Book clubs are fun. Most readers know this.
But sometimes, the club’s pick isn’t up your alley. Then what? Skip it?
Here’s an idea: Form a club where you read any book you want. Everybody else does the same. You have a meet-up, read together for a little while, then talk about what you’ve read.
“This is nice,” said Jennifer Moore, who, with her sister Angela Harris, started an Arlington chapter of The Silent Book Club. It has a get-together every month, usually at a coffee shop in Arlington or Grand Prairie. “We’re both introverts, so it’s low-pressure.”
It’s the idea behind a national trend. Think of it as a “reading party.” You bring your book and … and … well – that’s all. Bring your book and prepare to enjoy a precious hour of “alone time” with your current read.
“A big motivator is that this will be time I have set aside just to read,” Harris said.
The Silent Book Club organization is huge. It has nearly 2,000 chapters in 57 countries, according to its website. Anyone can start a chapter, as the DeSoto-raised sisters did after Moore saw a notice about a Dallas chapter meeting, attended, and liked it.
Instantly, Harris was on board. Traditional book clubs had only added to her already very long TBR (to be read) list. “It’ll outlive me,” she joked. She’s an Arlington Public Library librarian who, like her sister, a finance employee at Lockheed Martin, is a lifelong reader, a habit instilled in them by their mother, Joyce, who worked at the DeSoto Public Library.
For them, the idea of their own chapter was a fast yes.
“The organization makes it pretty easy,” Moore said. “You tell them where you want your chapter to be, set up your format, and they let you have it. You do your social media. They have things for their branding they want you to stick with, but otherwise, once you register, you start.”
The SBC Arlington club (@sbc_arlingtontx on Instagram) began in September 2023. There’s also an SBC Mid-Cities and an SBC SE Arlington & Mansfield. Fort Worth has three. Midlothian, Euless, and Irving also have chapters, according to the national website.
Meetings can be anywhere there is comfortable space for an hour of reading. Recent meetings have been at Chill Coffee and Wine Bar on North Collins in Arlington. An upcoming site is Just Love Coffee Café in Grand Prairie.
Moore and Harris’s chapter draws about 35 members per meeting. The 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after reading time are a chance to talk books with other members.
“I’m pretty introverted, but one of the things that I will talk about forever and a day is books,” said SBC Arlington member Takyra Morgan. “Everyone is super friendly, very open to talking about what they’re reading, and that lends itself to having relationships and friendships.”
A strength of traditional book clubs is that they point readers to books they might not ordinarily choose for themselves. Interestingly, the Silent Book Club does the same in its own way.
“You ask, what are you reading? How’s that book going for you?” Morgan said. “Even though it may be a book outside of a genre you normally read, people get intrigued by books that other people are reading. It allows them to expand their ever-growing TBR.”
If your TBR is getting long, an SBC might help.
