The experience of reading a book for a book club that you would not have chosen yourself is one of the stranger features of the book club format. You're reading with a predetermined audience and purpose, which changes your relationship to the text — you're not reading to find out if you like it, you're reading to understand it well enough to discuss it.

This constraint has led me to some of my best reading experiences. I read My Brilliant Friend for a club six years ago when I would have passed it by on a shelf. I read The God of Small Things because a friend insisted. I read The Remains of the Day at a club where one member hated Stevens and the ensuing argument lasted three hours.

The books I've read under these conditions are the books I've discussed most thoroughly, which may be why I remember them most clearly.