Silent book clubs in the triangle

ÖOn a recent evening in Durham, on the second floor of the Letters Bookshop, the room is silent. Two people are sitting there reading; neither of them are talking or reading the same book, but they are there together – somehow.

It’s the second Tuesday of the month, one of two nights when Letters hosts a rotation of the Silent Book Club hour (the other night is the fourth Thursday of the month). Described on its website as “happy hour for introverts,” the Silent Book Club (SBC) has over 1,000 chapters in 50 countries. The event, as the name suggests, provides a quiet space for people to come together and read independently.

In the book landscape, the picture is mixed: According to a survey of the American Booksellers Association conducted by Statista, for example, there were 2,599 independent bookstores in the United States in 2023. This number has steadily increased since 2009, when only 1,651 independent bookstores were recorded.

But the picture is also more complicated. According to the same survey, fewer people are buying books in-store due to the convenience of online stores. Overall, bookstore sales have also declined—in 2022, sales totaled less than $9 billion, down from over $12 billion a decade earlier. However, community initiatives like book clubs appear to be growing. According to ticketing platform Eventbrite, book club event listings in the United States increased 24 percent from 2022 to 2023, and the platform Meetup saw a 10 percent increase in book club event listings.

At Letters, the reading hour is split into two parts: it begins with a social time without silence, where readers can form a book club by talking about what they are reading and what kinds of books interest them, before moving on to independent reading time.

An activity like a silent book club – the name of which implies a contradiction – is an intriguing proposition. We live in an increasingly atomized era, where things are delivered right to our doorsteps and our phones. Why leave the comfort of your own home for a solitary activity? But perhaps living in a less social world is exactly why people want to join a silent club.

On June 10, Letters’ two participants, William Page and Tierra Flowers, were both fantasy and science fiction fans. Flowers came for the first time to try a new, low-stakes activity. She is reading Hanya Yanagihara’s A small lifea novel she found on TikTok. Before attending an SBC, she said social media was the closest place she had to a community of book lovers. She enjoys A small lifeshe says, about halfway through, an admirable dent in a 700-page book.

“I just love the escape from reality,” says Flowers. “I can definitely lose myself in a good book.”

Flowers says she’s looking for the right book club to join. Her friends enjoy reading, she says, but not as much as she does, and she wants to find other active readers to talk about books with.

Another SBC participant, Page – also a Letters staff member – says he enjoys the opportunity to read together without being limited to reading a specific book.

“I don’t think reading should be something that stresses anyone out,” says Page.

Flowers agrees: As soon as she has a deadline and a certain number of pages to read, she loses interest, she says.

Blackbird Books and Coffee in Raleigh also has an SBC branch. Store owners Bre Brunswick and Hannah Brunswick started it because they both felt it was the kind of book club they would like to be a part of, Bre Brunswick wrote in an email to the INDY.

Blackbirds SBC meets twice a month and usually about 25 people show up, Bre Brunswick wrote.

“It should always be a social event, but with a very specific structure,” wrote Bre Brunswick. “I’ve found that most people really thrive when there are very firm expectations – especially when they’re trying something new.”

The Night School Bar in Durham has found that this similar structure with space for accountability can be helpful for students in the form of a writing hour. The organization, which offers courses to adults on a range of subjects in the arts and humanities on a sliding scale, offers a silent writing hour – similar to SBCs.

The hour began when participants in the Night School Bar writing workshop expressed interest in a larger writing community, owner Lindsey Andrews wrote in an email to the INDY— a time when people come together and focus on individual writing and goals. On the bar, a card catalog includes writing prompts and index cards on which people can outline their goals.

“You can meet other writers, find motivation, or just hold yourself accountable and feel good about setting and achieving goals,” says Andrews.

At Letters, the silent reading hour began earlier this year. The number of participants fluctuates, but the activity itself remains the same, Page says. The club’s genesis was simple, he adds: “The people who started it say it just started like, ‘Hey, do you all want to go somewhere and read?'”

Comment on this story at [email protected].