The results of our first SBC Reader Survey are in! In our March newsletter, we asked Silent Book Club members to share the last great book they read. More than 1200 readers replied! We’ve listed the Top 10 below, but you can check out the full list of reader recommendations on our blog or on Bookshop.org.
We ❤️ Libraries
It’s National Library Week in the USA, and we just want to say we are HUGE FANS. We love libraries, we love librarians, we love everything about an institution that gives you unlimited free books to read, brings communities together, and fights for intellectual freedom and individual rights. I mean, wow. The people who keep our libraries running are honest-to-god heroes.
Do us a favor. Stop by your local library this week and say thank you to the people behind the desk and in the stacks. Or, even better, learn how to get involved and take action to support the librarians in your community.
There are more than 200 chapters of Silent Book Club that meet in libraries around the world. Check the map on our website to see if your local library hosts a chapter, or ask if you can help them start one!
“Reading sustains me. The stories that haunt me in my reading seem to hold the entire world in them, even as I know that a single short story cannot contain everything.”
Books we loved this month
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, by Hanif Abdurraqib
Table for Two: Fictions, by Amor Towles
You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, edited by Ada Limón
Find the SBC chapter for you
Find a local chapter near you, or join a virtual meetup.
Bookmarks
Book-related links and other good stuff online
Ad: Want more books for your TBR? Sign up for the Reading Group Choices monthly newsletter to receive new, exciting book recs & free giveaways!
April is the poetry-est month in new books Star Tribune
On Toni Morrison’s Rejection Letters LA Review of Books
The World Still Loves (Yesterday’s) America Foreign Policy
Louisiana HB 777 Would Criminalize Librarians and Libraries Who Join the American Library Association Bookriot
25 Books About Libraries and Library Workers NYPL
Karlie Kloss Is Relaunching Life Magazine The Cut
Higher prices at Spotify will help cover the cost of audiobooks Bloomberg
I’m retired, and I still won’t let myself read in the daytime. Why not? Washington Post
‘Water for Elephants’ on Broadway: Beauty under the Big Top The New York Times
SBC in the news
Watch
A book club in Omaha gives booklovers ultimate reading experience KETV
Silent Book Club: A community group for the readers and introverts KARE 11
Gen Z & Millennials are driving a resurgence of book clubs WZZM 13
Listen
Kelsey Jones, SBC Downtown Indianapolis founder ijustreadthisbook—the podcast
Not Your Normal Book Club No to Normal podcast
Read
Five Things Making Me Happy Gretchen Rubin
Silent Book Clubs provide ‘distinct sense of community’ The Daily Tar Heel
A novel idea: These Minnesota book clubs are silent Star Tribune
An evening at Dublin’s new Silent Book Club: ‘It’s free, it’s chill’ The Irish Times
Silent Book Club: Community without the chit chat Buffalo Spree
National Library Week Wrightsville Beach Magazine
English Language Silent Book Club Paris Newsletter
Introverts, gather. It’s time to read silently together The Gazette
Writers, Readers Find Community in Beacon, NY Hudson Valley Post
Shh... Delhi is reading! MSN
‘Third places’ for bookish types, from theology to late night goth San Antonio Report
Bibliotherapy: Boost Well-being and Find Community With a Therapeutic Book Club Success
Sound of silence WILMA Magazine
Introverts of Philly, gather. It’s time to read silently together. Philadelphia Inquirer
Introverts assert their power at Canberra’s first Silent Book Club Canberra Daily
International Social Club, Silent Book Club, Opens Westhampton Beach Chapter Hamptons.com
Inside Long Island's Silent Book Club, where dozens are coming together to read Newsday (paywall)