date, even if i am not reading along.

so my first task is to set up a suggestion thread for Tunisia. I'll set up a poll next week so that we can start off the new year with a new book!

Omg I forgot Togo. Shoot.

Maybe we could keep the Tunisia thread going to get suggestions for there going anyway, and move forward with Togo?

Yeah it's been bugging me a lot today. I'm going to open a Togo thread ASAP. I don't want to skip a country! This is preferable to doing a sudden Togo free for all right now, right?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm more likely to join in if there's a specific book -- nice to be able to discuss it!

Liralen wrote: "I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm more likely to join in if there's a specific book -- nice to be able to discuss it!"

okay i'm going to do that and edit my Tunisia post. I'll send out a message to the group to alert everyone to yet another abrupt change in course! lol oh my.

and btw...i have not been logging on to the goodreads site much lately. i don't like the new interface! i can't get used to it. more motivation to log in more often. heh.