Spotted in England: men reading ... and talking about it

Yet the experience, it seems, is shared mostly by females. Noble, for example, says less than one in 10 book clubs in Britain are all male.

"By and large they are almost always a female thing," she says. But why? "Perhaps it's for the same reason that you don't find rugby clubs packed out with women."

The reluctance of British men to discuss literature does not necessarily mean they are completely averse to indulging in other forms of cultural discussion. Just as Chilton and his book worms use the pub for their literary discussions, countless others find the public bar a convenient forum for more middle-brow exchanges on soccer or film, music or current affairs.

As Mr. Gill puts it: "When six blokes make a commitment to meet in the pub, they sit and drink and talk about other things like football, they don't necessarily want to talk about a book they've all read."

According to Penguin, over the three years of its book club competition, all-male groups have been exceptionally rare, though mixed-gender groups are on the increase.

"Book clubs tend to be composed of women, partly because there is a very high proportion of books bought by women," says Louisa Symington, publicity director at Penguin.

"The actual meeting seems to be more of a female thing. They seem to find the whole sharing of information easier and are more comfortable with the sharing of information than men are."

Moreover, many women are reluctant to include men in their circles for fear it would create inhibitions and discourage openness. Noble says women behave very differently when discussing books if there are men present.

"It completely changes the dynamic," she says. "Women are more on their best behavior and a little of the intimacy is lost." Her principal observation is that the men in these groups are less "emotionally vocal" and that women "are better at cutting to the chase emotionally."

Chilton agrees. The Racketeers, he says, enjoy robust, frank, rough-and-tumble exchanges that are more about ideas than emotions. Ironically, he says, the group was only set up in the first place because one member was not allowed to join his wife's reading circle.

"Our responses aren't necessarily about our feelings - women maybe look to that as a first response to a novel," he says. "We tend to talk about the way the book is written, style, structure, use of language. We are very interested in ideas, the ideology behind the book, the way it connects us to the world."

For Anna Lofthouse, a London-based editor who has run the Blurb Book Club for almost four years, male involvement would undermine the raison d'être of the group. Like Noble, her circle has thought of inviting male partners as a one-off - but not permanently.

"Part of the idea of the book club is the girl support group," she says. "Men would change the dynamic. You would get a male perspective, and that would be interesting, but we just don't get confrontational.

"That's girls for you."

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