"Male" Book Clubs: A true definition of a oximoron

      A couple of weeks ago I was doing my usual Thursday night Dobbin Road Starbucks visit with my wife when I noticed that there was a large crowd of women taking up both large tables.  Their discussion seemed animated and at times the laughter couldn't help but catch your attention.  It didn't take long to ease drop on their conversation to pick up that this was a woman's book club meeting.  It did get me to thinking about the reasons why book clubs are almost universally a female activity.  It is not surprising that Oprah was so successful with her book club when you realize how female dominated her audience was. But don't men read?  Couldn't some male show host start a book club?  Oh wait men don't watch talk shows. It has even been said that if women stopped reading the novel book industry would die.  Being a life long male reader (although I hardly ever read fiction) I couldn't point to that being why this situation exists.  It has to be more related to the sociability of  women.  It sometimes seems as if women get more enjoy out of retelling a story than they do experiencing the original activity.  I have found myself in trouble with my wife and daughters when I have jumped into their conversation to tell the ending of a story before they have reached that point themselves.  Listening to a woman tell a story many times is punctuated with many "and then she says" and "and then I said."   At this point I usually get up from the conversation and see what is happening in the Oriole game.

P.S.
In Googling about male book clubs I came across a very funny article from the Washington Post.  You might never have another colonoscopy after reading this article. 

P.S. 1
Speaking of watching an Oriole game it was really nice to watch last night's drubbing of the Boston Red Sox and see the stands had very few Red Sox fans.  The past few years when the Red Sox played at Camden Yards it was like a Red Sox home game with many more Red Sox fans in attendance than Oriole fans.  Camden Yards was becoming "Fenway South" when the Red Sox were in town.  I guess the slumping Red Sox have changed that.  Now if we can just not make Camden Yards "Yankee Stadium South" when the Yankees are in town.