I’m a book club misfit. I can’t bring myself to read what others are reading. Worse, if they’re reading it, I don’t want to be. Yet I’m no misanthrope. I crave chums. More than a few book clubs I’ve been keen to join but for the reading requirement.

This deficiency (for I view it as such) is not snobbery. I don’t rate myself cleverer because I’m a word-worker. All views are revelatory even if they’re wrong. I’m curious about others’ opinions. My resistance to communal reading is intrinsic, almost phobic, like my dread of snakes. Why, I wonder?

Partly my nature is defiant. Invite me to do something, I’m happy to. Tell me to do something, I balk. I attribute this to my incomplete rebellion against a domineering dad, who died when I was sixteen, but that may be nickel-grade psychoanalysis, like Lucy’s in Peanuts. Whatever the cause, my conduct is renegade. I can’t even force myself to do what I know I ought, which I want to do. “Gonna make me?” my jaw juts.

Partly my pickiness embarrasses me. I masquerade as amiable, but in truth I’m almost impossible to please, especially when it comes to words. I shudder to reveal the depth of my disdain for prose-makers others may admire. That a writer has succeeded in selling books I account a strike against them. Popular and excellent are generally antonyms in my lexicon. Popular books, we’re told, are written to a sixth grade reading level. I enjoyed sixth grade reading when I was closer to that age. Since I’d loathe any smarty-pants who espoused such views – Who does he think he is! – I smile and shut up. (In print, where I can poke fun at myself, I may appear less obnoxious.)

Partly I can’t read a book, only pages, sometimes clumps. Were I my grandkids’ age, this might be diagnosed as ADD. I’d call it curiosity. I read to wake my mind. Once the engine’s humming, I’m restless to write. Reading immerses me in another’s thoughts; I want to discover my own, not because they’re superior, but because they’re mine. Why I think what I think, feel what I feel, is my obsessive fascination, as you may have noticed. Self-knowledge is the key to knowledge, I’d argue.

Partly I ache to be liked. In my school years I was never one of the guys and that hurt my feelings. Conversations changed when I entered the room. I wasn’t disliked, former classmates assure me, but I felt disliked. If I blurted my true opinion on most topics, I’d really be disliked. Writing I can better control my affect. (Do you hate me yet?)

Partly (I’m blushing now) I’m competitive. I compare my words to others’ and plot how to beat them at their own game. Even Shakespeare. Even Thoreau. Even T.S. Eliot. My ambition goes toe to toe with them, however paltry my result. Composers and painters I can – and do – idolize; I have no idea how they achieve their magic. My relations with writers are more fraught. It’s as if they’re my siblings. Do I love them? You bet. Is my love uncritical? Gimme a break! “Unconditional love” is sentimental poppycock. To confess this competition aloud would humiliate me. John O’Hara’s epitaph in Princeton Cemetery reads: “Better than anyone else, he told the truth about his time. He was a professional. He wrote honestly and well.” And get this – he composed it himself. What genius – to make himself an eternal laughingstock!

So thanks, friend, for your invitation, but no thanks. You’re better off without me, trust me.