Meet the all-male book club, which promises not to read books with female protagonists​

The New York Times‘s style section dropped another gift on our doorsteps today in the form of an article titled “Men Have Book Clubs, Too.” Which, yeah. Our main characters are the members of Marin County’s “Man Book Club,” a brave collection of  middle-aged men who refuse to read any book with a female main character.

“I was always a little jealous of my wife’s book clubs,” the founder Andrew McCollough told the Times. “Now our wives are jealous of us. We’ve created something that is more durable. The book club my wife belongs to—there’s a lot of changeover.”

They’ve got a list of guidelines for their books, according to their sick Blogspot page, which read as follows:

1. No books by women about women (our cardinal rule)
2. Under 500 pages
3. Author has won/been nominated for a major literary award (or any award)

The Times does a commendable job getting some great details. Like this passage:

There was an eight-course French supper to accompany Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and a meal of refined comfort food presented on TV trays for Bill Bryson’s 1950s-era memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

That’s some good shit! But it gets better on the aforementioned Blogspot page, which is remarkably well-kept for a book club’s website. Anyway, here’s the lede of a 2007 review of Peter Carey’s Oscar And Lucinda, from a piece titled “Wherein we thank Peter for his Emu burgers and look ahead to poker in September:”

Many thanks to Peter for a fine evening on Tuesday. The “Emu” burgers with tamarind glaze were very tasty (darling, we all want that recipe!), and the Australian Shiraz was more than drinkable.

That’s the really good shit! And the best part is, every post reads like this. Here’s another one:

Our host teased us with his early menu suggestions of kangaroo meat and his later references to Indo-Chinese fusion. Despite the misdirection, Peter pleased us last Tuesday with vodka on ice and a delicious sampling of chicken breasts, baked salmon, assorted sides, and brown rice (anathema to Asians but perfect for Marin County’s whole grain ethos).

“Our host teased us with his early menu suggestions of kangaroo meat” is the best sentence of 2016.

Michael Rosen is a reporter for Fusion based out of Oakland.