The Book Group has it's moments, many of them, but may not appeal to a broader audience; and that is just fine. If you decide to take on this series, I recommend skipping the first episode completely. It does little to set up the series and may turn you off to the lead character, as the writers position her in such a lowly position, it is hard to scrape her off the floor. All you really need to know is that it's a book club in Glasgow.
Though there is much more manliness, this viewer could not help but make comparisons to Sex in the City. A show I do not appreciate and feel is nothing more than sexed up drivel. There is plenty of sex here as well, and often singularly pulls the plot along from episode to episode.
There are interesting characters and some good acting, however, not good enough to move on to the second season for me.
I find most reviews here are very positive and one of the reasons I began watching. However, I feel they are one sided; had someone made the Sex in the City comparison before, I would have skipped it. I have never really had much of a taste for shows centered around sex lives, possibly because I have never needed that escape.
So, if you appreciate shows with depth in character and story line, this may not be for you; the same can be said for the opposite. You will not find gut-busting laughter here either. You will find lots and lots of sex though, sex of all shapes, sizes, and fetish. When the character getting the most play is in a wheel chair, you can definitely not call it conventional. I live in the big apple. Sex starved writers, lustful book clubs, sheep fetishes, homosexual secret lovers are all day to day occurrences. In the end, I found myself bored with it all.

i watched the first season back to back. Strangely, I'm not even sure what I liked about it, but I just had to carry on with the next episode. Very quirky characters, maybe that's it. And it is quite different than anything I've watched, so the I appreciate the novelty. I can understand why they had to kill Barney. It was either that or have him kick heroin, if you wanted him to be carry on as a character in the series. But I hope they develop some depth to the brother. He's of to a bland start, but then Claire is the most bland of the lot. I'm not sure an uninteresting couple will help the series. Time will tell, I suppose.

Cookie [Luke's Brother] , Edie Miller's drug addicted NY apartment crasher in the NY-LON series [also available here on hulu] drowned in his own vomit too. Cool! It's a little heavy for the fluffy opera building here, but hey! This sort of thing might just catch on!