Fight club: when book groups turn nasty

‘Small friendly village book club is looking for three or four new members.’ I was infuriated to read this in our village newsletter, an alternative to the parish magazine. I had just been ‘cancelled’ by this ‘friendly’ club from featuring at one of their evenings. A text, sent by a hitherto pleasant woman who’d liked my last book, explained: ‘There are many hurt feelings in the village. We in the book group believe that your email, put on the parish council notice board, was hurtful and upsetting. So the feeling is that at the moment it would be better to postpone your visit.’

‘Hurt’ seems to be a current buzzword for those who don’t share others’ views. My email had simply corrected the newsletter’s misreporting of a parish council meeting, where I had taken notes. The chair, who’d spoken reasonably and politely, had had her words altered to portray her as an autocratic bully.