Online Bookclub Experience

I was going to attend a bookclub meeting at a local public library branch, but all meetings and events were suspended due to a certain virus we all know and detest.

I decided to use this opportunity to see what a Goodreads online bookclub is like. I found the pictured "Fantasy Buddy Reads" bookclub, which has 4,336 members and 5 moderators. The moderators come from various backgrounds, including Canada, Korea, and the US. From scrolling through the members, it seemed a good mixture of ages, men and women, and a crowd who doesn't hold back from putting fandom pictures as their profile pic. Even though there's thousands of numbers, the purpose of the bookclub is to connect readers with buddy readers and small group book discussions of fantasy books. To join, I didn't have to answer any questions; I was able to join this group in a second.

The members who have written the most comments have been part of Fantasy Buddy Reads since 2016 and 2017. However, the members last online have left between 0, over 100, and around 1,600 comments. I also noted the members who were most recently active on the page have several hundreds and thousands of books added to their bookshelves:

The home page features the list of 5 books currently being read, along with the start and finish dates. They aim to read two books per month, so the due dates of current reads were between March 10th-15th. Books on currently-reading include:

• Queens of the Darkness by Anne Bishop
• Written in Red by Anne Bishop
• The Binding by Bridget Collins
• Mage's Blood by David Hair
• India by Sherwood Smith

I popped in all the book threads and found lots of activity and engagement. I found that each book discussion thread is created and guided by one of the 5 moderators, which explains how there are 5 current reads. Only moderators can add books to their to-read bookshelf.

Within the thread of each book, one could invite someone to "buddy read" that title with you in order to keep each other accountable to read. The moderator features the process and steps to do this, and I found several people taking on buddy readers.

Beyond these main 5 books, there's a topic thread of "What's going on this month?" which makes a nice one-stop place to see all the other challenges that are occurring. These topics are all managed by moderators, and most conversation threads have a moderator replying each member's comment. To me, this made it seem like too much activity by the moderators, but on the other hand, it shows their dedication to the group. And with having so many members, maybe this strict diligence is what has kept this bookclub strong. I do think dividing up each book discussion and other threads between the 5 moderators was a good choice; that way each thread isn't littered with comments from all the moderators, just the one charged with guiding that particular discussion.

Members are given free range in the topic thread "unofficial" bookclub reads which aren't the featured 5. Moderators posts within these threads are few; from my searching, when moderators do comment, it's to help organize the discussion within the threads. Most of them have seen recent engagement by members, too:

To me, the atmosphere of Fantasy Buddy Reads feels diverse, fun, and bustling. While the large number of different threads and topics made me anxious at first, I found it works well for this club. One is never stuck with reading just one book. Plus, the unofficial threads leaves room for members to be creative. Or one could disregard reading the main books and just join in the wide variety of book-related challenges:  

Ultimately, I find the array of topics and challenges to keep the club engaging, but to benefit from being a member, one would have to commit to very frequent visits, especially if you have a buddy reader. Although after there's an established habit of engagement, I'm sure it's easy to check regularly. For me right now, I don't think I can consistently keep up with Fantasy Buddy Reads, but I'll certainly stop in every now and then to see which books were selected and browse the challenges.