YOUR HUMBLE NARRATOR visited two book clubs recently. One was mostly women, while the other was a mixed group of youngsters. Both groups were SO intelligent. I was particularly dazzled by the kids’ analysis of post-Freudian scatology in Winnie-the-Pooh.

On my way home, I popped into an (all male) bar, where the intellectual level of conversation remained grimly low, never rising above prehensile grunting punctuated by belches.

Guys, guys!

We gotta be careful. Adult males have been in charge for the past three million years, but our reign will end really soon if we don’t smarten up.

*

At the office the following morning, I found an invitation to give a talk on Books That Change Your Life. Where to start? I made a list and asked others to do the same. As nominations came in, I was intrigued to find more novels listed than personal development books: To Kill a Mockingbird, Bleak House, The Lord of the Rings and so on.

That last choice reminded me of the kid I sat next to at school, who read this 1,200-page book twice, giving it half a year of his life. Afterwards, he was convinced he was turning into a Hobbit. "My feet-tops have gone all hairy," he said.

I laughed. But a few years later, I saw an article in a scientific magazine which said people who believe their bodies will grow in a certain way sometimes make it happen. Maybe he WAS turning into a Hobbit.

Then I remembered that his dad was so hairy and uncommunicative he was widely assumed to be either Neanderthal Man or a Kodiak bear, which would explain his son’s hairy feet.

*

Still, the idea of reading books to alter your body was fascinating. If I read Skellig, a novel about an angel, would I grow wings? If I read Dolly Parton’s biography would I end up with an enormous pair of big, round, um, eyes? If I read Moby-Dick might my chances of getting a six-pack recede further?

An academic told me that the reason books change lives is due to something called Neuro-Linguistic Programming. A long, powerful novel is an emotional roller-coaster that grips your mind for a few weeks. "When you put it down, your brain has been rewired. You are not the same person you used to be," she said. I asked if this was anything like "identity theft". She described my suggestion as esoteric (or the word may have been "idiotic").

But the most interesting thing she said was this. More women read books than men. More children read books than adults. More middle-class people read books than super-rich ones. In other words, people who are young, poorish and female now, are likely to be the intelligentsia of the next generation. The meek SHALL inherit the earth.

This is probably not a bad thing. That lunchtime I asked the guys at the bar to name books that had changed their lives. A guy called Alan said, "I read Lord of the Rings when I was 17."

I asked him whether he turned into a Hobbit.

He shook his head. "No, but I was convinced for several years afterwards that I was the reincarnation of Sauron, the Dark Lord."