Vent: Our book club just finished our 50th book and the number made me realize something weird

We hit 50 books last week, which felt like a big deal (we even had cake). But looking back at the list, I realized 42 of them were written by men. That really surprised me. We're a group of eight people, mostly women, and we never set out to pick books that way. It just sort of happened over the last few years. I brought it up at the meeting and it started a huge debate. Half the group said it doesn't matter who wrote the book if the story is good, and that tracking it is making it about something it shouldn't be. The other half, me included, thinks we've accidentally built a blind spot and should try to be more aware for the next 50. Has your club ever had a moment like this where the numbers showed you something you didn't expect?

3 comments

3 Comments

jana_hayes312mo ago

Oh man, this hits home. My group had the same exact wake up call a while back, but with authors of color. We just weren't seeing it until someone actually counted. What worked for us was making a simple rule for a while: the next six books, we had to pick from a list of all women writers. It wasn't about saying the books by men were bad, but more about shaking up our habits. It really opened our eyes to some amazing stories we were missing, and now our picks are way more mixed without us even trying that hard.

hill.lucas2mo ago

Forcing your book club to pick only women authors for six months is just reverse bias. My friend's group tried that and ended up reading three books they all hated just to fill a quota. It made the whole club feel like homework instead of fun. The goal should be picking good books, not checking identity boxes. Art should stand on its own, not get picked because of the writer's gender or race. That kind of rule just breeds resentment and kills the joy of reading.

the_brooke2mo ago

See it more like a reset button. My group did something similar and it just fixed our blind spot. Now we find good books without even trying.