Live chat book club
February 15, 2019 12:57 PM   Subscribe

I am looking for an online book club that has scheduled chatroom (or other versions of live chat) discussions. I want the discussion/chat of an in-person book club, but with the convenience of not leaving the comforts of home. Does such a thing exist, or is this one of those "be the change" things?

I have tried and do not care for the forum format of Groups in Goodreads. They tend to be standalone comments/hot takes, rather than a discussion with some sort of flow/cadence and back-and-forth. I've Googled around, but haven't found what I'm looking for yet.
posted by Fig to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (5 answers total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Do you use the Litsy app? I have seen (though not participated in) many groups that do this - they read a book on a set schedule, usually a specified chapter(s) in a given week, and then discuss on a dedicated post at a pre-determined time. The interface is a little clunky (mobile-only), but from what I've seen they tend to be more chatty/discussion-y than Goodreads threads. The Litsy culture is very conversation-focused, despite some UI challenges in the app.

(I seem to recall the Litsy groups calling them "readalongs" instead of book clubs, if that helps your searching at all.)
posted by okayokayigive at 1:16 PM on February 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


The Smart Bitches do (did? I'm not sure I've noticed one recently) this for romance novels. They do an announcement post and then put a live chat widget up at a set time and discuss the book.

It seems like you could plausibly use a combination of FanFare and MeChat to be the change right here on MeFi.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:19 PM on February 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


John Green has founded something called the Life's Library Book Club, which has online discussions about a new book every 6 weeks. There's two paid tiers, but non-paid members can still participate in the discussion, which occurs in parallel in several different discord chat rooms. It may or may not meet your definition of live chat, since the discussion runs for the entire 6 weeks. (I haven't joined, so what I know is from the webpage and various social media/podcast posts/discussions.)
posted by yuwtze at 1:39 PM on February 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


If MeFi has a book club type of thing it would be easy enough (on the technical side of things) to use the MetaFilter Chat server for the meet and chat bit.

but I guess it would be MeFi only.
posted by zengargoyle at 2:20 PM on February 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


Oh, I have been wanting this too! Or a movie discussion club like it. Well, my vision was more for a video call, like zoom or skype.. would you be interested in that as well or are you just aiming for a chat room with text-based interaction? Either way, I'm intrigued. If anyone else out there (including/especially you, OP : ) might be interested in an IR.. IR.. In real.. time? face to face virtual book club, feel free to memail me, I'd be willing to do some legwork.
posted by elgee at 6:27 PM on February 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


« Older Arabic Alphabet Chart?   |   Would you rather... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.