Our book club in Chicago split apart last month over whether we should read books by canceled authors

The debate got heated. Half the group wanted to pick a novel by someone who said some sketchy stuff online a few years back. The other half said no way, we shouldn't support them. Three of our members straight up quit after the vote went 6-5 to include the book. Has your club dealt with this? How do you even decide where to draw the line?

3 comments

3 Comments

blair_allen2mo ago

Totally been there man, our group in Phoenix had the exact same blowup last year. We ended up losing four people after a vote went sideways over an author with some old tweets that came back to haunt them. It’s brutal because everyone has a different line for what’s forgivable and what’s not, and nobody wants to back down.

barbara27823d ago

Oh man, I feel this so hard. We had the same thing happen in our group over a true crime author who turned out to have some really ugly beliefs. What finally worked for us was setting a clear rule: we vote on books, but we keep author politics completely out of it unless the work itself is directly offensive. That way everyone can pick books they like without having to defend everyone's personal history. It didn't fix everything overnight, but it at least gave us a framework so nobody felt blindsided again. Did you guys ever find a way to talk about it without it getting personal?

taylor3052mo ago

Our group in Austin actually tried a different approach after a similar split. We agreed to read the book but donate all proceeds from the month's dues to a charity the author would hate. It was a weird compromise but it kept everyone at the table, even if nobody was totally happy. That said, I think you meant "drew" instead of "draw" in your question about where to draw the line. Little details like that trip me up sometimes when I type fast on my phone too. The whole thing is messy and I don't think there's one right answer for every group.