BOOK CLUB - Galway

TristanPeter · 10-03-2007 6:30pm #1

Hi All!

If, like me, you're tired of the same old pub, club, supermacs social scene of galway, why not stimulate the old brain cells and meet new people by doing something intellectual!? I've started a book club in Galway, where people can get together and chat about books they've read, discover new books together and generally have a bit of literary crack. We meet in different members houses, over a glass of wine (or water if that's your poison

), to loosen the opinionated tongues!

We've already got a few members and would quite like a few more, so post here or drop me a pm if you think it's a good idea, bad idea or you just don't care.

Hoping for lots of Responses!
Tristan
P.S. For obvious reasons it's for Grown Ups only, no under 18s please!!

grainnetralee · 27-01-2008 5:33pm

Great idea, where does the book club meet in Galway?

TristanPeter wrote: »

Hi All!

If, like me, you're tired of the same old pub, club, supermacs social scene of galway, why not stimulate the old brain cells and meet new people by doing something intellectual!? I've started a book club in Galway, where people can get together and chat about books they've read, discover new books together and generally have a bit of literary crack. We meet in different members houses, over a glass of wine (or water if that's your poison ), to loosen the opinionated tongues!

We've already got a few members and would quite like a few more, so post here or drop me a pm if you think it's a good idea, bad idea or you just don't care.

Hoping for lots of Responses!
Tristan
P.S. For obvious reasons it's for Grown Ups only, no under 18s please!!

Allison91 · 27-01-2008 6:14pm

awww i want to join...:(

DEmeant0r · 27-01-2008 6:23pm

I would love to join too, but final year is cutting my free time down to half of Saturday/Sunday (So I don't think I can finish a book in a week), when would these meets be?

Creachadóir · 27-01-2008 11:28pm

I'd be very interested in joining a book club...however I rent. It'd be impossible to bring a group of people over to my place to talk about books! Would I be able to just bring the wine and stimulating conversation

trish23 · 28-01-2008 1:01am

Sounds like a good idea! Might be better to find a neutral venue though. I'm all on...

TristanPeter · 28-01-2008 1:36pm

Hi Everyone,

Perhaps it would be a good idea for anyone who is interested in the book club to meet somewhere at a time suitable for everyone.

Then we could all discuss the ins and outs of the whole thing together especially in relation to venue, the time allocated for each book etc. That way we could try and come to the best compromise so as to accommodate as many interested people as we can.

I propose meeting at Bar No. 8 (the new bar on the docks) on Saturday Feb 9th at 7:30pm. It's quiet and there are large tables to have a discussion around.

I would appreciate ant feedback please.

Regards
Tristan

padraig71 · 28-01-2008 2:02pm

Great idea, good luck with it. Sorry I can't join you, I'm always working nights and weekends.

PopeBuckfastXVI · 28-01-2008 2:18pm

Yah I'd be up for that

Malice · 28-01-2008 7:20pm

I would definitely be interested in that but unfortunately I'm coming back from a short break that day so I don't know if I'll be in Galway. I will do my best to make it!

Creachadóir · 28-01-2008 8:46pm

Weeknights suit me a bit better than the weekend. I'm usually fairly busy at the weekend. I don't think I'll be able to go to that initial meeting. Sorry! I'm very interested though.

PopeBuckfastXVI · 28-01-2008 9:31pm

why not have it on a thursday evening instead?

Mrs OBumble · 28-01-2008 9:37pm

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

why not have it on a thursday evening instead?

Noooo ... why does everything interesting in Galway seem to happen on Thursdays? There are sooo many weeks when I have three different places to be at 7pm on Thursday, and nothing to do any other weeknight.

I'm keen to have a chat about the idea anyway, and the suggested time/place works for me!

(Will be fascinated to see just what the age-range of people posting here is though, I'm not sure that too wide a spread of ages/interests would make for a great book club.)

DEmeant0r · 28-01-2008 9:41pm

21 and I read anything really, except girlie girl books.

Creachadóir · 28-01-2008 10:18pm

Mid-twenties, female. I'll read anything. It'd be nice to have a focus though.

