www.wsj.com/lifestyle/book-clubs-reading-silent-book-clubs-76af9f28?

No, I Don’t Want to Join Your Book Club

Tired of the rules of traditional reading groups, more people are joining rebel versions. ‘I will not read a book that other people say you have to read.’

By Betsy McKay

Nov. 6, 2023 9:00 pm ET

Easton, Mass.—Jenn Yanikoski loves to read and chat about books with friends. But she doesn’t like book clubs—the kind where you have to read a book you didn’t pick, finish by a deadline and come to the meeting with something clever to say.

Not by the book

So the 37-year-old mental health counselor recently tried something novel: a “Silent Book Club.” At a bustling brewery outside Boston on a Friday evening, she and about 50 other people read books of their own choosing and at their own pace for an hour—without talking to one another. There’s no pressure. “It’s not like you have homework,” Yanikoski said.

Though traditional book clubs have been a fixture of American social life for decades, some bibliophiles think they have lost the plot. These bookworms don’t want to read books that don’t interest them. Even worse is recommending a book the rest of the group hates. They dread the scheduled dinners where they feel bound to dish up smart-sounding hot takes, along with a side or dessert.

So they are showing some spine and rewriting the book club, without the assignments or attitude. More people of all ages are gathering to read silently or discuss books they’re reading on their own.

“I like to read for pure enjoyment without a deadline,” said Megan Sampson, a 34-year-old executive assistant who organizes the Silent Book Club meetups in Easton that Yanikoski joined.

Readers read—whatever the heck they want—at the Silent Book Club event in Easton, Mass. PHOTO: JENNIFER LEVITZ/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Organizer Megan Sampson at the event at Shovel Town Brewery in Easton. PHOTO: BETSY MCKAY/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Kathy Beaird is on the same page. She runs a monthly group that is called “What’s On Your Nightstand?” and touted as a “Not-a-Book-Club Book Club” at the public library in Woodstock, Vt. Participants discuss books they have read, from Abraham Verghese’s “The Covenant of Water,” a story of a fisherman turned “restorative ocean farmer,” to Frankenstein. 

These days people want to focus on books they are interested in, said the 75-year-old librarian. “People are just more aware of their time,” she said. She was planning to “take a sabbatical” from a book club she was once in when it dissolved on its own.

The “not-a-book-club” book club speaks volumes to Leslie Leslie, who joined after moving to Woodstock in the pandemic. She recommends books to friends for their traditional book clubs but won’t join one herself. “I will not read a book that other people say you have to read,” said the 76-year-old artist and onetime English major. “I did that in college, and I never have to do it again.”

Billed on its website as an “introvert happy hour,” and as a contrast to traditional book clubs where “there’s the scramble to finish the assigned book,” the Silent Book Club has grown about 75% this year to 525 chapters globally. Co-founders Guinevere de la Mare and Laura Gluhanich started the club when they were overbooked professionals in San Francisco looking for time to read without the hosting hassle. (Most of their “previous attempts at book clubs had fizzled out.”)

The West Seattle chapter, started last fall, is so popular that its meetups take place in at least 10 venues simultaneously, including coffee shops, bars and a record store. Participants also gathered to read on the beach.

A meeting of the Silent Book Club West Seattle last summer at Alki Beach.MARIEL TORRES RAMÍREZ

A few silent readers in San Diego book Airbnbs for “readtreats” on long weekends. The rules are binding: common areas are for silent reading, and if people want to do work or talk they go to their rooms or outside, said Krystle Johnson, a 37-year-old special education teacher who leads the chapter. She is also in two traditional book clubs where she enjoys reading selections “I wouldn’t otherwise choose.”

At Silent Book Club, there’s socializing before and after the reading hour.

On the Friday night at Shovel Town Brewery in Easton, Yanikoski and three friends settled into seats at the end of a long table. She had brought “Heir of Fire,” part of a fantasy series by Sarah J. Maas, which she wanted to finish. 

Why not go to the library if she wants to read silently with others? “Libraries are quiet,” she said, as a waiter took the group’s food and drink orders. 

Erin Meany, a self-described introvert, waited in her car in the parking lot, reluctant to go in until a friend arrived. Then she saw other people walk in alone holding books. “I’m like ‘OK, I can do this. These are my people,’” the 29-year-old clinical social worker said. 

Sampson, the organizer, rang a bell, and the tables fell silent as people opened their books. “Shhh…we’re reading” signs were posted on each table. Some people clicked on small book reading lights; breweries sometimes aren’t the most well lighted places. Others put in earbuds as an adjoining bar area filled up with non-readers and background music.  

Erin Meany, far left, with Susannah Thornton. Jenn Yanikoski settles in with a book by Sarah J. Maas.JENNIFER LEVITZ/WSJ; BETSY MCKAY/WSJ

With the pandemic, “we’ve all been looking for community in so many places,” said Susannah Thornton, Meany’s friend, who read “Practical Magic” by Alice Hoffman. 

The vibe was more relaxed than a small traditional book club Thornton is in. That can turn “almost classroom-like,” she said. People bring lists of questions. “They only want to read historical fiction and stuff that has that, like ‘it’s literature, it means something,’” she said. “It’s like, people are afraid to let loose.”

Marina Lanzillo, a middle school English teacher, brought an advanced reader copy of a book she had won. She likes to read at her own pace. “I’ve been reading this book for a month, where if I was in a book club, I would have to have chapters 1,2,3 done by next week,” she said. 

Readers mingle at the Easton brewery. PHOTO: BETSY MCKAY/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Some customers did double takes as they walked into the brewery full of people who looked like they were studying for a test. Jay Williams had come to get something to eat before trivia night, scheduled to start after silent reading. “As long as they clear out by like 7, they can do what they want,” he said.

He and other regular brewery customers mingled a few feet from a table where Jennifer Bishop was reading a dark romance. The atmosphere was great, but “it was kind of hard to concentrate,” said the 39-year-old victim’s advocate, who described herself as a voracious reader and author under the pseudonym Jennifer Taylor of a new manuscript—“a mystery thriller, FBI, serial killer Boston, all that jazz.” 

Next time, “I’d probably bring ear plugs,” she said. (Sampson advises readers to bring headphones and reading lights.) 

Nearby, Debbie Schlossberg, a 62-year-old buyer for a medical company, read an assignment for her traditional book group. Picking a book in that group “can take quite a while” because members have to sort through lots of recommendations, she said. 

“Not everyone has the same taste,” said her husband, Alan Schlossberg, who is 61 and works in IT, sitting next to her. Despite the dim brewery lighting and background music, he and his wife plan to go to the next silent-book club event. “I like this kind of thing where you just read whatever you want to read but you’re together with other people that like to read too,” he said.