David from LoveliestBookGroup.com was asked in 2012 to give an interview to a newspaper in Norway about his experience with book groups, the questions seemed to focus on the perceived gender gap in those who participate in book groups and those who don’t. His answers are below:
1) What made you join a book club?
I was looking for other people who love exploring different authors and who bring entirely new perspectives to the texts we read. I wanted to feed my head.
2) What do you get out of it?
Aside from the pleasure of reading works I’d likely never be exposed to otherwise, book club offers a safe place to think and feel about words. Every day we are drenched in prosaic, stunted tabloid dross, dulling our appetites for rich and powerfully-constructed passages. Book club reminds us we are alive and sensual beings with imaginations beyond what we’re fed by television.
3) What do your (male) friends think of it?
I don’t get any directly negative responses, most of my friends express interest in what we read. I think it reinforces their view of me as pretty serious and studious — a view I don’t dissuade.
4) Do you find that the men in your group’s views often substantially differ from the women’s?
It’s not often we split opinions down gender lines although, memorably, Nabokov’s Lolita inspired one of our most dramatic gender-biased discussions. More often we find our different countries of origin spark the most conflicting opinions. Graham Greene novels, for some reason, evoke wildly divergent reactions between the Brits and Americans amongst us. We even read science fiction.
5) What do you think of the following statement by a female member of a reading group: ‘Men don’t enjoy the process of discussing that much. They have a firm opinion and that is it’.
I take umbrage with the notion men eschew literary discussion or debate, it has not been my experience. All the men in our book group are fully-engaged, open and considerate contributors. They come by choice, participate vigorously and return with enthusiasm month after month.
Epilogue
No doubt there are book groups which struggle to find solid male participants, which is a shame. And to generalise that men don’t enjoy the process of discussing books seems horribly one-dimensional. We, as a group, have always tried to maintain a balance of diversity, be it gender, age or nationality. Diversity of thought and perspective leads to genuinely revealing insights — about the books, and about the people. The discussion inevitably suffers when we have a univocal opinion on a book; thankfully, it’s a rare event.
It would be very interesting to hear how other book groups handle gender splits, perhaps some readers would be willing to share their experiences as every group handles it differently.