Well, I don't think a lot of men enjoy discussing anything that smacks of 'sharing' or 'feelings.' I am, of course, making a broad generalization. Book clubs seem to read a certain type of book that appeals mostly to women. I think men might be more inclined to join a non-fiction book club.

I belong to a book club and we have three men that attend regularly. It might be the type of books. We are a new club, and have yearly themes. This year it was Florida (where we are located) and the books were non-fiction and fiction. In 2014 the theme is science, and there will be a fiction, non-fiction, and science based selection for four areas.

From my limited experience with men/reading I would suggest that generally the two don't go together. None of the males in this household (used to be three now down to two) ever read a work of fiction and seldom any non-fiction although they may browse a 'technical' book . . .How to Change the Oil in an Model T Ford Wind Turbines and How to Destroy Them (hot topic in our village at the moment) Fowl Pest Eradication; you get the sort of thing.
Most English men consider 'story book' to be somehow effete/waste of time/a girlie hobby.
I know they can read and they will study the daily papers from cover to cover . . .but little else.
But then I've never attended a book club either.

Kathleen, whoa, three of them!! Amazing. You would have to pay my husband to attend one of them. He will read something I pass on to him, and so will my son, but I choose carefully. No elves or dwarves -- though he did enjoy the film version of LOTR and watches Game of Thrones with me.

Out of love, he has trudged to every screen version of Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre...sighing, "What are we at now, the sixth of seventh version of this?" He had to read Wuthering Heights in school, hated it and says he is allergic to those books.
Out of love, I go to the Clive Cussler type movies with him too.

His idea of a perfect guys book club would be to arrive, open some beer, exchange some action books for reading later, then watch the hockey game or discuss the next fishing trip.

I think Janalyn's last paragraph sums it up nicely, substituting basketball for Kentucky.

My husband was a regular reader, mainly Science Fiction and collected his favourite authors. We were in a charity shop once and when he found a rare hardcover, asked the assistant if the price was correct. She bridled and said she couldn't discount it. "No" he replied "It is worth more" and insisted on paying what he thought it was worth, to her amazement!
Neither of us came across book clubs other than the ones run by companies who sold a selected Book of the Month at a discount.
I am sure he wouldn't have joined a group anyway. We preferred to choose what we read and would sometimes discuss a mutual choice.
Vee, LOL at the "wind turbines" book! Are you about to be plagued with them?

My husband and I belong to a Mystery book club. I joined first and a couple of years later, my husband said he wanted to try it. I couldn't believe it. He has been going for a year and a half and he loves it. Of course, he is the only man there. He is very brave.This is a guy that when I met him did not read. We have been together for 27 years and now he reads a lot. I slowly converted him to the love of reading.

Artiste8, I am so glad you posted and became a "real person" in my mind. And someone I can definitely like. When you signed up for the bookmark exchange, I saw you had just joined gardenweb and from what I could tell, had never posted on this forum before. I even emailed Siobhan that I was kinda hesitant about sending my real address to someone I knew absolutely nothing about. Yeehaw, keep posting, you have the most awesome bookmark being sent your way in a few weeks...my husband even helped in some small degree...which you will find out.

Nice to meet you!

Artiste, how did you convert him? I've never been to convert anyone to anything, to my knowledge. And no one ever likes my reading material. (Except here!)

I have never been interested in a book club, mostly due to the type of books they usually choose. I have a friend who organizes one such club, and she tells me the their books can only be fiction, can only be about "issues" (diseases, divorce, addiction, child abuse), and can only be published in the last year. Yikes!

But I think each book club is probably a bit different. I have another friend (in her mid 70s) who is in book club. She often complains how hard her club finds it to attract women who are "younger" (by which she means 50s, 40s, 30s). She says younger women come to one meeting, and then never come back. I suspect this applies to men too. When you go to a club, and you are the only male there, well, you don't exactly feel welcome.

I started with the book club about the second or third meeting. There was one man at the time, someone we knew. The discussion was fantastic, and when I came home and told my husband all about it he read that book, then decided to read the book for the next month. It was after that he said he might like to go with me. We had a new guy show up yesterday. He was pretty quiet so we will see if he comes back.

