Hi everyone! Hope you are all enjoying the book so far. We have had some great discussion about the book overall, and am really loving the back and forth on Discord. This week, the focus is on parts 2 and 3 (Up through Chapter 12). I also wanted to poll you all regarding an in person discussion option.

Regarding the book, some focused questions - feel free to answer in the comments, or just talk about whatever you want!

• Were you surprised by the tone of the book, or is there anything you were surprised about in terms of the writing?

• How do you feel about the structure (alternating present day and past) now that you have gotten into the meat of the book?

• How do you feel about the level of violence in the book - too much, not enough, just right?

• What do you predict is going to happen in the final section?

• If you DNFd at some point (which is totally ok), when did you stop and why?

• How do you feel about the level of fantasy elements in the book?

As always, feel free to chat about whatever, and for more real time discussion, make sure you're over on Discord! Just remember, if you go to the comments there may be spoilers through chapter 12 and the subsequent interlude.

Regarding an in person discussion, I have a poll below - would love to see if anyone is interested in Doing a wrap up discussion. I would likely do it on a Friday evening, weekend daytime or weekend evening the weekend of January 30 - February 1. Times would be eastern standard time. We can run it through Discord, and I can record it so anyone else interested can watch later.

Thanks again for all the great discussion. I'll be sending out the final post next week, and will start setting up for February!

Hi there book club friends!

We are a week in to our first book of the year, The Lies of Locke Lamora, and the conversation over on Discord has been so much fun! It has been really interesting to me to see how differently we all read, to what level of detail we examine our books, and what we like and don't like. There have been some perfect examples where what bothers one person is exactly what another person likes, and I think this is one of those really fun things about reading. Most importantly, the discussions have been very insightful and respectful, and it seems like everyone is comfortable expressing their opinions (both positive and negative), which is the main goal for me!

For those of you who are not on Discord, each week I'll put up a post covering a section of the book, and a few prompt questions. You can feel free to chat about whatever, or respond to the questions.

One warning : I will clearly label each post with the section of the book, but know if you go to the comments or read past the spoiler line, there will be spoilers for those chapters. Please do not spoil future chapters in this section.

For this week, this post covers the Prologue, and Section I: Ambition (Up through Chapter 3 and Interulde: The Last Mistake). So if you read on: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Questions:

How do you feel about the split timeline structure? Which timeline (Present or Past with Chains) do you find more engaging?

How did you feel about the world building so far - too much, too little, like/dislike the way it is presented?

Who or what do you think is following Locke?

What is your biggest question at this point in the book?

What did you think about the festival at The Shifting Revel, and what does it reveal about the world of Camoor?

Remember, there is always chat going on in the Discord, and be on the lookout next week for a poll about an online chat wrap up!

Hi everyone!

Sunday marks the end of the first week in our reading challenge, and you should be halfway into your time audits. If you didn't start yet, or missed a few days, that's ok! Even doing only a week of this will give you some good insights.

Hopefully at this point you are starting to notice some patterns, or places where you are spending more/less time than you thought. Remember, as we go forward just keep living and reading like you normally would. For the next post regarding this reading challenge, we will talk about how to analyze your results, and how to come up with a plan to fit in some consistent reading.

For week three, when we are done your time audits, we can analyze your results, and pick out a book for you to read to start working on a daily reading habit. We'll also come up with a plan for when and how much you'll plan on reading, and then week 4 we will implement that plan and check in.

As I mentioned before, for each month of these reading challenges, one person gets a $25 bookshop.org gift card. To be eligible for January, you'll need to prove that you did the time audit, so if you haven't started and want to participate, the is still time! If you go to my last post on the topic, all the info, including the Google Doc for the time audit, can be found there.

So, how is it going? Have you learned anything new? Anything surprised you yet? Any Struggles? Any questions? Let me know down in the comments or head over to Discord and we can chat!

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope everybody had some time off in the last two weeks to read and relax.

