Read This Delightful NY Times Article About Men Who Don’t Like Books By And About Women
"Criteria: 1. No books by women about women (our cardinal rule)."
Today The New York Times Men’s Style section published an article about an all-male reading group in California called the Man Book Club, which only read books written by men about men. If you’re looking for some jaunty Friday lunchtime reading, look no further!
Cool cool. Doesn't sound stupid at all. pic.twitter.com/ygfD87HOiA
— Bhakthi (@bhakthi) May 6, 2016
The article, which covers a few all-male book clubs but really focuses on the Man Book Club, begins thrillingly with the fellas sitting around to discuss a novel, and chomping down on some animal testicle tacos. “The fun part was looking at the expressions,” said the club’s founder, Andrew McCullough. “Some guys had real difficulty swallowing. I kept eating. I have standards I need to adhere to, as secretary and founder.”
The book club has been going for nine years and is made up of 16 members in their fifties. Their reading ‘criteria’ for reading material is as follows: “1. No books by women about women (our cardinal rule). 2. Under 500 pages. 3. Author has won/been nominated for a major literary award (or any award).”
Sounds lit.
Founder Mr. McCullough explains that his own jealousy at his wife’s book club was the catalyst for creating his own, but now “our wives are jealous of us” because their club is so much better then her dumb club, which doesn’t even have proper rules. “We’ve created something that is more durable. The book club my wife belongs to — there’s a lot of changeover,” he says.
“We do not read so-called chick lit. The main character cannot be a woman.”
Riiiiight! So, the idea is that books written by and about women, cannot offer anything to male readers (or that they’re too trivial for serious book readers such as themselves). Perhaps this is because the default experience of fiction/anything, is that of the white male, so the idea of relating to a viewpoint which is not white and male, seems unfathomable (whereas non-white males have been doing it for years).
Another less-weird group mentioned briefly called the Houston Men’s Book Club, claims that these groups gives men an outlet to talk about their emotions. But why can you only talk about your emotions while exclusively reading books written by men about men?
(men.)
Haha, this is so weird. If you’d like to read along with the Man Book Club, check out their reading list here. They also list their top five books of all time, which of course includes Heart of Darkness and In Cold Blood. No Hemingway, though! I mean, they’re not lit bro stereotypes, or anything.
TGIF, everyone!
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