I can really understand how it feels from their perspective. Work feels much better when we do stuff that makes us connect as humans, and quarterly corporate events don't cut it. They created a culture where they did something fun together and had a conversation topic other than work, and there's this one guy who just refuses to participate and doesn't even try to find a way to include himself in the group.

Sure, reading a book a week takes time from your other activities and is way too much to expect, but if you had spent 15 minutes on Monday morning browsing Wikipedia on the topic of literature and brought some trivia, that would have been much appreciated.

People often complain about the soullessness of corporate jobs, but when someone tries to do something about it, there's usually huge pushback because everyone wants that something to fit their personal preferences, and since we can't find a thing that everyone likes, we go back to treating job as a pure business relationship.