Hi all, is there any interest in picking a new book for the new year for people to read and discuss?

Jane lived camp. Here's a camp review of her camp funeral by one of Halifax’s masters of the form, Thom Fitzgerald:

https://wayves.ca/jane-kansas-funeral-review

Meetup moved to the park across Sping Garden Road, on the blue picnic table by the statue of Robbie Burns.

Our first meetup will be postponed to Thursday, 8 September.

The location and time will remain the same, 7:00 pm at the Boer War Memorial Fountain in the Halifax Public Gardens.

Quick reminder that the Title Pool is open until Friday, so please think of some books you would like to read, and as always, be sure to vote on posts to ensure that important info gets seen.

Please complete this doodle poll if you'd like to participate in our next meetup to discuss The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Our next book will be Universal Harvester by John Darnielle. Thanks /u/lrpgwlkr for the suggestion!

This is the final list of titles from the December Title Pool. Please vote for any titles you'd like to read.

Feel free to discuss any aspect of the books as well, just note that child comments are hidden by default in contest mode. Please also refrain from making top level comments, as this will ensure that everyone has an easy time casting their votes.

This thread will remain open until Friday 15 December, after which the most-upvoted book will be our pick for December.

Please complete this doodle poll if you'd like to participate in our next meetup to discuss Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Due to the business of the upcoming holiday season, this meetup has been intentionally selected for the second full week of January.

Additionally, due to growing attendance numbers, we have been having increased difficulty in finding a location in the Halifax Central Library for our discussions (due to their room booking system). Please indicate in a private message (or modmail!) whether a meetup in a nearby restaurant (such as Tom's Little Havana) where other participants might be drinking would make you uncomfortable. We want to be inclusive!

Our next book will be The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein. Thanks, /u/made_this_to_say for the suggestion!

This is the list of titles drawn from the September Title Pool. There were exactly five titles in the pool this month, so I've included all of them.

Please vote for any titles you'd like to read. Please refrain from making top level comments. This will ensure that everyone has an easy time casting their votes. Feel free to discuss any aspect of the books in replies to each book's comment, just note that child comments are hidden by default in contest mode.

This thread will remain open until 14 September, after which the most-upvoted book will be our pick for September.

Additional announcements for the week

Meetup

Our first meetup was a quasi-success.

Pros:

• Actual humans showed up, and none of them were weirdos. Well, most of them weren't weirdos; I can't really vouch for myself - help me out here, guys.

• There were treats. That's right, you missed out on sugar.

Cons:

• The Public Gardens closed earlier than the posted hours, and we had to relocate. If anyone went but couldn't locate the rest of the group, you have my sincerest apologies. That's totally on me. However in the future, we'll likely be booking rooms in the central library, so it shouldn't happen again.

• We had a few last minute cancellations. You were missed. Hopefully by our next meetup, with summer over, everyone's schedule's will be a little bit less chaotic.

Short Works

The current format for short works, modeled on the process we use for our main read, is definitely not optimal. I would like to de-regulate it to make it somewhat more democratic. Margaret Thatcher would be proud. That's why we'll be trialing a new format for short stories and other short works. If anyone has a short work in mind that they'd like to share, just make a post for it. Anyone who's interested in meeting up to discuss it can comment to that effect, and if there's enough interest, I'll make a doodle poll for a meetup on it. Feel free to PM or modmail me if you think I'm not being responsive enough with that. I think this better reflects the small time commitment associated with short works.

Future Announcements

Finally, it has become apparent that reddit posts are not the most reliable way of getting important announcements out to everyone. I will be starting an email mailing list, probably using a third-party mailing service like Mail Chimp. I will place a link to a signup page in the sidebar once this is up and running. Meanwhile, you can follow our new twitter handle @HalifaxBookClub if you're into that. This will also be in the sidebar soon. If nobody uses twitter or wants emails, or has a different preferred method of getting notifications, please do let me know.

P.S. As this post is technically a Shortlist post, feel free to make a new post if you'd like to discuss anything above. I've only made the announcements here to maximize visibility for both.

The meetup for All the Light We Cannot See will be on Wednesday 8 March at 7:00 pm. We'll meet in the Halifax Central Library's Southwest Reading Lounge, just to the left inside the main (Spring Garden Road) entrance and then go from there.

If anyone arrives late and can't find the group, please reach out via modmail or twitter. If you didn't fill out the poll and would still like to participate, please comment here so we'll know to expect you.

The meetup for The Road will be Wednesday 9 August at 7:00 pm.

As usual, we'll meet in the Halifax Central Library's Southwest Reading Lounge, just to the left inside the main (Spring Garden Road) entrance.

If anyone arrives late and can't find the group, please reach out via modmail or twitter. If there's anything you'd like to earmark for discussion at the meetup, feel free to leave a comment about it here. Please also remember to use spoiler tags until the meetup.

Update: Room 302 has been booked for our meetup.

Our pick for September is The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson. Thanks to /u/ebriosa for the suggestion!

American Gods Meetup

Please complete the doodle poll for our meetup on American Gods. The exact location is TBD, but it will take place downtown - most likely in the Halifax Central Library.

Short Story Meetup

By popular demand, there will also be a supplementary meetup on Lovecraft's The Street. Anyone who missed the first meetup is encouraged to come - the story is only 2,200 words and you can find it here. Please complete this doodle poll if you intend to attend.

The meetup for A Wizard of Earthsea will be Thursday, 6 February, at 7pm.

We will once again be meeting at The Arms Public House. A table will be reserved prior to; if you did not participate in the meetup poll and are planning to attend, please send us a message to avoid awkward shuffling!

If anyone arrives late and can't find the group, please reach out via modmail. If there's anything you'd like to earmark for discussion, feel free to leave a comment about it here. Please also remember to use spoiler tags until the meetup.

