Silent Book Clubs draw readers who want to savor the silence.
Given the crush of work, family, friends and countless other commitments, sometimes it’s practically impossible to find 60 minutes to sit down and catch up on some reading. But just as there’s support for a myriad of contemporary issues, the Buckhead Silent Reading Book Club offers a way to handle this predicament.
“We have people who feel this concept allows them to have a dedicated reading time when they’re not doing anything else,” says Ann Marie Brindley, who co-founded the group last fall with fellow Buckhead resident Kayla Nelson. “Some who come aren’t even big readers, but they like this simple concept.”
The simplicity lies in not having any pressure to read a certain book or to be prepared to discuss its intricacies with others. There’s not even an obligation to speak: Participants arrive at a time and location publicized on the group’s Instagram page, grab a comfy spot and dive into their novel, poetry collection, textbook or whatever reading material they choose.
“Our meetings are always in the confines of Buckhead,” Brindley says. “Our favorites have been PERC Coffee in Chastain Park and the Original ChopShop south of Peachtree Hills. We’ve also been to The Daily, Bar Ti Amo and even the coffee shop at the Bitsy Grant tennis center until it went away. We bounce around a little bit and are always looking for places to host us where we can have the quiet we need to sit and read for an hour. But we still want it to be someplace cool.”
Brindley and Nelson met a year ago at a city-wide silent reading session at the Atlanta History Center. That meeting was so well attended that the two saw an opening to start a group exclusively in Buckhead. (Since they launched it, a section has broken off and now meets only in Brookhaven.) They’ve also organized book swaps, with leftovers going to the Buckhead library. But there’s no telling how many readers will show up for the Saturday or Sunday sessions, usually held from noon to 2 p.m. or from 2 to 4 p.m.
“We’ve had as many as 50 and as few as one person with Kayla and me,” Brindley says. “At the beginning of the year, we had a lot more people come and say, ‘I’m going to read more this year!’ Now we average between 15 and 20, and we’re getting a core group who are becoming familiar faces.”
After an hour of reading, some participants hang around to socialize or grab a drink and snack, Brindley says. “Being a smaller group, it’s a bit more intimate. Sometimes it’s more chatty, with people asking about each other’s books. It’s always a pleasure to see what people are reading. But if you want to slip out, there’s no judgment. There’s no pressure to do anything. It’s just a great way to do an introverted activity with other people.”
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PHOTO: Joann Vitelli