MattKid · 28-01-2008 10:28pm

I'm slightly interested in the idea. I'll read most execpt sci fi and fantasy. I only read for enjoyment though, I'm possibly too shallow for deep discussions about characters and metaphors etc

TristanPeter · 28-01-2008 11:43pm

What about Wednesday 6th Feb, same time, same place? The reason for the meeting is to discuss what the book club should entail including genres, venues etc. I suppose it would be fairest for individual members to nominate a book of their choice on an cyclical basis. Anyway, at the meeting we can iron out the finer details.

In relation to the age range; definitely no under 18s because there may be alcohol present at club meetings. As for an upper age limit I don't know does it matter that much. But I'm sure that most Boardsies will be in their 20s to 40s. Correct me if I'm wrong.

DEmeant0r · 29-01-2008 1:24am

I will try and make it, will these meets be frequent? I won't be able to finish a book in a week with the course I'm in so...

garyal · 29-01-2008 11:58am

I just googled Books Clubs in Galway and found this.
I'd be very interested in joining but unfortunately Feb 6th doesn't suit me. I don't see any reason why I wouldn't be able to make subsequent meetings though and maybe read the first book choice if I could find that out from somewhere.

Des Hynes · 29-01-2008 5:23pm

Sounds good.

Read a great book recently

Shantaram-Gregory David Roberts

Immense

Notorious BIG · 29-01-2008 7:49pm

Great idea. I wont be around the 6th though im at the Ireland Brazil game!

TristanPeter · 29-01-2008 9:53pm

Tuesday 5th any better? The idea of this meeting is really just to figure out how best to run the Book Club with input from all interested parties. I suppose it's like an initiation meeting. Hopefully it will allow us to answer all the questions everyone has such as; how much time is allocated per book? Where and when will the meetings be held? Who will be in the club etc. etc.

Bar No. 8 doesn't have to be the venue every week. I just put it forward as a suitable place for everyone to meet initially. It could be good though. We will have to discuss the venue in depth.

So is Tuesday 5th Feb, Bar No. 8 @ 7:30pm good? I think a date has to be finalised. I would doubt if we could find a date and time that will suit everyone so I suppose whoever can attend...be there:)

LittleGoblin · 29-01-2008 10:40pm

Hi - would be very interested also. Tuesdays dont suit me - so I'll keep an eye out in case the evening changes. And no - you never will get an evening that suits everyone.

kittensoft1984 · 29-01-2008 10:42pm

should be able to make it but can someone tell me where bar no 8 is??

Robbo · 29-01-2008 10:49pm

kittensoft1984 wrote: »

should be able to make it but can someone tell me where bar no 8 is??

It's in the docks, about 150m from Sheridan's.

PopeBuckfastXVI · 30-01-2008 12:05am

TristanPeter wrote: »

Tuesday 5th any better? The idea of this meeting is really just to figure out how best to run the Book Club with input from all interested parties. I suppose it's like an initiation meeting. Hopefully it will allow us to answer all the questions everyone has such as; how much time is allocated per book? Where and when will the meetings be held? Who will be in the club etc. etc.

Bar No. 8 doesn't have to be the venue every week. I just put it forward as a suitable place for everyone to meet initially. It could be good though. We will have to discuss the venue in depth.

So is Tuesday 5th Feb, Bar No. 8 @ 7:30pm good? I think a date has to be finalised. I would doubt if we could find a date and time that will suit everyone so I suppose whoever can attend...be there:)

Can't do tuesday... got a CS:S match (omg! a computer nerd on boards!)

Post up the gist after the meeting.

tristanc · 30-01-2008 6:37am

Well, my job gives me inordinate amount of time to read, so I'll def come by on Tues. Unless theres a one Tristan per club limit in Galway. In which case, I'll have to say the organizer gets precedence.

Is this just a meet and greet, or is there a book we should be ready to discuss by then?

