Welcome to Pages Book Club, the official book club of the Quilting Bee community! Pages was started in September 2007 by Michelle #224, but Hev #78 has been helping since Day One and pretty much ran the club by herself through the year 2009.

How It Works

We take recommendations from all members (add yours!) and choose the books we read from those. We welcome bees of all ages and interests, which means we read books that cover many genres and age groups. No one is required to read, and you’ll never be “kicked out” of the club (unless you’re rude/inconsiderate, but bees aren’t known for that :P), but we definitely encourage everyone to participate and post their thoughts on the books.

Books are chosen at least a month in advance, giving members time to acquire them, and the last seven days of every month are dedicated to discussing that book. Discussion dates and questions are posted on each book’s profile page. You can post about a book during or after the last week of the month, but please don’t post before then so the other members won’t accidentally come across spoilers. :) You don’t have to answer the suggested questions – feel free to ask your own, or review in your own format. They’re there merely for anyone who’d like to think critically… But with guidelines. :P

If you want to stray away from the discussion questions but don’t know what to say otherwise, I’ve written up some Tips for Discussion that might help out.

When reading the discussion posts (and questions!) please keep this in mind: Discussion posts assume that the book has been fully read. They may contain spoilers or other important information. You are not restricted in what you write in your discussion posts (except to stay away from foul language and unnecessary rude comments). However, please remember that every post is an opinion, whether or not you agree with it. Be nice!

Newsletters

I’ll be sending out a newsletter once a month updating on the book club’s activities and reminding everyone about what’s coming up. It’s small but I think it’s the best way to remind everyone at once without forcing people to come here or remember to check the BBS/Twitter. Newsletters are sent to the email you have listed on your Wordpress profile page (edit that by logging into the admin panel and selecting yourself under the Users menu item). All newsletters will be archived on the website in case you missed one or haven’t been able to view it in email.

Newsletter Archive Directory

Posting

Sometime towards the end of 2009, I went through and renamed all the post subjects so that they are now uniform and none will repeat. It would be amazingly wonderful if you all could continue with this when you name your review posts.

The format is as follows: Full book title (including “A” and “The”) and your name in parenthesis. For example:

• Hev’s review of The Bonesetter’s Daughter would be titled The Bonesetter’s Daughter (Hev).
• If you have additional posts on the same book, number them accordingly. Joni’s first post on The Thirteenth Tale is The Thirteenth Tale (Joni), and her second is The Thirteenth Tale (Joni), 2.
• If you have multiple books in one, include all their titles (The Christmas Box and A Christmas Carol (Michelle).
• Themed posts should be titled as such: Subject Theme: Your Choice (Your Name). For example, under the Time Theme, Joni’s pick was named Time Theme: Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander (Joni). For the New Author Theme, Meghan’s pick was named New Author Theme: Sarah Monette (Meghan).

Hope that makes sense. :) Please browse back through older posts to see if you’re unsure what I mean. Thanks so much!

Membership

All current Qbee members are eligible to join Pages. However, if for whatever reason you leave The Quilting Bee, you are still welcome to stay in the book club. You do, however, have to be a current bee to join (there’s no way I can check to see if you were a bee in the past, since the book club is run separately from the Qbee website, sorry!), but once you’re in, you’re in as long as you’d like to be. :)

If I can’t verify that you’re a member based on the name/email you use to register, I’ll send an email asking what you’re listed under on the Qbee page, just to be sure.

Participation

I understand, of course, if there are months when you are simply too busy to read a book in full to participate in discussion. It is not required; however, if no one discusses, how much fun can this possibly be? Please try to make it a goal to read and discuss at least two or three points during the discussion week!

What Happens at the End of the Month?

You may continue to discuss books after the month is over. Posts will not “close” and comments will not be turned off. You can post reviews if you were late in reading the book, discussion questions – whatever. As long as you do not post before the discussion period starts, any previous book can be discussed at any time. :)

Patches & Gifts!

The most fun part! If you’ve made a patch (or set of patches) for the book club, please send them to me and I’ll display them here. :)