Enter the virus
Well. Remember like two months ago when I said I was going to start a book club at work? Uh… considering everyone is now laid off or working from home for at least a month, those plans are pretty firmly on hold.
To be fair, I definitely procrastinated starting this up. Bureaucracy is a quick way to kill enthusiasm (as most teachers know), and it certainly stifled me for a while too. But then people started asking when they’d get the sign up email, and telling me how excited they were, and so on… and I just felt bad for not doing it for these people who had been so thrilled by the idea.
And, the week that responses were to come in with signups, I got a great turnout, and then we had mass firings and tons of cutbacks and everyone went to work from home for an indeterminate amount of time and group gatherings were made illegal and social distancing has become standard. The gathering of people to share food and laugh together is officially on hold.
The backup plan
My NEW plan, for the time being anyway, is to set up a bookclub space online so we can at least start getting to know each other and chatting about whatever we are currently reading. I’m thinking of using Goodreads, primarily just because I’m reasonably familiar with it, but I know their groups forums aren’t very user friendly. Personally I kind of hate them. I’m looking for other ideas — chat-centered ones like discord or slack, and other book-focused sites as well. Any suggestions, y’all?
I’ll see how many people are interested and what platforms they already use, then go from there. But wow, yeah, did this ever time out badly. 😂 If you’re in a bookclub, what are you all doing for the moment? Is it an online-only focus, or do you typically meet in person?
My Book Joy 