It is one of the gentlest ways to be around people again, especially if your evenings used to happen in louder rooms.
Try this
- Find a chapter near you. Silent Book Club keeps a chapter map. Many meet in coffee shops, libraries, bookstores and parks.
- Bring any book. Fiction, a field guide, a cookbook, an e-reader or an audiobook. Nothing is assigned.
- Arrive, settle in, and read. Most meetings include about an hour of quiet reading (Axios). Order something warm, find a seat, and let the room go quiet around you.
- Stay or go. Afterward, people chat or swap recommendations. If you would rather slip out, that is part of the format too.
- Go back once more before deciding. The second visit is when faces start to feel familiar.
If there isn’t one nearby
- Start one. Silent Book Club has a guide to starting a chapter. It can start small: a few readers and a café table.
- Make your own version. Ask a friend to meet at the library for an hour of reading, then lunch.
- Go online. Some chapters meet by video, which still gives you the feeling of reading alongside someone.
Not sure what to bring?
Gentle “healing fiction” from Japan and Korea has found a worldwide audience through BookTok (CBC). A few to start with:
- Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
- What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama
- Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
- Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum
Book Riot keeps a longer list of cozy Japanese and Korean books.
Why it works
Silent Book Club started with two friends reading together at a bar in San Francisco. It has grown to more than 2,000 chapters in 62 countries (Axios). One chapter host described it as a way to read without interruptions and recharge while still getting some social interaction. That balance, together but not performing, is what a lot of people are looking for.
Where to start
An hour of reading is a small thing. Doing it in a room full of people who chose the same small thing is quietly reassuring.
I hope this finds you well,
Scott