Tildes Book Club 2024 retrospective
Hey folks,
Since we're not reading a book this month, I thought it might be nice to have a short retrospective of the last year instead.
As some of you may know, the book club originally started back in 2023 with a "pop-up event" hosted by @cfabbro. We read Roadside Picnic after a few users expressed interest in the title. The discussion had some great comments, and that helped lay the groundwork for making the book club a regular feature.
A few months later, @boxer_dogs_dance kicked the book club off proper in January 2024 with the first nomination thread. Cloud Atlas was selected based on voter interest and ideal library wait times. Despite being a difficult first book, participation was still high and has remained so for each month thereafter.
Boxer has since organized numerous nomination and voting threads, helped establish our format and rules, and has created many discussion prompts for each book. Huge thanks to you for the efforts, @boxer_dogs_dance!
Onto some stats for 2024:
- Books Read: 9
- Total Pages: 3,277 (average of 364 per book)
- Unique Contributors: 59 (or 140 total, when counting returning participants)
- Total Comments: 476 (across 121 top-level threads)
- Nominations Submitted: 102
- Votes Cast: 508
- Repeat Nominations: 11 titles were nominated twice, and 6 were eventually chosen. Perseverance pays off!
The list of past discussions can be found here:
- March: Cloud Atlas
- April: Piranesi
- May: The Dispossessed
- June: Project Hail Mary
- July: Ocean at the End of the Lane
- Aug: Small Gods
- Sep: This is How You Lose the Time War
- Oct: Kindred
- Nov: The City We Became
A big thank you to all who have participated, helped organize, commented, or quietly read along! You folks are what make the Tildes community so great.
So just to be clear, this isn't a nomination thread or an official post. I just thought it might be nice to look back, recap our progress, and maybe touch on some of the best picks from the last year.
What were your favourite reads from this past year? What are you looking forward to most in 2025?
See you all in January when we kick off 2025 with Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future!
No obligation, but feel free to let us know your thoughts. : )
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So far, I've enjoyed almost everything I've read. There's been some really solid suggestions from folks here, and it's already turned me on to multiple new authors I've enjoyed. I also got some great auxiliary recommendations for new titles to add to my backlog.
Starting towards the beginning, Piranesi was a joy to read. The writing felt whimsical and charming. Kindred, in contrast, was honest and eye-opening. It felt like an important read, despite being uncomfortable in places. I enjoyed both for completely different reasons.
I think my favourite, though, has to be The Dispossessed. It remains one of the most enriching books I've ever read, and I still think about it from time to time. Not because I'm specifically interested in anarchy, but because it examined the political systems that I've always sort of taken for granted. It helped me realize that these systems are not natural law, but are human constructs that require constant review and maintenance.
I went on to read The Left Hand of Darkness, also by Le Guin, and I'm now looking forward to A Wizard of Earthsea. She was an extraordinarily talented writer, and I'm thankful to have been introduced to her work through the club.
I didn't participate in every discussion, though I've tried to join as many as I can. I'm still trying to figure out the right balance between participating in Book Club while also getting through my own reading list.
Happy holidays, all. Until next year.
Big thanks for leading our book club, @boxer_dogs_dance!
I know a little bit about running events here on Tildes, which means I know how much time it takes behind the scenes to make them happen. In particular, it’s clear you put a ton of thought into the conversation questions for each book. Thanks for all of your efforts!
I didn’t participate in the book club as much as I would have liked to. I’m trying to cultivate a better personal reading habit, and I’m also in a monthly IRL book club as well, so at any given moment I’m juggling what to read and for whom: friends, Tildes, or myself?
It’s a good problem to have: in particular because I’d gotten so out of my reading habit over time that having a near-constant pressure to read is actually quite helpful. If left to my own devices, well, I’d be on my Steam Deck all the time and not my ereader. Not because I like gaming more than reading, but because gaming is easier than reading — especially when I had a long day at work and I’m tired and yada yada yada.
I can always find an excuse to turn my brain off. I like that book club encourages me to not do that.
With regards to specific titles, I loved Roadside Picnic, Piranesi*, Project Hail Mary, and Kindred. I appreciated but didn’t personally love This Is How You Lose the Time War. I unfortunately didn’t read the others, but almost all of them interested me and will remain on my (far too large) TBR list.
