5 Reasons You Should Start a Silent Book Club Chapter In Your City
If you're the kind of reader who likes to take your book to restaurants, bars, coffee shops, parks, and other places to just read quietly among other people, Silent Book Club is for you.
It's essentially a low commitment book club for introverts. A group of readers descends on a location and reads together in companionable silence for an hour. There's no assigned book, so everyone just brings whatever they're currently reading.
I'm in several book clubs, but when I heard about Silent Book Club a few months ago, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to start the chapter in Columbus, Ohio. Here's what I've learned and why Silent Book Club is awesome.
Get the community, but not the homework
Since there's no assigned book for Silent Book Club, you get the community of a book club without the homework aspect. It's a low-pressure environment because you don't have to think about what brilliant thing you're going to say about a particular book.
No deadline to finish your book
Since there's no assigned book, you can take as long as you want to read whatever book you're currently reading. You don't have to worry about coming up with an excuse to skip a book club meeting because you didn't finish the book because it's totally okay. And everyone reads together at Silent Book Club meetings anyway.
You get to beef up your TBR pile every month
Because everyone is reading a different book, you'll most likely hear about books you want to read. So you can add books you might not have otherwise heard of to your "to be read" pile every month! And if you're not sure if a book is right for you, you can always ask someone after the meeting because they've spent the past hour reading it.
You meet all kinds of readers
Readers come in all stripes. Casual readers, power readers, single genre readers, multi-genre readers... People who come to Silent Book Club have one thing in common: a shared love of reading, so you'll likely meet other readers who have tastes and styles similar to yours. And let's be honest––book friends are the best friends.
(And I can't speak for other chapters, but although Silent Book Club isn't specifically for dating, there's a couple that met at one of our meetings that has been together for awhile and they're pretty perfect together. So there's no telling who you might bond with over books!)
It's fun AND productive
At the Columbus chapter, we socialize for about 30 minutes, then do a quick round of introductions where we say our names and a little about what we're reading, then read quietly for an hour, and (if we want) socialize for a little while afterward. So not only do you get to hang out with awesome people who love reading as much as you, you also get some good quality reading time in. At our last meeting, a guy commented that in his hectic go-go-go life, he rarely gets a chance to just read for an hour without interruption. He even asked that we have Silent Book Club every week!
Feeling inspired? Good! To see if there's a chapter in your area or to start your own chapter, check out the Silent Book Club website.
And if you're considering starting your own chapter, but aren't quite sure, you're welcome to reach out to me with questions! Feel free to leave a comment below. :)
