“The biggest question we get is, ‘How much social interaction is there?’” said Kate Candelaria, 31, who started a Silent Book Club in Cherry Hill, N.J., about a year ago with her friend Veronica Pinto, 30. “We have a lot of introverts, so we reassure people that you don’t need to come with the same book, you don’t need to come wanting to talk to people — you can just come as yourself.”
These silent but social gatherings are booming. Of more than 950 official chapters of Silent Book Club (SBC) worldwide, almost 400 have registered since January. Recent additions hail from Abu Dhabi and Marietta, Ga., proving that a hatred of small talk is universal.
Franklin Schneier, a special lecturer of psychiatry at Columbia University, said people — particularly young people — are spending less time face to face. For those who are socially anxious, the pandemic had a mixed impact, he said. In some ways it was liberating to have an excuse not to interact with strangers, but in the longer term, social phobias became more intractable.
“The trick is kind of finding social situations that are comfortable enough to engage with, but not so much that the person is scared off,” Schneier said.
A Silent Book Club is attractive as a low-pressure social opportunity, he said, much like bicycle clubs or hiking groups. In those cases, the action is the focus, and being social is optional.
SBC started in San Francisco in 2012, when friends Guinevere de la Mare and Laura Gluhanich found that they both loved reading but felt that traditional book clubs were too much like homework.
“My time is limited, and I just wanted to read what I wanted to read and not have to prepare discussion questions,” said de la Mare, who is a writer for Google, now living in Hawaii.
The two started meeting up at a bar to read for an hour and would post photos of their books and their wine on social media with the hashtag #silentbookclub. Soon, friends wanted to join, and the duo set up a more formal structure — a bit of optional chitchat to start, followed by an hour of silence.
Then one of them moved to Brooklyn and missed her quiet social hour, so she started another iteration; then came the move to Los Angeles, and the gatherings grew. As more chapters formed, the duo — who both have full-time jobs and call SBC “a passion project” — created a website and a way to register new chapters. (There is no charge to register a new SBC or attend meetings, and money for the website and LLC costs come from advertising in the newsletter and merchandise, de la Mare said.)
Not all silent book gatherings are part of an official SBC. Reading Rhythms in New York, for example, is a more social event that costs $10 to attend and, according to its website, is “set to a backdrop of ambient live music in beautifully curated venues.”
Some Silent Book Club groups, like the Cherry Hill chapter, meet once a week. Others gather once a month. They meet in bookstores and coffee shops, cat cafes and libraries, pizza shops and local parks. Chapters get the word out through Instagram and Facebook groups, and some hold fundraisers or special programs to support the places where they meet.
The rules are always the same: 30 minutes before the meeting’s official start time, people can come, share what they are reading and find a place to sit. Then someone rings a bell or makes an announcement, and it’s reading time. For an hour, that’s it, everyone settles into their zone. Afterward, there’s a period of optional socializing.
Candelaria and Pinto, the creators of the Cherry Hill group, are engineers who met at Rowan University. During the pandemic, both women started reading a lot more, and when restrictions lifted, they began reading at different coffee shops. Maybe, they thought, others would want to join. It turns out, they do, which is how more than a dozen people ended up at Inkwood Books.
It was the second SBC visit for Jennifer Reyes, 36, a sales manager from Marlton, N.J., who was reading a book from the series “The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion,” by Beth Brower. During the previous gathering, at a cat cafe, she brought her sister as a social buffer, just in case.
She found out about the SBC after making a New Year’s resolution to join a book club, and she loved that there wasn’t a set book to read. Working in retail, she’s comfortable talking to people, but socializing can be difficult, she said.
That Sunday, Reyes walked around for a bit, met the chapter leaders and settled into a chair toward the back of the store. Pretty soon, she was not alone.
“A lady came over and started talking, and she was really nice,” said Reyes. “We talked the whole entire time until it was reading time, about our mutual interest in books and trying to make friends as an adult.”
Although Reyes didn’t stick around after she finished reading, she said she planned to go again. She acknowledged that it may be hard for some to understand the appeal of being with other people in silence. It’s not like being in a library, where everyone is there for a different purpose, she said.
“I think this is a really nice way to still be in your little bubble, but there are people around you,” Reyes said.
