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Since I joined in March, we have sometimes used polls; sometimes "consensus". When we used a poll for May, we were able to make our decision in 25 posts. When we used consensus, it took 191 posts to agree on the selections for June, July, August and September, and two of the selections we...

Au contraire! The first BOTM I read, The First Circle, was selected by a poll, and I believe there was a poll for the month prior.

I tried one before I found BAR, but got out because the posters were not welcoming to newcomers or new ways and were not respectful of each other.

I rather favor taking the top two or three books and agreeing to discuss them in October, November, etc. Then we can spend our time reading and discussing the selected books instead of discussing what books to read.

Its interesting to me that several of the authors we have been considering have Minnesota roots: Sinclair Lewis; Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald; Louise Erdrich.

I still think that once a number of selections have been posited a poll should be used to winnow the selections. If enough people want to read a book with 1,000 pages, why should we deny them the opportunity? Democracy beats arbitrary rules, even if democracy results in a book I am not likely...

I just started Sons and Lovers, and am concerned whether I will get through the 464 pages by August.

Why not discuss individual books of the Bible? E.g., Matthew, Genesis, Psalms, Amos, Romans. One a month, like BOTM.

After the priest talks about loving God in Chapter XI, Henry says he "understands". It is a sad irony that after this Henry learned to love Catherine, but never learned to love God. When he lost Catherine, there was nothing left. He was left a lonely man on a lonely night in a lonely universe.

The priest talked about Archbishop Ireland in Chapter VII. Archbishop Ireland is still honored here in Saint Paul. He was very active in equal rights, education, and helping the immigrant. One of his many social causes was total abstinence. Ireland spoke out against the alcoholic abuse...

One of the most interesting characters in the novel (in my view, perhaps the only interesting character) was the priest. And yet Hemingway did not choose to even give the man a name. The priest was the only man in the officer's mess with a semblance of faith. All the other characters seemed...

I found it a shock to go from Solzhenitsyn's noble, but flawed, zeks in The First Circle to the wastrel that is Frederic Henry. While the zeks (or at least some of them) grappled with what it means to have a conscience, the only hint Henry has a conscience is found in Chapter XXV. Rinaldi...

One cannot have a society at all, let alone a "free and pluralistic" society, unless the members of the society are held to a certain level of common laws and expectations. If one's value system involves killing all the Jews, that value system is unacceptable and must be met with more than just...

The problem with just using consensus is it leaves out those of us who would rather use our time discussing the book at hand and reading the upcoming book than trying to build consensus in the crowd for some future book. After we have had the opportunity to suggest some books and time to...

Solzhenitsyn's story is not just an exposé of the deadliness of the communist system in Russia. It reveals the need all people have for meaning in their lives. So long as Solzhenitsyn was seen as espousing freedom within the Soviet Union, he was acclaimed in the West. But during his exile...

Solzhenitsyn in writing this book was putting "one conscience" ahead of "one life". He was willing to express truth at great personal sacrifice in defiance of the soviet powers. In Chapter 57, Innokenty says "the writer is a teacher of the people... and a greater writer is, so to speak, a...

Chapter 55 contained what was for me the most reflective part of the book. Innokenty and Dotnara were part of a crowd whose philosophy was: "We have only one life. So take everything life can give.... They tried every new and strange fruit. They learned the tast of every fine cognac...

I haven't read Dawkins, so am not sure what he has to say about the enforced beliefs of authoritarian religion. I am aware there are many excuses human beings have used to justify inhumanity toward their fellows. I would guess that, throughout history, religious injustice has been small...

I need to backtrack on Shchagov. I liked how he fought in the war, and how after the war he realized the injustice he and the other soldiers faced. Much the same confronts our soldiers today. But I forgot he was engaged to another woman who would give him "a fair piece of the pie", and...

Or perhaps I should say - a lot less.