I do think one of our strengths has been surfacing books I find personally interesting/appealing. Our book club is very much in my lane, whereas my IRL one often has me reading well outside of my comfort zone. I like that I’m exposed to things I wouldn’t otherwise read from that one, and I like that this one tends to give me stuff that aligns more with my interests. It keeps the two clubs from feeling redundant.
Overall, I’m really happy with how the book club has been going, and I’m excited for what we have coming up. Having the list ahead of time is also nice — I can put things on hold, and also set up price drop notifications just in case any of them go on sale between now and then.
I just did Roadside Picnic as a one-off since there seemed to be so much interest in it, but I have now discovered so many awesome new books that I likely never would have read on my own thanks to the book club continuing.
My favorites so far have been Piranesi (enthralling), Project Hail Mary (intense), This is How You Lose the Time War (beautiful), and Kindred (heartbreaking and eye-opening).
So I'm genuinely grateful to @boxer_dogs_dance for continuing the book club, and all the other users who continue to nominate absolutely amazing books and contribute to the wonderful discussions on them. :) I have always wanted to be part of a book club, but never had the opportunity before now. It's been a lot more enriching and fulfilling than I expected thanks to you all.
p.s. Sorry for missing out on The City We Became but I've been kinda busy the last month+ what with the selling our house and moving thing. ;) I promise I will get to it eventually though, since I really do want to read it, but it might not be until mid-Jan once we're finally settled into our new place.
There will be a new book in January. Dipping in and out is fine.
Thanks so much for getting the ball rolling with roadside Picnic and inspiring me.
YVW! And yeah, I know it's no biggie to miss one. I just feel bad because I actually really want to read City We Became! :P
Once we get settled at the new place, I shouldn't have too much trouble binging it and Ministry for the Future though. ;)
I think we had 38 posts, to add to your statistics.
I had a lot of fun doing this. @Wes, thanks for kicking off this retrospective and look ahead.
Roadside Picnic, Piranesi, Kindred and Ocean at the End of the Lane were my favorites from this past year. However, all of the books gave me a worthwhile reading experience and discussion.
Re next year, the book chosen that had already been on my radar to read is the Heaven and Earth Grocery store. I have read and loved Born a Crime. And I'm looking forward to discovering the rest of the books with you.
Just wanted to say thank you - I've appreciated reading each of the books along with everyone even if I don't have much to say in the discussion threads :)
Thanks very much for organising the whole thing, proposing books and taking suggestions for books. The questions were always thoughtful and provoked interesting discussions. I read about a third of the books and read the relevant threads with great interest. I didn't contribute to the discussions, but I wanted to let you know that I'm one of the "silent enjoyers" of what you're doing here. Good idea to have this thread, too. Thanks a lot, I look forward to 2025's picks and more interesting interpretations!
Honestly thought that the Ministry for the Future was for this month, and I finished it today. Well at least I will be prepared for January (audio books are awesome). The last few ones I haven't been participating, mostly because I was busy with one and I forgot with the other, the City We Became, I literally had the book next to my bed. But the next few ones the coming year I should be able to participate in most of them (unless something comes up) because my library has them as audio books.
As for my general thoughts about the ones that did, the books were really good, my favorites would be Piranesi and Roadside Picnic (and I think it was my first time posting here) and I liked the Ocean at the End of the Lane (despite the controversy that is around that author, but I won't be reading else by him, kind of hate the fact that I listened to it).
First, thank you for running these. Even though I have—mostly due to zero time management skills—not participated anywhere near as much as I promised myself when the threads first caught my attention. Nonetheless, I will be forever grateful that the club forced me to (finally!) read my copy of Piranesi. I was an avid reader before I went to college. However, my buying habits did not decline with my reading habits, so my shelves are full of books I obtained while hitting up used bookstores as hard as if I were still a high schooler with all summer to do nothing but read. Between having a job and free range internet access, the volume of words going through my eyes isn't any less, but it's no longer primarily in narrative form.
Strongly hoping February is a good month for me to jump back in—will be busy through January. Then again, my life is full of broken promises I imposed on my future self.
I'm so thankful for the book club, even though I didn't start participating until This is How You Lose The Time War and that was mostly because I had already read the book. But I've been interested in jumping into a more structured reading group for a while and am glad we have one here. As always, thanks to u/boxer_dogs_dance for the immense effort I'm sure they have to put in and to the larger community for the discussions on the books.
Though I've only been in on three books so far, I've loved two of them and that's pretty good odds.
Speaking of odds: I'm curious what the 5 double-nominated-never-selected titles are.