Anyone fancy joining me in a new swap club?

[artifarti]

I love reading and now that DS can entertain himself for a while trashing my lounge is 8 mo I am finally getting back into the swing of things. But I always read the same kind of books and so would love to have something different sprung on me!

Here's the basics of how it works (thank you Flamesparrow)

How it works

[ Arti sits back and waits for the flood of recruits, hoping that she doesn't end up looking like a no-mates...]

Agree with the price limit,good plan!

just arrived back and so much has happened. Am loving the book'n'choc combo. Is all so marvellous and am off to excitedly look at amazon for ideas.

I am a dark chocolate fan too. Yummy yum yum.

Oooooh it's all so exciting!!

I love the book & chocolate combination too Fantastic to receive a pack in the post with a lovely book AND chocolate.

Small question: are we going to email the person we're sending the book to, to get their address & also to let them know what book we're sending? Even though that spoils the surprise, I think it's a good idea because otherwise many people may end up receiving books they already have read (or own). What do others think?

Morning All!

To summarise yesterday's discussions (oooh, get me!):

Shall we call it "The Of Mice and Maltesers Book Swap Club" then?

Choc price limit of £2? That will get you anything from a Curly-Wurly to a big bar of G&B round here. [Arti laments her bar of Montezuma's...] It's just a pity that wine is so expensive to post or we'd have the perfect book club...

Contemporary works? Shall we say 20th and 21st century only?

Objections anyone?

Right, I'll do a new post to summarise where we're at and what happens now...

Right...

The list is:

artifarti (posts a book and choc to...)
aristocat (posts a book and choc to...)
Dysgu (etc....)
humptyNdumpty
poshwellies
whinegums
stickylittlefingers
MrsMuddle
LolaLadybird
Itsjustafleshwound
pooter
muddleduck
LadyBee
Fly ingMonkey
Maria2007 (posts a book and expensive choc to artifarti...)

Rules:
No chicklit
No abuse memoir type stuff
No horror
No hardbacks
No pre 20th century
No non-fiction except auto-biogs

Posting date: 1st of the month, starting June 1st.

Next steps:

1. Decide on your book

2. Email the following details to me at: artifarti at hotmail dot co dot uk (this avoids us all having to set CAT up and pay for it, which I for one haven't got my head around)

a) Your Mumsnet name
b) The name and address you want the book sent to (your own, presumably)
c) The initials of the book title and author you have chosen e.g. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte becomes WH by EB
d) Any chocolate preferences or hatreds or allergies.

3. When I have everyone's details who wants to play, I will send an email to each of you with the details of the person you will post a book/choc to each month. So, I will only send your details to one person on the list. I promise not to sell your details to Reader's Digest etc.

Phew! How does that sound? Are we there do you think?

Oh Blls, I see what you mean, Maria*. I worry that it is going to get very complicated...even if we could check that the next person on the list hasn't read it, there's no guarantee further down the line IYSWIM? Maybe we should just try and pick things we don't think most people have read (so not Booker nominees, ones that every man and his dog are always reading on the Tube/buses etc.)

(Your RL Book Club sounds good, count me in. I don't leave my Borough much these days (!) but will have to venture back into Central London when I go back to work. If I turn up and you're all wearing cravats and saying things like "Hmmm, yes, in my opinion the weather is symbolic of the working's man's struggle against capitalism" I will have a panic attack and go home.)

Cheers for doing this Arti. I think we (you!) have to keep it as simple as possible, so if peeps have already read the book(s), then it's just one of those things, they still get chocolate and they still get to discuss it. Otherwise it will get horribly complicated.

However, it might be worth posting the whole list of books once they've all been sent to you, to stop anyone buying a book they're going to get to read anyway. I know it might spoil the surprise a bit, but for the first go at this, I vote for simplicity.

What about posting the list on a new thread, that way if you want to look you can and if you want the surprise (as I do) then you can hide the thread?

Oh but then that spoils arti's surprise.

I say tough, if you've read it before then its just one of them things. Lets keep the surprise!

OK have sent the details to artifacti

But () artifacti, your email box seems to be full so I keep getting failure notices...

Aha - that's probably because I am artifaRti not artifaCti! [tuts at Maria getting her name wrong all this time! ]

Hi there arti,
I have emailed you my details, hope you got them.
Are we putting our MN name on our books?
Will check back in later with everyone.

Cheerio !

Received aristocat! Very organised!

Good point about writing MN name in front of book.

ArtifaRti, I've now managed to send you the email (plus another one about the RL book club). It's funny; I was walking in the park with DS about 2 hours ago, & I started thinking 'why on earth are those emails bouncing back?!' and then I thought 'maybe I've got the name wrong & it's artifaRti... because artifaCti doesn't make that much sense!!' Anyway. Hope it worked

Question girls: I assume the book we send is one we've personally read & enjoyed? and one that maybe we therefore want to discuss? or could it be any book? and also: is it a book we actually own (and we send our own copy)? Or do we buy it & send it e.g. from amazon

I'm sending a book that I've read and hope others will enjoy. I'm ordering a second copy via Amazon (but from third party buyer so it's only costing £1.40!) as I don't want to give away my own copy and DH loves it too so would kill me if we didn't get it back.

Artifarti - I've just emailed you.

dear flyingmonkey,
thats what i've done!

my book is one of my favourites - i have already got a new copy which i'm gonna use for our club.
and now i'm gonna get another one incase it doesnt come back.
having to be organised darling horrors children both having BD in 2 weeks and going on hols too.

still excited?

Hi.
I've just emailed my details.
I'm also sending one of my favourites ...
Can't wait for the chocolate books to start arriving

I've emailed you Artifarti..

Can't wait to devour the books and the chocolate .

Ooh, I've not decided what book to send yet. I'll email you by Friday, when I've made a final decision.

Can't wait to get started!

Still deliberating on book choice. I can think of a couple of modern-day classics which are old favourites but then there's a good chance they've already been read by others ... so I'm probably going to go for something less critically acclaimed but that I really enjoyed reading.

Right, need to stop deliberating and go to bed ...

I havent decided on a book yet but we've got a few weeks havent we?

I've done mine, and ordered a new copy from Amazon, so I don't mind if it goes astray, gets chocolatey fingerprints, wine stains, etc.

Gosh, you are all so organised! Confirm that I have received details from aristocat, Maria2007, FlyingMonkey, muddleduck, poshwellies and whinegums.

Have finally got round to thinking about which book...it is quite hard, isn't it? I look at my favourites but then think "What if everyone says they think it's the biggest load of cr*p they have ever read?" I think I would have to flounce off MN...

hi!
i can't decide which book to send - it feels like the book will be a representation of myself, and therefore if people dont like it, it will mean they dont like ME! AAaaagghhh!

I think i know what im sending, but not sure if its rather dull for everyone else. Maybe i will have another look at my bookshelves

Does anyone object to books with filthy bits in?

Disclaimer: Arti does not sit around reading dirty books all day