Welcome to the club! I'm trying to decide on a starting date for our first read (a poll for the book will be in the club page).

The two recommendations I received, based on reading schedules for other clubs, are February 15 or March 15. I'm happy with either one! So please let me know what works for you, and I'll make the book poll accordingly.

The main thing for me is that I probably need minimum 10 day notice to get my hands on the book, unless it's one I already own! So, my idea would be to read one either every other month or quarterly, and to schedule the books in advance.

This would probably mean March 15, or even April 15.

In terms of book order - I'm hearing good things about pretty much all of her books. It sounds like the pre-rejection six are more light-hearted than the post-rejection seven, starting with Quartet in Autumn. QiA is noted as a strong book, but also with much darker themes.

Just for the sake of the discussion:

Some Tame Gazelle (1950)
Excellent Women (1952)
Jane and Prudence (1953)
Less than Angels (1955)
A Glass of Blessings (1958
No Fond Return of Love (1961)
Quartet in Autumn (1977)
The Sweet Dove Died (1978)
A Few Green Leaves (1980)
An Unsuitable Attachment (written 1963; published posthumously, 1982)
Crampton Hodnet (completed circa 1940, published posthumously, 1985)
An Academic Question (written 1970–72; published posthumously, 1986)
Civil to Strangers (written 1936; published posthumously, 1987)

We could go a number of different ways:

1. Publication order. Since we started with Excellent Women, that would mean that we go back to Some Tame Gazelle, skip EW, and then move on to Jane and Prudence, etc. I would probably vote for this order, mostly because I'm weird about reading things in order these days, and also because I've heard that characters do sometimes show up in later novels. However, because they are not in a series, I am okay with reading them out of order.

2. Random order. The group can pick a new book after we finish a book, based on what everyone feels like reading.

3. Alternating: We could alternate between her first six and her last six. Since we read EW first, this would mean that we would choose a book published after 1961.

I think that this is going to be a lot of fun!

This afternoon (my time), I added all her books to the "next book" page, so we can also vote each time on which book we want to read next.

Personally I'm fine with any and all of them (and also pretty much any reading order / selection method) -- with only the slight caveat that the "Marvellous Spinster" feature that LA shared warned it would not be a good idea to start with Crampton Hodnet.

Have heard good things, though, about Quartet in Autumn (which comes particularly highly recommended), Some Tame Gazelle, and Jane and Prudence (which judging by the collection on Goodreads alone seems to be another eminently quotable book).

In terms of timing, my only input would be that middle of the month -- whichever month -- sounds more feasible, since we already have the first of the month as a start date for the alternating bimonthly "Flat Book Society" and Discworld reads.

I am looking forward to this!

Reply to post #2 (show post):
Thank you so much for the detailed feedback!

I think availability of books is going to drive a lot of decisions, both in terms of dates and materials. There's currently a list of books up for voting (huge thanks to Themis for doing this!), and I'll assume that a vote for a book means that the person has it available, or can get it soon. So that might be how I pick the first. So far, Quartet in Autumn has the most votes, last I checked. I managed to get a paperback copy fairly quickly when I started looking for more of Pym's novels.

In terms of dates, I'm leaning towards March 15. I wanted to keep the momentum going after the great Excellent Women read-along, but it's hard to get hold of some of these books (not many on ebook, at least where I am), so I don't want to rush into anything this month. I really like the every other month idea; there aren't many books, and these novels require time to digest! Eventually, we might be able to broaden the scope to include similar authors.