Tipping the Velvet Discussion

Just a head’s up: Lesbian Book Club version 2.0, so to speak, is up and running over at Goodreads here.  The site is much more user-friendly, and the new version makes it easy to participate and gives you an option of e-mail updates if you want to know when someone’s started a new post.  If you’re someone who was interested in LBC, who signed up over at the original boards but found it frustrating, or if you haven’t heard about it yet but would like to read and discuss lesbian fiction with us, please come on over.  We’re discussing Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters this round, but I’ll be adding new features soon including a thread where you can talk about whatever lesbian fiction you’ve read or are reading and maybe some games or challenges.

Triple Quickie

1) My first community post, Learning to Navigate “Yes,” is up on Feministing. 

2) The Lezzies nomination period has begun.  It would be completely shameful to ask for nominations when I’ve been such a bad blogger lately, but if you do want to nominate me, go with the category “Best Feminism/Political Blog.”  You can nominate all your favorite lesbian blogs once every 24 hours until the 11th.

3) We’ll start discussing Pages for You in the lesbian book club on Saturday, so drop by the message boards then – I’ll be posing some questions, including some that do not necessarily require you to have read the book, focused around its themes.

Lesbian Bookclub Timeline Available Through April

See here.  If you haven’t registered for the boards yet, you’ll need to do that first.  Dates for Rounds Three-Six are set including open and close of book suggestion periods, open and close of the poll for which book to read, and open of discussion period.  This will make it a little easier to know when to go to the boards – just stick these dates in your calendar and show up as needed.

Quick Hits

1) Fascinating interview up at Salon today with Richard Rodriguez, a gay Catholic Mexican-American author, on Proposition 8 and the role of religion.  He focuses on the relationship between the feminist movement and women gaining ground and the difficulties for churches founded on a male hierarchy, the reasons why religion has focused so much on Prop 8, and the cultural treatment of gay men in Mexican-American communities.  I highly recommend you give it a read.  I think I’m going to try to get a hand on his books soon.

2) The discussion board for Round Two of the lesbian book club, focusing on Irene Gonzalez-Frei’s Your Name Written on Water, is up now.  If you read the book, please pop in and give us your thoughts!

Lesbian Book Club: Round Two Starts Now!

We’ve chosen a book for round two: Your Name Written on Water by Irene Gonzalez Frei.  We’d love to have you reading along with us, whether you’ve joined the club yet or not!  You can see the information for this round here as soon as you sign up for the message board.  Round Two discussion starts Friday, November 28th, and you can get the book on Amazon for a little over ten dollars new.  Hope to see you on the boards!

Lesbian book club: Don't forget to vote!

Reminder: if you’re in the lesbian book club, go to the boards under “Book Suggestions” and click on the poll to vote for our round two book.  Poll closes tomorrow and we only have six votes so far.  You can vote for up to three books in the poll, and a vote doesn’t mean you’re committing to read.

Lesbian Book Club: Round Two Poll Posted

Hey there, book club members and those who want to join!  The poll for our round two book is up here.  You’ll need to sign up for the message board if you haven’t already.  Again, this is a guilt-free bookclub, so you’re welcome to sign up and vote even if you aren’t sure whether you’ll be able to read this round, or will only read certain books.  We want to be laid back about this and encourage folks to read when they can.  Poll is up until next Monday.

Lesbian Book Club Update!

I’ve noticed several recent comments about the lesbian book club.  So far we have seven members signed up to the boards, and I think about ten said they wanted to join, so if you haven’t created an account for the boards yet, they are here.  We had three people discussing our last book (which is not bad for a first round!) and I’m hoping maybe five or six will join us next round.  So here’s what you can do if you want to get involved.

1) Go to the boards, sign up, and suggest a book in the “Book Suggestions” thread.  If we get suggestions, then I’ll make a poll and we can pick what we want to read first.  If we don’t, then I’ll just do a poll with a few suggestions of my own.  

2) I want everyone to be able to read, so if you’re interested but it will be difficult for you financially to buy a book every couple of months, e-mail me at judithavory@gmail.com with the locale of the library you use.  If you’re in two systems (for example, city and county, or city and university) tell me that as well.  I’ll check before I create the poll, and I won’t divulge your information to the group but I will note which books are more and less available.

3) If you have a blog, know a message board for lesbians (or LGBT in general), etc., please spread the word!  I’m not super clued-in on this, so I haven’t really known how to promote, but I’d love to.

4) I will make an announcement on this blog when the poll is open, as well as when we pick a book and when discussion starts.  I don’t want to crowd the blog with bookclub stuff, but it’s good to let new people know and I know it’s a pain to check the board all the time while it’s not very busy.  I missed a comment myself until just now (Sorry, Leigh!) 

 

And now, back to your regularly schedule programming.

Book Club Update

A few new people have asked about the lesbian book club.  We are reading Stir-Fry, by Emma Donoghue this round, and I’m happy to postpone discussion if a few new people want to hop in.  If you are at all interested in the club, I’d ask you to please sign up so that you can post on the message board at lesbianbookclub.proboards105.com, and then respond to this poll so I know who’s joining us for round one.

Book Club Update

A few new people have asked about the lesbian book club.  We are reading Stir-Fry, by Emma Donoghue this round, and I’m happy to postpone discussion if a few new people want to hop in.  If you are at all interested in the club, I’d ask you to please sign up so that you can post on the message board at lesbianbookclub.proboards105.com, and then respond to this poll so I know who’s joining us for round one.