For a while now, I've wanted to start a reading group, but because my schedule is somewhat reversed to most peoples' schedules, it hasn't been practical. But the wonderful thing about doing things online is that they aren't always bound by time the same way as meeting in person; I can post at midnight on Thursday, or 3 am on Sunday, and another person can read it at 10 am the next morning, or in 2 weeks or years.
That being said, I would like to keep it on a regular schedule. I'm leaning toward a post weekly on Thursdays at the moment. I would love any and all input from anyone who would be interested in joining in a discussion of a book week by week, what sort of books would most interest people for an interactive group-read, that sort of thing.
Right now I'm leaning toward "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis for the first book, as he's my favorite author (I grew up a Narnian) and his writing is both direct and witty in my opinion, but I don't know yet if I would go by chapters, or do half of a section at a time - basically how best to break up the book without taking a year to dissect it, but taking enough time to allow for an open discussion of the various topics he brings up.
Another thing I want to point out - I'm just a person like anyone else who is reading this blog, and I don't pretend to know better than anyone else what C.S. Lewis, or any other writer, meant on any given point all the time, or to have a monopoly on understanding any text for that matter. There are a lot of points where he and I agree, a handful where we disagree, and a few that I haven't gotten to think about as hard as I'm sure he did. So comments completely disagreeing with anything I say are 100% ok and awesome. As I've pointed out to a few people who know me well, I don't even agree with myself 100% of the time, and listening to different viewpoints is a good practice. So if I say something that you don't agree with, please feel free to disagree openly, but only one rule - PLEASE keep it respectful to all parties concerned.
There are a lot of other books I would like to do in the future, and not all of them are based on Christian doctrines or beliefs. Some are novels like "Tuesdays with Morrie", "Dewey the Library Cat" or "The Fault in our Stars", others are more like "Mere Christianity" and "H is for Hawk," going more directly into real life rather than seeing it through a fictional lens. My own take on them will, in all likelihood, be flavored by my faith, as anyone's life should reflect their faith. This is an unavoidable side affect of any worldview; like wearing glasses it will affect the way one sees the world and everything in it. I will not, however, bash anyone else's beliefs, and all respectful opinions are more than welcome.
The reason I put the word "club" in quotation marks is that the word club has a tendency to give an exclusive impression, and I want the reading here to be inclusive.
One thing I don't plan on doing in this section of the blog is a full weekly summary of the reading; I would like to be able to comment on the writing, but I don't want to only paraphrase any writer's book, so don't expect this blog to be a version of "Cliff's notes".
I will give a quick summary on Thursday this week on what and when I plan to start, as I'd like to give anyone interested time enough to grab the book and start reading before I start the actual book club/commentary/thing, but right now I'm thinking I would start Thursday next week with the first section of the book. But for anyone interested, I greatly look forward to reading with you and speaking with you both in the blog and the comments. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on other books to read (and would be very excited to find titles I haven't read yet to look through)
Hopefully I'll be able to start posting pictures of my work again soon; alas, the projects that I've started up so far are Christmas presents that I don't want to put pictures of online yet, lest the surprise be spoiled. So while those particular projects will have to wait until late December to be posted, I'm hoping to start a couple to-sell projects later this week that I can share with you all.
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