Why not start a "Book of the Month" sort of thing here.

How about having a "Book of the month" every month, where people may choose to read that particular book for that month and come up with discussions on the chapters read, doubts, clarifications, queries, issues faced while running a piece of code and citing their progress. It will give enthusiasm and motivation for readers of that book to have a company while reading the book.
Any thoughts?

That is an interesting idea and something that has worked in one other forums which I visit. However, the audience here is vastly different from the one in the other forum and I am not sure how well this will be received here.

We already have users who post questions while reading technical books (mainly for certifications), but that isn't exactly what you are proposing here. Maybe choosing a non-technical book might help the interest?

Either way, do you have any book in mind which you want to propose? Depending on the participation, we can then decide if it's something that we can move forward on a regular basis.

By the way, I've awarded your post a Cow (https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/RanchCows) for proposing an interesting idea for the betterment of this site.

We didn't have much success with this when trying it in the real world at work. I think it will go better here though.

Maybe start with a "classic" book so more people will be likely to have read it in the past if not the present?

What an interesting idea! It's hard to predict how well it would work here but I definitely think it's worth trying.

Here's some "classics" from my book collection to get us started with suggestions:

Clean Code - 'Uncle' Bob Martin

Test-Driven Development by Example - Kent Beck

Effective Java - Joshua Bloch

@Jaikiran: Thanks for the cow !! My idea behind this was to read a technical book as a group, I think participation in the thread can give a fair idea if this suits others.

@Tim: My vote for "Effective Java" This book has lots to offer at each read.

Pallavi Sadit wrote:My vote for "Effective Java" This book has lots to offer at each read.

Agreed, I think this would be a great place to start.

Jaikiran Pai wrote:Maybe choosing a non-technical book might help the interest?

There's probably some mileage in that idea but my only thought is where we would host the discussion. For example, I think that Pragmatic Thinking and Learning is an excellent non-technical book but in what forum would we discuss it?

I think we have two choices:
1) A "Book Discussion" forum
2) Use existing forums with the title of the book in the subject

If we go with the second one, it would be the same way we determine where a book promotion book goes - the best possible location. If we go with the first one, we still have the option to move all the posts into the relevant forum after the discussion period is over.

I think having the discussion in a "Book club/discussion" kind of forum as the primary forum would be a good thing. Then depending on the book being discussed, the topic can be added to other relevant forum(s). The advantage with a separate forum is that user can keep a watch on that specific forum, we can use it in our promotional mails to point users to that specific forum and some other similar things.

Pallavi Sadit, We liked your idea so much that we've gone and made it a reality... How awesome is that! (Awesome enough for another Cow, that's for sure)

We have a brand new forum to meet in: The Bunkhouse Lounge

And we have our first feature: Book Club - August 2014 : “Effective Java” by Joshua Bloch

I hope you'll dust off your copy and join us.

Thanks Tim for turning the idea into reality. Will surely join everyone in reading this classic once again!!!