My book club tried a no-re-read rule and one member walked out

Last month we voted to ban rereading books for discussion because half the group kept falling back on old favorites. One lady, Margaret, slammed her copy of Pride and Prejudice on the table and said 'you can't understand a book until you've lived with it twice.' She left mid-meeting and hasn't come back since. I actually side with her because reading something fresh once just gives you surface takes, not real debate material. Has anyone else had a club member quit over a rule like that?

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terry14h ago

Is Margaret secretly my spirit animal or what? We had the exact same blowup in my group a couple years back over fast fiction, where one guy wanted us to only read books under 200 pages. My buddy Jim threw his copy of East of Eden across the room, said you cant even learn the characters names in that time, let alone catch all the little jokes and callbacks. He quit too, and honestly the group got way more boring without him. Fresh takes are fine for a first impression, but man, the second or third read is where you actually start arguing about themes and hidden stuff, you know? The rule basically forced us to have shallow book club nights, and nobody wanted to admit it.