Old Books, New Readers discussion

Hello all,

We do not actually have a cut off date for this group but we are still an old books/classics group. This means that while we will accept books that are newer they must be acclaimed and already considered somewhat of a classic, somewhere in the world. We will not be accepting nominations for books just because they are on best seller lists etc.

For now we are using the discretion of the mods, but if you nominate a newer book please maybe also include an explanation or a link as to why it should be considered.

For example, if for the non-fiction theme you wanted to nominate the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America you could point to the fact that it appeared on this list of Time Magazine's 100 best non-fiction books:

http://entertainment.time.com/2011/08...

We will iron out the kinks in the system as time goes on, feel free to post your comments or feelings about this on this thread or message me privately if you don't want to air out your feelings in the group for all to see.

I'm generally not a big fan of arbitrary cut-off dates, because there are indeed modern titles that could be considered classics. The Color Purple, Beloved, The Handmaid's Tale. At the same time, though, I would be disappointed if we saw a steady stream of books from the 1990s or 2000s nominated. Part of me thinks that if we do adopt a cut-off date, the 1980s would probably be sufficient. BUT... I like the practice of making an argument for more modern titles. It not only prevents any random book from being nominated, it also compels us to think about our choices a bit. It's that age old question--what makes a classic? Is it age, or is it more than that?

Maybe for one of our themes, you could specify a time period--books from the 1700s or something like that.

Yes, a time period would be a great idea! Sometimes I noticed that older books lose to a newer one.

We are trying to keep the selections varied - within the classics theme.

I would consider The Handmaid's Tale a classic, too, even though it is newer, but I agree that we don't want to make it a habit to read many newer books.