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Would anyone be interested in some type of Cook The Book Of The Month Club?

We'd have to work out the parameters, but basically we would select a book with a theme, either a culture, a food, a style, or something (baking, grilling, Indian, German, Chocolate, etc), or maybe just a hot best seller.  We'd all acquire (either purchase or library) the book, and cook from it as often as practicable during the month. 

Post about it here; share experiences, tips, photos, etc.

Maybe (and this may be way out of line - Jane forgive me if it is) Jane can ask the Book Depository if they would give all members a special discount on the selected book during that month.

Does this concept interest anyone?  We'd have to decide how the book will be selected and how we'll set it up, but it might provide for some good interaction among us.

I was thinking we could do something along these lines when the membership had expanded a bit.  These groups can be great fun and a learning process as we all share our experiences with the recipes.  I'm involved with the Cookbook of the Month on Chowhound which has a very active community.  

I think there needs to be more members, and more people posting, to make it work.  But let's see what kind of response your excellent suggestion gets.  I can certainly approach The Book Depository and see whether we could get a special deal.

As interesting as it would be to compare notes on cooking and baking, I have to say I probably would pass on such a group.  I feel like I don't need more incentive to put off really getting to know and use the books I already have.  That's why I joined EYB and why I continue to love using it!

What would be great in my opinion would be to do a sort of monthly theme.  Years ago the (baking) blogging community did this, called Sugar High Fridays, where someone would choose an ingredient or a genre (i.e. chocolate, coffee, bar cookies, tarts, boozy) and the participants would post their creations.  Now, this is a website with a forum rather than a bunch of bloggers, but if we could find a way to utilize the recipes we already have in a fun community-building way I would totally get in to that!

I was just thinking today that perhaps a daily/weekly/monthly challenge might be a fun way to build up comments and ratings of recipes. Set a theme/ingredient/cuisine/technique for the challenge; choose recipe(s) from EYB-indexed books (that can be a challenge in itself, sometimes) and make them; then, most important to the challenge, enter your comments and ratings here at EYB.

Of course, I am not averse to acquiring more cookbooks, but like jzanger, I KNOW I have untapped wealth already on my shelves.

hmm, I think what we've got now is two ideas for separate challenges.  One is about using what we haven't discovered in our own collections, and one is about thoroughly getting to know newly published books as they're added to people's collections.  I don't really need anyone's prompting to use The Silver Palate or Barefoot Contessa or any of the other most popular books.

I'd be up for cooking from books I already own, but am really, really trying not to buy many more. An impossible task, I know!

Am working on adding my books and it will grow significantly to over 1200, I think. I am/have run out of space and hopefully as I move into my newly renovated and almost finished sewing/cookbook room, I will weed some out. This is a very difficult thing to do as I'm sure most of you know.

I have many, many cookbooks I have never cooked from, and anything that would encouage me to pillage those virgins can only be a good thing.....

Mo

I would be very interested in a 'Book of the Month' forum. I think that choosing the most popular books on members' bookshelves would be a good place to start.

However, I have only recently joined this site, and by looking at the most owned books I can see that there are not yet many members from the U.K. In order for all of us to have the opportunity to participate, it would be great to have both a 'Book of the Month' plus a theme of the month. In particular I would be interested to read members' views on the best recipe from different books for the same dish. 

I like the idea of a cookbook of the month club as i am not adverse to adding to my collection; but i realise this may be a dilema for others. Either way I would love to partcipate whether it be in the form of using a particular book or  nominating a theme/recipe that we use to cook out of the books we already own. It would provide a great way for me to find new authors and books I may be interested in acquiring. Hope something gets off the ground.