Did our book club get dumber or did the books get harder?

I run a small book club with some guys from my neighborhood. We started three years ago reading stuff like The Martian and ready player one. Easy reads, lots of fun. Fast forward to last month and we tackled a nobel prize winner from the 70s. Half the group didn't finish it and the other half argued about what the author meant for two hours. So what changed? Did we pick books above our reading level on purpose or are we just out of practice? Has anyone else noticed their group drifting into harder territory and then struggling to keep up?

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xena3734mo ago

You mentioned half the group didn't finish it, so was it the book's fault or just lazy reading habits...

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julia_carter704mo ago

Gonna jump in here because I think there's something a little off with blaming lazy reading habits. I mean, I've been in book clubs where we picked stuff like "The Sympathizer" and "Lincoln in the Bardo" and yeah, those are harder reads but not impossible. The real issue might be that you guys just jumped from fun sci-fi straight to a dense literary classic without easing into it. Maybe start with something like "Circe" or "The Name of the Wind" that's got a similar page-turner vibe but still makes you think a little. I don't think it's about being dumber, just maybe the group didn't talk about what level of challenge you all actually wanted.

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