Reading With Sea

Thank You

seabenjamin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:49:25 +0000

Thank you all for a wonderful six months. After this month Reading With Sea will be finished.

I deeply appreciate all of your contributions to the group and please, please, please keep reading.

Yours,

Sea

Welcome, welcome, welcome: June

seabenjamin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:20:24 +0000

Hi. It’s June! Finally and here we are with a fresh start. All the discussion boards and book raffles have been cleared away to make room for the new format. Outline to follow tomorrow, but today I wanted to say, welcome back and let’s make this the best month yet.

Essay collection

seabenjamin — Sun, 30 May 2010 17:39:27 +0000

Who all has picked up the essay collection for next month?

Also, has anyone picked up a copy of Oh The Glory of it All?

Let’s make June the best month yet.

Back

seabenjamin — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:12:25 +0000

I’ve been gone for a little while and am back now. Catch me up: What’s going on with each of you? How’s your reading? What are you reading? What are your thoughts on the new format starting in June?

-Sea

JUNE! A Fresh Feel

seabenjamin — Wed, 19 May 2010 06:37:46 +0000

I am very excited to be announcing a new format for our reading group starting in June. What we have been doing here since February is trying to create a reading group that is completely flexible and in that process the experience has become overwhelming. What we need to do is simplify, simplify, simplify, just like Thoreau said.

Here’s the new deal: Each month we will feature 1 full length book (either nonfiction or fiction) and 1 essay. That’s it. The book selection will change monthly (obviously). The essay, however, will be from the same collection. For the next hand full of months, after June, you will only need to pick up one book. All the essays we will be reading for a while will be from the following collection:

Pick up your copy of this collection as soon as you can. Keep it with you since we will be reading various essays from it at the pace of one per month until we are through. The essay we will be reading in June will be Mark Twain’s Corn-pone Opinions.

The book that received the most votes and therefore will be read in June is:

Oh The Glory of it All
by Sean Wilsey

I hope this all makes sense to you. After the month of May I will be taking down all past discussion comments and past reads to make the page clean for the new format.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to voice them. This simplification process is the result of much reflection and feedback. I hope this new format will allow everyone to feel more relaxed and eager to participate.

-Sea

Voting

seabenjamin — Mon, 17 May 2010 19:45:25 +0000

Forgive me, but I have to say it:

Really!

Really?

Only 5 people have voted on the Book Raffle for the next novel and only 2 people have voted for the collection. That is not terribly exciting nor does it leave me feeling confident that many people are actually going to be reading with the group in June.

The polls will be taken down Wednesday (the 18th) so that leaves you a small amount of time to add your vote to the count.

-Sea

Are you there?

seabenjamin — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:09:00 +0000

Hello?

Are you still out there?

Where is everyone?

Who and What

seabenjamin — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:09:57 +0000

Time to get the who and what. Who is reading this month and what are you reading?

I am still on the waiting list at the local library for Patti Smith’s Just Kids, but I have all of the other three books with me now. I started Quiet Please this past week and have been enjoying it greatly. I don’t know what I will read next, but at this moment I am leaning towards People of the Book. I don’t know if I will receive Just Kids this month as there is a very long waiting list, but I do plan on reading all the others. Join me on the Book Discussion page as I’ve started to talk about Quiet Please.

Also, just as a reminder, please get your votes in on the Book Raffle page. The polls will not be open much longer.

New Format for Reading Group

seabenjamin — Sun, 09 May 2010 16:23:21 +0000

All along I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to encourage not only reading but also discussion. Earlier this week I had posted about the possibility of leaning on collections of short stories or essays. Here is what we’ll do for the next few following months to see how it goes:

We’ll continue on with the Book Raffle page and the polls as we have been. What I am going to do is add a poll on to the Book Raffle page for you to select which collection you want to be reading over the next few months.

The poll for our normal fiction/nonfiction reading will remain as is. There will now be two winners (the two that receive the most votes). These two books will be your choice to read one or the other. Your book selection will be paired with whichever essay or short story is also being read during the month.

To recap, each month a short story or essay will be read along with one full size book.

Please visit the Book Raffle page and vote on the collection you want to be reading over the next few months.

Important: Please read and post response

seabenjamin — Fri, 07 May 2010 15:11:04 +0000

I have been reflecting quite a bit on how things have been going for our reading group and have been having conversations with various individuals regarding the flow.

What was recently suggested to me was that the group members acquire for themselves a collection of essays or short stories and then one of the essays/short stories in the collection could be read a month. This short story/essay would be paired with a novel.

The idea behind this is to give people ample time to read and since a short story is quicker we would be able to discuss something while needing more time to read a full-length novel.

My question to you is how does this sound to you? Would you be interested in purchasing a collection of short stories or essays and reading one of the a month together as a group?