I think he might have gone even if our friend wasn't already a member, but I'm sure it helped to have another guy there.

Thanks Janalyn. You're right I just started posting but I have been reading the forum. I am looking forward to your bookmark. I will try to post more.

It was very gradual in getting my husband to read more. I started him on mysteries and the occasional biography. At first, he would only read in the bathroom. He would bring a book on vacation but again only read in the bathroom. We would be sitting and relaxing on vacation and I would ask him if he wanted his book. He would say no. Then I would get our books and put his in front of him. One day he picked it up and started reading because there was nothing else to do.

I would talk to him about the books I was reading. Sometimes we would read the same author or books. Now he reads a lot. We even go together to author readings. Now, he says he doesn't understand people that don't read. His parents never read so he never grew up around books. I am always with a book so I guess it rubbed off on him, but it took years.

Personally, I don't join them because no-one has invited me...

I've sort of thought of starting one at work, but whenever I've raised the suggestion, it's been met with a bit of a "meh" reaction. (I like "meh" - it didn't exist when I was young, but it's excellent!)

But yes - like Tim, even if I did join a book club, I'm not sure I want to be the only male there. I'm not sure how much my wife would like that either ;)

I'll think I'll stick with this one - I've always felt welcome, and never really considered the fact that I'm very much in the minority.

I suspect it's more as Siobhan suggests, men generally aren't into sharing how they feel about a book.
My DH is a voracious reader, and has very similar tastes to mine. When we married and combined our libraries we culled a _lot_ of books we had duplicates of. And at Christmas we still ring each other up and ask, "If I was getting a book for Christmas, would it have ______ on the cover?" to ensure we don't end up giving each other the same book. :-)
DH regularly reads a lot of my book club books, not the chick books which occasionally pop up though (or the Clive Cussler, which was soooooooooo poorly written). I don't think he'd care to join us even so, as we tend to spend about half an hour to an hour discussing the book and the rest of the evening discussing who did/will do what, when and where in our small town ;-)

My husband has been in an all-male book club for about 15 years now. They have 6 members, meet at a pub and drink beer, and read all kinds of books, mostly fiction, never stuff like Clive Cussler et al. (though rather more science fiction than my husband likes). Their current book? Dante's Inferno! My husband is reading it in the Italian.

The book group was originally formed by the husbands of the women in a book group that I've belonged to for nearly 20 years, though they have invited other men whose wives are not affiliated with my book group. They talk about books, their feelings, families, travels--much the same things that my own book group discusses.

Like Martin, I regard this forum as an informal book club to which I belong. I also belong to one based in my home town. This is a very education-oriented area. Our public library is the most active for its size in all of California.

My own book club has no male members, and I don't think men would enjoy it. We discuss our books, often with surprising rigor, then spend some time laughing, drinking wine, and discussing what is going on in our lives. BTW, we read some nonfiction as well as fiction, though there is a bias in the fiction direction. We also travel together. Once a year we travel to meet an author and discuss his or her book, then spend several days exploring that author's home city. I don't always go, but have a very good time when I do. I suspect there would be very natural grumblings from spouses if we had men in the group traveling with us.

Having said that, my husband likes to read. Some of his friends do, others do not. He does discuss books now and then with reading friends. One person from his bicycle-riding groups once proposed that several of them read a certain book, then discuss it. They did, but there was no follow up.

I think that book clubs could exist that men would enjoy, but they would be quite different in character from those most women like.

Rosefolly

The comments above about discussing the book for a short while, then gossiping for the rest of the evening, reminded me of this cartoon.

Here is a link that might be useful: Alex's wife Penny on bookclubs

I've never known of any book club that included men. A simple answer: perhaps most would rather spend their leisure time kicked back in front of the telly, watching sports (soccer, hockey, golf, tennis). The men I've been with if they read at all, skimmed mysteries.

Loved the cartoon, Martin.

Love the cartoon, and it pretty well illustrates why I have dropped out of every book club I have joined. Except RP!