And if necessary, you can fake it very well :P I mean that stuff on blunderbusses... 10 minutes in Wikipedia on an idle curiosity :P If you were there for the discussion on Children of Hurin... I managed to at best read the dust cover. The thing is to participate in the discussion. It doesn't matter if you don't have deep scholarly knowledge. The fun is in giving your perspective and thoughts on the whole matter... even if you have to relate it to something totally different. And its ok to be totally opposite the group. Consider that Witchcat told her other book club that she pretty much flat out didn't like Twilight and most of them liked it at least ok.