My book club nearly fell apart over whether we count audiobooks as reading

Last month at my book club in Portland, we had a huge debate that almost split the group. I brought up that I listened to the latest pick on audio during my commute, and one member got really upset. She said it doesn't count as reading because you aren't processing the words the same way. Another member jumped in and said audiobooks changed her life after she developed vision problems. We spent a solid 45 minutes going back and forth with people getting pretty heated. I ended up suggesting we vote on whether to allow audiobook listeners to participate in discussions. Three people actually threatened to leave if we allowed it. Has anyone else dealt with this kind of split in their group over formats like audiobooks or e-readers?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_logan3d ago

Dealt with this exact thing in my group a few years back. We ended up just agreeing that anyone can join the discussion as long as they've engaged with the book in some way, no questions asked. Has it smoothed things over for you all yet?

drew_west3d agoMost Upvoted

My cousin's book club had a similar rule but then one guy showed up having only read the Wikipedia summary and spent the whole night arguing about a character name he got wrong. They changed the rule to "actually finished the book" after that.