Sometimes a book might be a perfectly fine book, but for one reason or another just isn't a good choice for heated discussions. What books fell flat at your book club meeting--and why?

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Ellen says:
My book club recently read A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. This book got great reviews, was nominated for the Man Booker Prize, and seemed like a good choice, but we simply couldn't find anything below the surface of the prose to talk about. You could practically hear crickets chirping during our meeting! Has anyone else read this book?

Hilary says:
I would advise against reading James Joyce for a bookclub, unless you know that everyone in the club already likes him. Our book club discussion got a little uncomfortable once when we were reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and a few of the members hated it so much that they threw away their copies!

sleepydumpling says:
I think for our book club, the one that has been the least successful for us was probably The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen. We never are short for conversation, but this was possibly the book club meeting with the least discussion of the actual book! We all found it decidedly dull, the author self centred and felt it never got to the point. No one really had much to say about it, so we went on to discuss our meals, the films we'd seen and other books we'd been reading!

portsmouthlibraries says:
The worst dicussion for my reading group was The number one ladies detective agency by Alexander McCall Smith. I was really disappointed as the book was my recommendation and I had really enjoyed it. The book itself is wonderful but it was too light, too fluffy and didn't have just the right amount of 'angst' to trigger a proper discussion.