[LRUG] Computer Science / Mathematics book group

[Sam Livingston-Gray]

> ------------------------------
> Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 14:28:34 +0000
> From: Tim Cowlishaw <tim at timcowlishaw.co.uk>
> To: London Ruby Users Group <chat at lists.lrug.org>
> Subject: Re: [LRUG] Computer Science / Mathematics book group
>
> I'd assumed that a book might take more than one month, and that we
> could decide how many chapters to cover each month, then continue
> until finishing before picking a new book. However, it needn't be that
> formalised - perhaps if we have  a text to discuss, read as much of it
> as we each want to, then at each meeting decide by consensus whether
> to continue into another month or start something else, that could
> also work too... James's idea might also be useful here, if we've got
> a queue of books ready, then those who read quickly can progress on to
> the next one and offer those who need more time a bit of a preview of
> what to expect.

/delurks briefly

For the past 2-3 months, I've been participating in a geek book  
discussion list in PDX.  We haven't been doing CS books -- started  
with "The Fifth Discipline" and went on to "The Brain That Changes  
Itself".

Our experience was that lots of people showed up for the first  
session, but it quickly pared down to a core group of 4-6, with some  
people attending occasionally.  One issue was "book fatigue" -- we  
went through the first book at a regular pace of 50-75 pages every 2  
weeks, and by the end, staying at home lying on the couch seemed like  
a better idea.  (=  For the second book, we took a progressive  
approach -- 1-2 chapters the first time, 2-3 the next two times, and  
then "as much of the rest as you want to read" the last time.  I  
expect we'll have a retrospective and iterate again at the end of this  
book (this evening); I'd be happy to compare notes later.

Enjoy!  Keep doing this sort of thing and I'll be more and more  
tempted to hop the pond... ;>

-Sam