6010 root at 6G is the great filter of pipe welding, congrats on beating it in Tulsa.

The line about nobody could dig up gossip on the writer really hit me, because that is the whole thing right there. When the author is a mystery, the group has to actually deal with the story, and that is when you find out who really read it and who just skimmed the back cover. But here is the thing nobody talks about: some people join book clubs for the social time, not the books, and author gossip is an easy way to feel like you are part of the talk without doing the work. The problem is that lets half the group hide, and the ones who actually finish the book end up carrying the whole meeting. Maybe the fix is not banning author talk but timing it, like save it for the last ten minutes so the story gets the first hour. That short mystery worked because there was nothing else to hide behind, and that tells you plenty about what your group really wants out of Thursday nights.