TristanPeter · 30-01-2008 12:36pm

It's just a meet and greet so hope to see plenty of people there

skelliser · 30-01-2008 6:23pm

this sounds interesting, i might be able to make it

Notorious BIG · 31-01-2008 8:16pm

Bump;)

Dazbags · 31-01-2008 11:05pm

Hi all,

Sounds good and I can make it on the 5th so I'll probably be there. Don't know where Bar no 8 is but based on the directions I probably drive past it every night so will keep my eyes open from now on!

cohanlon · 01-02-2008 11:14am

hey all...I am very interested in meeting for this however Tuesdays do not work for me so I'll be missing the initial get together

just a helpful hint...I was in a bookclub before for a short while where they chose 2-3 "moderators" at the first meeting who where basically responsible for organising one night. ie. everyone in the entire group read the same book, but then they had two or three nights to choose from to come discuss the book incase they couldn't make it to one night (its usually a good idea to have one or two weekday nights and one weekend night!). might help to consider this

C

TristanPeter · 02-02-2008 1:37pm

Thanks Cohanlon. That sounds like a good idea especially if there is quite a lot of interest from potential members i.e. more members could be accommodated at 2 or 3 different meetings rather than over-crowding 1 gathering alone. Anyway, I'll suggest it at the initial meeting and depending on numbers, maybe we could get volunteers to become moderators.

I know that there are people interested in the BookClub who cannot attend the 1st meeting. Therefore, can these people please let me know for sure that they are interested in joining so that if needs be, a 2nd or even 3rd night can be arranged allowing more flexibility. That way I would have a good idea of numbers. Your help would be appreciated!

MattKid · 02-02-2008 4:40pm

I'll be there on Tuesday, I'll be the one looking distinctly unintellectual:o

Notorious BIG · 04-02-2008 8:06pm

Bump for the evening shift:D

Hopefully it will be a good turn out tomorrow!

cohanlon · 04-02-2008 9:16pm

Hey TristanPeter...I am definitely interested but won't be able to make it tomorrow due to prior commitments on Tuesday evenings. Please keep me posted!! Thanks

TristanPeter · 04-02-2008 9:27pm

I will indeed Cohanlon. What does "bump" mean? Seriously

PopeBuckfastXVI · 04-02-2008 10:25pm

if nobody posts on a thread it gradually moves down the list of threads. To bump is to post on a thread with the specific intention of moving it to the top of the list.

TristanPeter · 05-02-2008 5:23pm

Hi everyone,

Remember...the 1st meeting of BookClub is this evening at 7:30 in Bar No. 8:)

Mrs OBumble · 06-02-2008 12:51am

Bother! I knew there was somewhere I was supposed to be tonight ... just couldn't remember where it was! Sorry

So what was the verdict? Who showed up? What was decided?

DEmeant0r · 06-02-2008 1:49am

Ah crap, knew I was forgetting something!

What happened?

MattKid · 06-02-2008 10:29am

Good turn out, 11 of us, more than boards beers!

Tristan had done some prep work and organising which got things going well.

Seeing as it's his baby I'll let him fill you in on the details officially

TristanPeter · 06-02-2008 1:09pm

Hello Everybody,

I would like to say thank you to everyone who showed up yesterday evening at the 1st meeting of BookClub. As MattKid just said, 11 people attended so I suppose it was quite successful. These were as follows:

DazBag
Karl W
Hazel F
Secburd
Mattkid
Padraig B
Damien G
Tristanc
Caitriona
Anne Marie
and Myself.

Venue: The group decided that Bar No. 8 was an ideal venue for club purposes and we will continue to hold our meetings here. The bar management said this was fine and the barman even dropped a complimentary cheese selection to our table

Time Allocation per book: It was agreed that we will hold our meetings on a forthnightly basis on a Tuesday evening at the same time (7:30pm). Of course, some interested parties couldn't attend on a Tuesday evening so I would be great if we could get a volunteer to moderate on an alternative week night, if there are enough other people interested. Any volunteers??? Can anyone interested in attending on another evening please post something up here so that we can have an idea of numbers. Also, by having a 2nd evening available, members could switch if for some reason they can't attend on their usual night, as the same books would be discussed.

Book Nominations: For the purposes of getting the ball rolling, I handed out a Top 20 list of books I downloaded off the internet

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html

The group went through the list and we dismissed any book already read so that we could narrow the field. 2 or 3 books had already been read by some members but they didn't mind re-reading them for the sake of the group as they believed that they were definitely worth the read. In the end, 3 books stood out from the list when the vote was finalised and it was agreed that we would read all 3 successively. These were:

1st book to be read by the next meeting (19th Feb) - The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

2nd book to be read by 4th March - the Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

3rd book to be read by 18th March - the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon.

