The Hollowmere Book Club has voted to stop reading books, after members noticed that footage of the club choosing a book consistently drew a larger audience than any discussion of the book itself.

The decision was taken at Tuesday's meeting, which was filmed in full and cut into eleven clips, the longest of which shows the club's chairwoman, Mrs Delphine Crosland, reading out the shortlist. Mrs Crosland described the clip as her most-watched work to date.

"I used to prepare for a whole month," she said. "Now I prepare a moment. The moment where I hold up the books is the moment. People wait for that moment."

The club's previous format, in which members read the same novel and gathered to discuss it, had struggled to fill the village hall's front two rows. The new format fills the hall, with the front two rows reserved for members and the remaining rows for attendees who watch the vote on their phones rather than look at it directly.

The new format

Under the revised constitution, each meeting consists of a vote on what the following meeting's vote will be about. Tuesday's ballot offered four options: a vote on the fiction shortlist, a vote on the non-fiction shortlist, a vote on whether to have shortlists, and a vote on whether Tuesday's ballot had been fair. The fourth option won.

Member Mr Roderick Vye defended the change. "Reading a book is a month of effort for one evening," he said. "Voting is one evening of effort, and we can film it. The maths is not complicated, and I say that as a man who has not finished a book since spring."

The club's only remaining literary obligation is a monthly segment in which members state, to camera, the book they would have read under the old system. No member has stated the same book twice.

Reaction

A neighbouring club in Wringleton Vale has adopted the format and gone further, replacing the vote itself with a vote on how the vote should be framed. Its organiser, Miss Patricia Entwhistle, said the two clubs are now in discussion about a joint vote, footage of which would be filmed by both clubs.

"We're calling it a summit," she said.

Mrs Crosland confirmed that a splinter group of three former members continues to meet in the pub to discuss books, but said the main club had not noticed their viewings.

"They're welcome to it," she said. "There's no camera down there."