Just a reminder that we begin our January Reading Challenge tomorrow, January 5. As a reminder, the theme for this month is "Find the Time," and the focus is on figuring out where we're spending our time during the day and where we might be able to fit reading in. For our first two weeks, we are going to be working on time audits. During this time, just read as you have been, or however you want to. The most important part of a time audit is to just be your normal self - if you perform for this, you won't get an accurate idea of what you're doing!

• Resources

  • Discord Server: we have a great group of active readers over on Discord, and there is a specific forum channel (like Reddit) where you can ask questions, talk about your struggles, and get advice. We've already had some folks starting the conversations there.

  • Bindery: I will actively monitor comments and respond here, although Discord is much more “real time.” For the first two weeks, use this post for your comments and questions!

  • Time audit form (download and use/manipulate as you see fit). Print it out, put it on your phone, or whoever you want to keep it with you so you can keep an accurate track of time.

  • January Overview

• Time Audit Guidelines

  • Track your activities. Whether you print the form out or download it to your phone or a device, keep it handy through the day. I have broken the day up into 30 minute chunks as I have found this ideal in my own prior time audits, but adjust as you see fit (get as granular or big picture as you want). But be HONEST!

  • At the end of the two weeks you can calculate average time and percentages spent in each category each day.

  • For your time audit, I would suggest the following categories as labels for what you are doing during your days. This will help you at the end see what proportion of your time is spent in different areas. Of course, feel free to make your own. 

    • Sleep: This is obvious I hope 🙂

    • Personal: Activities that we all have to do: eating, grooming, exercise, personal maintenance

    • Family time: Time spent with significant others, kids

    • Work: Again, hopefully obvious

    • Hobbies: Non-reading hobbies

    • Screen time: Time spent on your phone, watching TV, on a tablet

    • ReadingThe time audit form is provided in a suggested format, but make it what you want and what works for you. 

  • For the screen time audit, use whatever phone tracking system you have available to you. 

  • We can analyze your time audits, and come up with a plan

If you have questions, please let me know. I'm happy to answer whatever I can, and hope to see a bunch of you getting into reading more in your day to day lives!

~Bob

Hi everyone,

Just a reminder and heads up that we are doing our first book club starting here in January, reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. Here's how the book club works:

• The book club is for free and paid members only, so if you are seeing this and want to participate, either become a member here on Bindery or join our Discord.

• We have our book club discussion set up by chapter over on Discord. This will depend on each book and its structure. For this book, there is a forum to discuss organized by each Chapter and its following Interlude.

• The discussion forums are spoiler zones, so no need to censor spoilers in those sections. The assumption is if you are reading the chat and participating, you have read that chapter/section and are ready to discuss.

• I am reading as well, and will shoot to be done in the next week or so, at which point I'll post some general discussion points and questions in the "Overall Discussion" post. Again, assume this is a spoiler filled zone (and the questions may hint at or contain some spoilers), so don't enter if you don't want spoilers!

• This is completely read at your own pace! Read as fast or slow as you want, and participate when and how much you want.

• If you have previously read the book, you are welcome to participate as well, whether you are rereading or not.

• Please be respectful of everyone's opinions! Some of us may like it, some of us may not, but we should all be willing to have a fun honest discussion. I have a zero tolerance policy for any bullying behavior or inappropriate comments, so don't do it unless you want to be banished!

• For those who do not want to participate on Discord, I will be posting weekly posts here on Bindery. I will indicate which sections of the book each post will be for. Treat each post like the forum discussion - if I say a post will discuss Chapters 1-4, do not enter or read unless you have read/are ok with spoilers for that section.

• About halfway through the month, I will post a poll in here to ask if anyone is interested in doing a Zoom wrap up discussion.

As always, since this is all new, I am always open to feedback and input. Let me know what is working or not. Also, feel free to drop in or out each month. No pressure - if there is a month you don't want to read, don't feel like you have to! I will also be taking input for our book club books for April - June over on Discord in late February.

Can't wait to read and discuss this book with you all. Welcome to the Book Club, and Happy New Year!

~Bob