It was suggested by Mattkid that in the future each member, by rota, should be allowed to nominate a book of their own choice to the group as a whole. The rest of the members seemed to think this was a good and fair idea so I suppose after the above-mentioned books are finished, this is how the club will proceed. Karl W suggested also that if a book is nominated that is very long, it could be divided into sections so that the whole thing wouldn't necessarily have to be finished within the 2 weeks. And please, no Bible nominations:)

I think I have covered most topics in relation to our 1st meeting but please fill us in if I haven't. All suggestions from anyone are more than welcome and finally, I would just like to say that I for one had a very nice evening yesterday. I met new people in a nice, peaceful environment where we discussed literature amongst other things. Not a bad evening at all

Creachadóir · 06-02-2008 9:35pm

Hi,
There's a good list of suggested books to mill over on the barry's tea website, and they send out some kind of book club pack if you register. Here's the link for books;
http://www.barrystea.ie/site/bookclub/images/List_summaries.pdf

Richard and Judy have a list of "book club" books that have notes for bookclub members, which I presume would stimulate conversation;
http://www.richardandjudybookclub.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/GreenRoomView?langId=100&storeId=10101&catalogId=15201&greenRoomPage=GreenRoomDownloadDiscussionNotes

and there are also some novel suggestions on Oprah's website
http://www.oprah.com/obc/pastbooks/obc_pastdate.jhtml

This might give members the chance to browse suitable books for discussion. Good luck!

DEmeant0r · 06-02-2008 10:28pm

Cool, thanks for the info. I'll probably be in the meeting on the 4th March with The Time Traveller's Wife read, see you all then!

Oh just to tell you, the next meeting falls directly on Rag week, just giving ye a warning if find that the bar is packed with loud drunk students

Mrs OBumble · 07-02-2008 12:37am

DEmeant0r wrote: »

Cool, thanks for the info. I'll probably be in the meeting on the 4th March with The Time Traveller's Wife read, see you all then!

+1

I can't manage a book in a fortnight, but a month should be ok.

Who knows the cheapest place to buy a copy of this month's book?

DEmeant0r wrote: »

Oh just to tell you, the next meeting falls directly on Rag week, just giving ye a warning if find that the bar is packed with loud drunk students

Oh joy, another event to watch out for. My workmates have just finished warning me about the novena. Now what's this "rag week" thing about? (I'm not from around here, and seriously haven't heard of this one ...)

DEmeant0r · 07-02-2008 1:09am

Rag week is a week devoted to drink, where all college students go mental on the drink and skip all lectures. I'm not looking forward to it, because this year's Rag week is in conjuntion with GMIT, which means there will be 70 odd thousand people in town on the lash.

EDIT: Actually Rag week was meant to be a week for raising money for Charity, Rag week stands for Raise A Grand week. But somehow it got turned into a píssfest.

tristanc · 07-02-2008 8:02am

Def good meeting, many thanks for organizing the book club. Looking forward to discussion in 2 weeks.

TristanPeter · 07-02-2008 11:40am

JustMary wrote: »

+1

I can't manage a book in a fortnight, but a month should be ok.

Who knows the cheapest place to buy a copy of this month's book?

Oh joy, another event to watch out for. My workmates have just finished warning me about the novena. Now what's this "rag week" thing about? (I'm not from around here, and seriously haven't heard of this one ...)

Hi,

I'd say the best place to get a cheap/2nd hand copy of the books is in Charlie Byrne's 2nd hand book shop in the Corn Store, City Centre. It's on the same street as the Augustinian Church and just a few doors away from River Deep Mountain High and Ti na nOg

Panthro · 07-02-2008 12:04pm

ive never been much of a book person, but the family bought me 3books over the xmas:
ross kemps gangs(quite informative, u would read it easily enough)
FBI's most wanted (if u want to make sure ur not nuts, give it a read)
"i predict a riot" (reading it at the mo, i think its brilliant,good easy light hearted read)
before xmas, gawd knows when i last picked up an aul bookeen!

Fobia · 07-02-2008 11:15pm

Arrgh, just saw this thread now. Would like to try this (I say try as god knows if I'll be able to keep up with all those books!), will be at the next one

BOOK CLUB - Galway

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