Last night I attended my bookclub and we discussed Snowflower and the Secret Fan. The book is about 2 Chinese girls and talks a lot about the foot binding process. Icky stuff.

Anyway, in the back of the book, there were some discussion questions for bookclubs, so we went through some of them. There were 4 of us in attendance, one of whom was male. The questions, sad to say, were a bit biased. They would start out something like “As a woman and mother, would you bind your daughter’s feet?” and other questions that basically assumed that the readers of this book were women.

Now, granted, it is a book that probably calls out to female audiences more than males. And, perhaps many bookclubs are predominently, if not exclusively, female in membership. But surely there are other mixed gender clubs out there that choose to read a variety of books—both those geared more towards women’s interests and those towards men’s. To assume that only one type of audience is reading your book is to limit and possibly alienate a significant potential audience.

Anyway, reading the questions in the presence of a non-female did make for some humorous moments, perhaps enhanced by the fact that we drink wine at these gatherings? It’s just interesting to get a reminder that sometimes books are read by an unlikely demographic.

Posted at 8:51 PM |