What do you mean? How is anything going to get skewed? The book the majority of people want to read should "win" regarless.

You want the books to each compete with each other first so that we can have proper seeding in the playoffs?

How about everybody just rank the top 5 books in the order of their interest. Once that is done it is 10 minutes work to do a weighted calculation of everybody's list and see what comes out on top.

This way all nominations remain equally in play. So for example, my vote might be:

1. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
2. The Seducer (by Jan Kjaerstad ?)
3. Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner
4. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
5. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

In the calcuation (which again is easy with two minutes in Excel), #1 gets 5 points, #2 gets 4 ,#3 gets 3, #4 gets 2, and #5 gets 1. Most points wins. And I'll volunteer to do the math.

Or, in the long lasting book clubs I'm aware of the book selection is not a democracy. They have a system for rotating the book selection among the participants so that every regular gets a turn just picking something for the whole group.

They find this leads to greater diversity where voting tends to produce the similar middle ground.

I say, lets for for this method - if everyone agrees (and Alex volunteers to do the math ;)).

What happened to I, Lucifer?

You buried it at the end of a paragraph in post and I missed. Skimming, I must have just assumed you were talking about yourself, not nominating a book. ;)

1. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
2. The Seducer (by Jan Kjaerstad ?)
3. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
4, Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner
5. I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan
Or, if the Duncanbook isn't an option:
5. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

I did not even votefor the books I have already read.

I really like this idea, as I'd love to read something picked by various people.

How about each of us that has nominated multiple books just pare it down to one for this month?

I'll keep Miracle Life of Edgar Mint and eliminate Middlesex.

1. The Kite Runner
2. Cadillac Desert
3. I, Lucifer
4. The Time Traveler's Wife
5. Devil In The White City

This is too hard. And I'm way too lazy to look all these up on amazon in order to rank them.

I'll see what y'all settle on and if I have the time and am interested in the book, I'll read with you. If not, I won't.

Apathy. Sometimes it's a good thing.