Raven

There's no accomplishment there - I've not learnt the languages! - you just type English into Google Translate and that spits out the same text in whatever language you select!

I honestly hope it works out for you all - I know what it is like to lose a forum you have invested a lot of time in and I don't envy anyone going through the same process. Set up a Patreon account and get willing members to contribute! (if finances are the concern!). But... Do stick around here as well, if you feel so inclined!

^ Latin pops up occasionally in the Rivers of London books. I use Google Translate quite a bit, and regularly at work when replying to customers all around the globe. If you had told me 20+ years ago - when I first started the job - that I would regularly be conversing with people in French, German, Spanish etc. in their own language I would have laughed square in your face, but with the wonders of modern technology...

Very sadly, indeed. Also, regular members cannot edit thread titles once posted, can they?

Never got that far! I think the furthest I got was just after they signed on the Pequod.

I still intend to read and finish that. Tried twice, but failed both times (but I did enjoy what I read, in an odd way). If I had an excuse for staying indoors for an extended period, I might get around to it. Oh...

To be honest, I mainly remember the plot of The Time Machine from the George Pal film*, rather than the book (though there are differences). *Which I still love, by the way.

Not cold war, but in case you are interested there is a Ben Macintyre documentary on BBC Four tonight at 9pm (D-Day spies).

I've managed a mere 5 from that list! (although I probably have another 10 or more on the shelf to read, or on my Kindle). Personally, I would rate The War of the Worlds over The Time Machine. The class commentary in the latter isn't very subtle and wears a bit thin after a while, and I just don't think it is as well written.

Another list of books you should read, this time of classic novels as voted for by Penguin's readers: https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2018/100-must-read-classic-books.html Will have a proper look tonight, but the first page seems pretty by the numbers.

Yours for just 99p on the Kindle, today!

I have the 1st of the series, though not read yet. I think I bought it after Hayley’s review. (Why bother typing your own reply when you can copy and paste someone else's...)

Not to be jingoistic, but I suspect there are a lot of American readers who would like that!

Stranger Things 4 teaser trailer just dropped... Stranger Things 4 | Eleven, are you listening? | Netflix - YouTube

I don't think the forum itself is complicated, and whilst the feedback from the BGO members is useful in some ways - a fresh pair of eyes, and all that - it is also unhelpful in other ways, because like our own views it is coloured by the way their forum works (what I am saying is we've all got preconceived ideas about how a forum should work that other potential new members probably won't have - unless they too are used to other forum boards). I personally think the biggest hurdle to attracting and retaining new members isn't how the forum itself is structured, or how and where people make posts, it is how quickly we can make new members feel a part of the forum without them feeling like they are intruding into a clique. I'm not sure how we go about addressing that... Were it possible, I suspect the most valuable feedback we could get would be from people who have joined, posted a few times, but subsequently decided the forum isn't for them. As an aside - a suggestion for when the forum has moved to Invision - would be to e-mail all former forum members to tell them about the upgrade and to invite them back - not sure how easy that is or what the likely take up would be...

I wouldn't put it that strongly, and if it helps it wasn't the only reason I didn't join (the other reasons had nothing to do with BGO).

I believe that the novels and the novellas are now being presented as accounts of events in the past as written up by their authors at the time (not sure when this started, might have been Foxglove Summer, but it has been going on for a few books now). As far as I can make out, they appear to be a plot device to explain any slang terms used for US readers and are presented in the books as footnotes from Postmartin to Agent Reynolds.

My neighbours were sitting in their hot tub early yesterday evening; they didn't hang around long once the rain started!

Which is why I followed that comment up with one about browsing I think an important point to make here is that people don't have to have a blog to post book reviews; members are free to post as they like and although most now choose to put their reviews in a blog - I suspect mainly to keep track of their reading history, as much as anything - people are still free to post individual reviews in the appropriate section. Also, I'm not sure if posters from BGO are aware of this, most of the blogs have a list of the books the thread's author has read, that can be browsed and then the reviews found from there. When this forum was looking like it was going to close - a couple of years back - I did take a look around some other book forums and BGO was one of the ones I decided against joining because there seemed to be a lot of single posts that made it look like there was very little discussion taking place. This is a small forum with a small population of members who, like BGO, have mostly been posting here for an extended period, so member's book blogs probably are a little more familiar than they would otherwise be if they were just being written as straight review threads. I guess it depends what you are looking for. If you are only interested in books then I can see why you might not like this approach, but if you are looking to be part of an active community then I think any discomfort you may currently be feeling will wear off as you get more familiar with the locals. I also don't think most people will object if you post negative comments about a book they liked, provided it's done in a constructive way and with respect.

All gone a bit blowy out there, with lots of wet stuff hitting my window. Glad I've got the day off tomorrow!

People used to put links in the genre threads to reviews they had posted in their own blogs. So, for example, if someone reviewed a Jane Austin novel in their blog they might put a link to the review in an existing Jane Austin thread. I do think people should do one or the other, however, in preference to posting the same content twice. But how are they best filled? One of the problems of starting a new thread for every review is that sections quickly fill up with threads with very few comments. If someone is looking for comments about a specific book, they are going to use the search function, not wade through multiple pages of a genre thread. If someone is just browsing, a blog is just as valid as individual threads (and blogs can help to give a better context for a review than an individual thread because you can see what others books the reviewer has read and what they thought of them). The one reason you might want to have individual threads for individual books is if you are looking to bump up your rating in a search engine, as a thread title will score more highly for a subject than a post in a thread, but search engine optimisation is a whole other ball game and probably shouldn't be used to determine a format people should post too. ETA: Forgot this bit: Regarding the Reading Circle; this used to be monthly, and a member would nominate a book and then take charge of a thread where they would ask questions on that book, that the other forum members who took part would then answer.

I think there are merits and draw backs to both approaches, but I don't think it should be prescribed that people should post in a set way.

Possibly, I can't recall how either worked now, but something where members read and comment on the same book.

It's cosplay, isn't it? Well, I'm not dressing up as Jane Austin again... Well, you did ask... On a more serious note, I'll just throw this one out there for thought: We have a section called Books Search and Reading Recommendations, which is subtitled: This section has a dual purpose, to help you if you're searching for the title of a particular book, or if you're looking for new reading suggestions. It seems to me that in that section we have an awful lot of the former and not a whole lot of the latter (in fact, the last time I checked, we didn't appear to have any member recommendations in the thread!) Most of the posts about books that are made on the forum take place in individual user's threads and usually they take the form of book reviews; it is rare for someone to specifically start a post to recommend a book and tell people why they should read it. What if the existing section were split in two, with the first section being kept for book searches (and people wanting recommendations for books that are like other books they have read) and a second, new section, where members are encouraged to recommend books or series they think others should read? The idea wouldn't be for people just to write a one line "Read Twilight, 'cause its aces!" type comment, but to explain a little about the book and author, and to explain why it is worth reading. The return of a semi-regular book group might not be be a bad idea, as well.

Hullo! (Although I must admit, I thought you'd said hello before!) You say you like to read widely, but what genres and authors do you prefer? Who is your favourite author (if you can narrow it down to just the one!) Ah, yes; there's nothing like an approaching deadline and a stroppy boss...