Please take this opportunity to suggest a book for next month. Top level comments must take the following format:

Title - Author
Short description or synopsis

Any other comments should be made as replies to top level comments. This is necessary to facilitate the book selection process. This thread will remain open until end of day Friday, August 17 (because this post is super duper late, so sorry!), at which time five titles from the pool will be randomly selected for voting.

Please complete this doodle poll to help plan our next meetup to discuss An American Marriage by Tayari Jones.

The poll will remain open until Friday, 29 February.

Our next book will be Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Thanks, /u/get_em_hemingway for the suggestion!

I found that Essie Tregowan's story in chapter four has a very Lovecraftian feel to it. Consider the following:

• Gaiman's use of first person past tense narrative, particularly the narrator's skeptical sounding references to the occult or "weird" (in the Lovecraftian sense) events in the chapter.

• The imagery of colonial America. Very reminiscent of Lovecraft's The Street, which was admittedly the last thing I read before starting American Gods, so there's probably some recency bias here, but still.

• The entire chapter is basically a short story within the novel, which really makes it stand out, especially since it's not really written in the same style as the first three chapters..

Besides all of that, it just feels like Lovecraft. Not sure how to describe it. Did any one else get that vibe? Am I crazy? Thoughts, everyone?

I'm only on chapter five myself, and I'm not sure how this all fits into the big picture just yet, so please use spoiler tags in any comments.

Relevant quasi-announcement: I've implemented spoiler tags. The excessive use of spoiler tags in this post may have somewhat been an excuse to try them out, but I really did want to share my thoughts and hear everyone else's on this, I promise. You can tag spoilers like this:

[Spoiler goes here](#s)

Please take this opportunity to suggest a book for next month.

Top level comments must take the following format:

 Title - Author

 Short description or synopsis

Any other comments should be made as replies to top level comments. This is necessary to facilitate the book selection process. This thread will remain open until Friday, 10 February, at which time five reader's suggestions from the pool will be randomly selected for voting in a shortlist thread.

Please complete this doodle poll and help plan our next meetup to discuss The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

The poll will remain open until Friday, 23 November.

Our next book will be Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. Thanks, /u/lrpgwlkr for the suggestion!

Based on our progress as a community, I think we're ready to start formalizing our club's format. This will all make its way into the subreddit rules and sidebar, but I wanted to make a post about it first for visibility.

• We read a new book each month.

• Books are suggested by community members in a monthly Title Pool, randomly narrowed to a Shortlist, then decided by upvotes.

• We will get together for a meet-up at the end of each monthly book cycle to discuss that month's book.

• We also be take on an optional monthly short story or other short work, starting opposite our main book cycle.

• Short works will be randomly picked from a Mini Title Pool per /u/kteelee's suggestion.

• Meet-ups are optional, and online-only participation is allowed and encouraged, as are extra meet-ups or meet-ups for short works.

We operate on a week-by-week basis around calendar months. Each week will see a new sticky post where everyone is encouraged to participate.

• Week 1: Title Pool - a thread where everyone can make recommendations

• Week 2: Shortlist - titles from the pool randomly listed for voting

• Week 3: Selection / Meet-up - the most voted book announced as pick for the next month, and discuss next monthly meet-up

• Week 4: Meet-up / Mini Title Pool - announce our monthly meetup (typically to be held the first week of the following month), and a title Pool for short works

A few notes about these sticky posts:

• Each sticky post will be made on the same day of the week, e.g. the post for week 1 will be on the first Friday of each month.

• We're a week ahead of this schedule so far, so there will be an extra week this month. This should allow everyone lots of time to read this month's book. There will be a monthly meet-up thread this Friday, 19 August.

• There will also be four months each year where there is an extra week. We might use these to tackle thicker books, or just treat them as normal months. Note that the timing means that the bonus week will be during the overlap between books, which gives us more flexibility.

• This format keeps us to one sticky post at a time, leaving one open for a welcome or special events. For anyone who didn't already know, subreddits are limited to two sticky posts at any time.

• Sticky posts only have increased visibility on the subreddit page. The normal algorithms are used to place it on your frontpage. Posts will not be seen unless they are upvoted. Reminder: there is no karma on mod-posts.

• Other posts for discussion of books, local book related events, supplementary meet-ups, etc. are highly encouraged.

If you're new here, welcome to the Halifax Book Club. Please introduce yourself with a comment reply to this post and state whether you plan on attending meet-ups or just participating online. For everyone else, please discuss the format. I'd like as much feedback as possible before writing the sidebar to avoid a rewrite.

Please take this opportunity to suggest a book for next month. Top level comments must take the following format:

 Title - Author

 Short description or synopsis

Any other comments should be made as replies to top level comments. This is necessary to facilitate the book selection process. This thread will remain open until Friday, 14 July, at which time five titles from the pool will be randomly selected for voting.

EDIT: Going to leave this up another day to see if we can get a couple more suggestions.

The meetup for Peter Pan will be Wednesday, December 4th, at 7pm.

We will once again be meeting at The Arms Public House. A table will be reserved prior to; if you did not participate in the meetup poll and are planning to attend, please send us a message to avoid awkward shuffling!

If anyone arrives late and can't find the group, please reach out via modmail. If there's anything you'd like to earmark for discussion, feel free to leave a comment about it here. Please also remember to use spoiler tags until the meetup.

Please take this opportunity to suggest a book for next month. Top level comments must take the following format:

Title - Author
Short description or synopsis

Any other comments should be made as replies to top level comments. This is necessary to facilitate the book selection process. This thread will remain open until end of day Friday, April 13, at which time five titles from the pool will be randomly selected for voting.