Madam, – Mary O’Donnell (Arts, September 12th) has some unkind words to say about book clubs and their members. Has she ever been to a book club meeting? Is her article based only on her listening to The Tubridy Show?
It is unfair of her to say that “book-club reps begin their casual public assault on their subjects”. Opinions on the books are rarely expressed outside the book club. Book-club members, in my experience, come together from a genuine love of books of all kinds, not just literature. They express their opinions on the books which they have read; if a book has depressed, surely that is an opinion worth expressing. She makes a rather sweeping statement on the failure of many book clubs. What does she see as a successful book club? Surely it cannot just be one in which the members agree with her opinions? – Yours, etc,