It is impossible to read a book without having an opinion about it, whether you like it or not. You can watch a television programme – or even a film – and have no more to say about it than “It was all right”. Reading a book is a far more involved and involving experience, and much more personal – it’s just you and the author. And when you finish the last page, all kinds of opinions and emotions lie dormant within you, just waiting to be let out.

So what do you do? If you know someone who is reading the same book as you, or has recently read it, you can ring them up and discuss it with them. However, in a world where interests are widening, and more and more books are being published, the chances of someone within your circle reading the same book have diminished. You could always lend someone the book, and then wait for them to finish it before airing your views. Although they might not appreciate you constantly badgering them about whether they’ve finished it yet, and asking “Have you reached the bit where you find out it was the cat who set off the burglar alarm?” can get a very frosty “No” in reply.

This is why book groups began in the first place, so that a group of people could read the same book at the same time. But given all the demands on people’s time, not everyone can spare a whole evening after a day’s grind, or read a book to a deadline, or face the journey. This is what Book Group Online is for. It is a Book Group for the whole population.

In this forum, you are free to vent your opinions to the world, and enter into discussions and debates with other readers about the books you’ve read. You can go into as much or as little detail as you wish, talk about parts of a plot you didn’t like or didn’t get, discuss the characters you liked or didn’t like, correct the author on points of detail, or simply say what you thought. Anything you like really, provided it’s not profane or libellous. This doesn’t necessarily mean tortuous intellectual debates. The important thing is that your opinions and emotions no longer stay dormant within you, and you let them out before they become extinct.

Another purpose of Book Group Online is to give readers the chance to spread the word about books they like – or dislike - to other readers. We want it to be the place you come to browse when you’re deciding what to read next.

This is also the home for wider discussion. Talk about general book-related matters in Central Library, at the top of the main page. Each of the Fiction Genres has its own discussion area, as do the Children & Young Adults forum (one for children, one for grown-ups) and the BGO Book Group. Every six weeks or so, we have a vote to decide on the latest Book Group choice, with a special forum being set up for the winner.

If you want to chat with other book-lovers about subjects outside books, the Anything But Books forum has proved to be extremely popular. There is no restriction on subject matter, as long as it has nothing to do with books!

There is a very detailed FAQ elsewhere which explains how this forum runs, but this is an explanation of the basic principles behind the site.

AUTHORS AND BOOKS: Let’s say you have just read or are thinking of reading ‘The Woman In White’ by Wilkie Collins. You click on Novels – Pre 1900, where you will see a page of the thirty most recent threads in that category, where you can check for threads about Wilkie Collins. Running across the top, you will see a horizontal A to Z list of authors. Click on ‘C’ to check if Wilkie Collins is listed. He is, so click on ‘Wilkie Collins’ and you will see the titles of the most recent threads about his books. You will find one about ‘The Woman In White’. To read it, click on it, agree or disagree, then click on ‘Post Reply’ to impress your own views onto the world.

If there is already a thread on a given book, we would prefer you to add to that rather than begin a new one. Don't worry though if you do start on an existing subject, as I - or one of the moderators - will merge the thread into the existing one.

If you wish to start your own thread about a novel that doesn't yet have its own thread, say Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, stay in Novels – Pre 1900 and click on ‘New Thread’. Where it says ‘Author’, click on the downward arrow and you will see a list of authors listed alphabetically by surname. Scroll down until you find Wilkie Collins. Then write ‘The Moonstone’ where it says ‘Title Of Book / Title Of Thread’. Please try to spell the title of the book accurately. Once you have done that – which takes longer to describe than to do – you are ready to write your thread.

If the author you wish to write about is not listed, go to the ‘Author Not Listed’ part of the screen and type in the author’s first and second name (again, please try to ensure that the name is spelt correctly). Then, as above, type out a title for your thread. After you have posted your new thread, that author’s name will now magically appear in its alphabetical position among the list of authors.

LINKS TO ONLINE STORES: You will find a number of links to Amazon throughout the site, most obviously near the top of the main page. If you click on one of these links and end up making a purchase during your visit, then a small percentage of the purchase price will be paid to Book Group Online, which will help pay for the upkeep of the site. We will be very grateful if you do this, as we are a non-profit making operation and every little helps. It doesn't matter what you buy, from a DVD player to a boxset of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer to, er, a book.

SEARCH: If you’re not sure what forum a book might be in, you should use the very powerful search engine. You can either click on ‘Search This Forum’ or click on ‘Search’ at the top of the page, then type in a keyword (eg a word from the title or the author’s surname) and you should find what you’re looking for. For more information about your Search options, please read the FAQs.

The basic rule of thumb is that we ask you to respect other people’s opinions and beliefs, even if you don’t agree with them. This a forum for free and flowing debate. Please don’t start throwing personal insults around just because someone doesn’t share your views.

You are free to air negative opinions about books and authors, but you are not permitted to make unsubstantiated allegations about living individuals (eg John Jones bites the heads off chickens). Any libellous comments will be taken very seriously, and will result in the deletion of the post by me or by a moderator.

There are plenty of other ways to be offensive, which I don't need to detail here. Offenders will be warned, and if they persist further, will risk being banned from the forum. This hasn't happened yet, and we hope to keep it that way.

Swearing may have become more acceptable in our society, but doesn’t really have much of a place on these forums, which children are likely to read. The worst swear words will automatically be censored and replaced with *******’s. Some mild expletives will be allowed to get through.

Please note that BGO is a community, not an advertising bill board. If you have joined the group merely to advertise then you are wasting your time. All promotional posts are deleted - often within minutes of their being posted. If you have a book to promote you are welcome to do so, but only in Writers' Corner.

BILL MATTHEWS
Book Group Online is the brainchild of Bill Matthews, who has been a writer for twenty years, working mostly in television and radio. Along with Simon Bullivant, he created BBC1’s long-running comedy sports quiz They Think It’s All Over, which he also produced for a number of series. He was also one of the devisers of BBC2’s comedy pop quiz Never Mind The Buzzcocks. He has also produced Liar (presented by Paul Kaye), Mock The Week (presented by Dara O'Briain), and What The Dickens? (presented by Sandi Tolsvig).

He had the idea for Book Group Online when he was on holiday in a Devon apartment, and read a certain novel which had been left there by the owner. He thought it was so bad that, when he returned home, he looked on the Internet for a books forum just so he could rubbish it. Failing to find a forum where he could vent his spleen, he decided he had better create one. This is it. (That book should forever remain nameless, although it was Man And Wife by Tony Parsons.) Ironically perhaps, he has still to vent his feelings about this book on Book Group Online.

We welcome all your comments about Book Group Online. If you have suggestions on how we can improve the site, if you have complaints or even praise, if you are having any problems navigating the site or registering, then please email us. Click on ‘Contact Us’ at the top of the page, and your email will come straight through to us, and we will endeavour to reply as soon as possible.

Book Group Online is fully independent, and is not affiliated to any company. We pledge that, while there may be advertising within the website, we will never allow the use of pop-ups.