Happy 2011 PVS!
I've been less active on the blog than I would like recently. I chalk it up to guilt over
And welcome to mythical Rob. I'm pretty positive I invited you to join a couple of times, but maybe the hotmail address I was using was defunct.
I've been thinking about a way forward for the PVS book club; it seemed to fizzle a bit at the end of 2010, and I had a couple of ideas I thought might make it more enjoyable for 2011. First, I'd like to choose a broad theme for the year, something to tie the books together. I had thought something like "Leadership" or "Death" or "Marriage". This will decrease the eclecticism somewhat (unfortunately), but I think it might make the overall experience more rewarding. My other thought is that we should choose the list of books and discussion dates in advance (set a schedule through June, for example); according to Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, this would be a helpful nudge that might make participation easier.
So, if you like these ideas, or if you hate them, or if you have a suggestion for a theme, or if you have other suggestions on the book club, I'm pretty sure you can find the comment box. And even if you don't have any comment other than "yeah, I wanna keep the book club going," that would be still be helpful to gauge interest.
3 comments:
Happy New Year!
Nice looking kids.
Speaking of kids, I just finished this book that my wife borrowed from the library to read to our girls. We are abour 3/4 of the way through is, but I wasn't tired the other night so I stayed up and finished it. I found it quite interesting and fairly entertaining.
Oh yeah, the title. It is called The Reinvention of Edison Thomas. I recommend it for those of you with older readers among your kids, or for those of you who enjoy books with lots of random science thrown in.
As to the format of PVS going forward, I miss the way things used to be, but I am willing to try something new.
"yeah, I wanna keep the book club going,"
But realistically, I can't see me reading more than 2-4 books for PVS in a year. At some level, I wish I made more time for book club reading, but both the spirit and the flesh are weak.
That said, if you're still interested in my opinions, I like the idea of having a syllabus for the upcoming year, though perhaps for the wrong reasons (i.e. so I can make a more informed choice about the two books that I'll actually read).
I'm not excited about a theme. Perhaps the right theme could keep my interest, but I think the more likely scenario is that I'll tire of a topic after one read (mind you, this hypothetical level of participation in a theme-oriented PVS would be no worse than the last year of the PVS).
I want to keep it going. I am open to any of the changes you suggested. As a heavy reader of work-related material (plus the work hours themselves), decreasing the overall number of titles may be helpful.
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