A Woman in My Book Club Never Reads the Books. Can I Expose Her?
From the Ethicist:
I get why you're peeved. These gatherings thrive on authentic engagement, and when a person parachutes in with secondhand wisdom, it's like bringing a paint-by-numbers kit to a life-drawing class. Still, the first rule of book clubs is that someone will always show up having read only the first chapter and the last page, armed with three profound observations from Goodreads. Your job, in any case, isn't to police her page turns. Cast yourself as the enforcer, and you betray the spirit of a group dedicated to forging connections through stories.
Instead, consider pulling her aside after the next meeting. Let her know that her own reactions to the text will mean more than the stuff anyone can find online — that she's depriving the group of her own authentic response. Critics can't replicate what happens when a particular reader, someone you know, meets particular words at a particular moment in her life.
Yes, if she insists on dominating the discussion with borrowed insights, you could offer a gentle redirect — asking about a moment the reviewers may not have touched on. ('What did you make of Patrice's experience as a waterjack?') But the goal isn't to humiliate her; it's to steer the energy toward what matters: the strange, messy business of human beings encountering a book and trying to make sense of what it has done to them. Keep the focus there, and maintain your small, imperfect community. One thing you'll have learned from your books, after all, is that the flawed characters are always the most human.
A Bonus Question
I'm part of a group of four college friends who, though living in different parts of the country, still see one another once or twice a year and have frequently traveled together. We are now in our mid-70s. While sorting through old papers, one of the group recently discovered a $1,000 check written from me to him in October 2014 with the words ''trip deposit'' written on the memo line. The check is uncashed, and neither of us can remember what the check was for. We took a European trip together as a group in July 2015, and our best guess is that the check was connected to that trip.
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