There’s a new type of book club that’s low commitment, low stakes, and encourages independent reading in a community setting allowing people to come together and share their love of literature. If you’ve walked into your local library, a restaurant, a community center, or a bar, you might have come across a group of diverse people each reading a different book during Silent Book Club.
Dani Edwards is the founder of the Bowling Green Chapter of Silent Book Club.
She identifies as an introvert who’s willing to discuss cats, books, and all things fantasy and sci-fi. Last year, she came across a reel on Instagram about a new type of book club.
“I saw this video and I was immediately like, ‘I need it, I want to do it, or I want to be in that club,’” she said. “So, I looked it up online and found out that there were no silent book clubs here locally and I saw a button that says 'start a club'. I signed up and within 24 hours we were officially a club.”
Socializing is optional
Silent Book Club is known as the introvert happy hour. It’s a non-traditional book club with a global community of readers.
There’s no assigned reading, events are free for community members, and they support local businesses. Socializing with other participants is certainly allowed, but is completely optional.
Chapters often hold multiple events a month for readers of all backgrounds to get together and dedicate one hour to reading.
“It’s definitely set more so it’s really low pressure, low stakes, meeting of the minds where you can meet people that have like minded interests and then proceed to not talk for an hour and then afterwards you can talk and it is a great way to meet people,” Edwards explained.
Bowling Green’s Silent Book Club started in fall 2023. At that point, there were only around 500 Silent Book Clubs around the world and only a handful of chapters in Kentucky. Now there are over 20 chapters in the Bluegrass State and thousands globally.
“One of my favorite things that someone has told me was that it’s the only time that they ever get to read anymore,” Edwards said.
“If you’re a mother or a father and you’re really busy or you’re just busy with life...reading might have been really special to you in the past but some people just don’t have time for it anymore, so having one hour allotted per month to do that, to set aside, is really important to some people.”
A Global Reach
Laura Gluhanich co-founded Silent Book Club with her friend Guinevere de la Mare in 2012. What started as two friends getting together to read in San Francisco has developed into a global phenomenon. The organization saw a dip in engagement in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Gluhanich says participation has boomed this year thanks to several social media videos that went viral.
“Every chapter is super creative. We’re the umbrella org,but it is really volunteer run,” Gluhanich explained.
“We really are grateful for the organizers, and they do so many cool things. There are audiobook walking tours, some chapters are doing hikes now, fundraisers for libraries or other local organizations. We see chapters going to movies. It’s been so fun to see. It’s not just like ‘okay we have to be in silence.’ It’s really about community.”
To Gluhanich, Silent Book Club is a unique opportunity that allows participants to have a loose tie to their community, while also giving them time for themselves.
“It’s funny because in this day in age it’s hard to find that time. It’s hard to not distract yourself, I think,” she said.
Opportunity to learn
Bowling Green’s chapter of Silent Book Club has grown exponentially in just a year. Roughly 35 people showed up for the first meeting in 2023. Now, the chapter has almost 500 members, something that led to an increasing demand for events. That’s where chapter members like Kelsey Kantosky stepped in to host events.
Kantosky and a fellow member host a Silent Book Club meeting at the Warren County Public Library on Sundays in an effort to help make meetings more accessible.
Kantosky says one of her favorite parts about Silent Book Club is the opportunity to learn about different books.
“You get lots of different recommendations like books you normally wouldn’t think to read. You get asked if you have read them, if you want to read them. You get to talk to different people who have read different things because it's not all the same book,” Kantosky said.
“I think reading your own (book) and then recommending it to someone else is like the beauty of it.”
From sacred text to sci-fi to 'smut'
The first few meetings of the Bowling Green Silent Book Club were at the Q Coffee Emporium in Bowling Green. The chapter still has meetings there monthly, but also holds meetings at the local library and does occasional pop ups at other local businesses.
Edwards hopes to continue to grow the chapter in 2025 and bring more bibliophiles together by doing more special events, giveaways, and book swaps.
“These are people who are reading vastly different things and have vastly different personalities. I see people in there reading Bibles or other religious texts, or people reading fantasy and sci-fi, people reading romance and smut,” Edwards explained.
“You have these people interacting with each other that usually would never interact with each other, and I think it’s so fun and interesting to watch these interactions and these friendships and relationships form. I think it’s so important to connect with people that we usually wouldn’t connect too.”
Bowling Green’s Silent Book Club chapter will hold meetings in January. Additional information can be found on the chapter’s Instagram page.
There are also chapters in several other Kentucky cities, such as Elizabethtown, Glasgow, and Owensboro. To find or start a Silent Book Club chapter near you, go to the official Silent Book Club website.
