Uncle Robin, you obviously haven't been window shopping on the Literary club very much, where the conversations have been very civilised and generally welcoming. (
Such that comments of "infallible omniscience" etc. read like unfair accusations, although I don't imagine you intended them as such.) Over on the New Leaf things sometimes got more energetic, but still we wanted contributions to the conversation. For me anyway, the main point of a book club is to share and try to understand the diverse range of reactions people have to a book. I often came to appreciate books more, even ones I did not like that much initially, through the insights offered by others. This can only happen through active participation. The trick is to make sure that some verbose people (guilty conscience here?
) don't talk so much that others feel like they can't get a word in.