Silent book clubs???

Book Clubs ~ revised

Yesterday, I got an email from one of my neighbors, saying:

Hi ladies - I just read in the Washington Post book club newsletter about silent book clubs where people bring a book they’re reading and read together for an hour. Silently of course. They do not read the same book. There are a couple of silent book club in St. Louis I found out via the website. One is meeting today at Queeny Park.

This is what she is currently reading, and (yikes!) it's 560 pages long:

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution ~ by R.F. Kuang, 2022, speculative historical fiction, 560 pages

An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.  1828.  Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell.  There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation — also known as Babel.

Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic.  Silver working — the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars — has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge.  But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland.  As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion.  When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide.  Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

Silent book club?

So back to my subject.  Silent book club?  Sorry, but not for me.  It would seem like catching a city bus or riding the NY subway to dip into my book, with people walking through the Community Room or Café while we read "silently" without ever being able to ask anyone "Did you notice this?" or "Did that make sense to you?" because nobody is reading (or has read) the same book.  So what's the point?  As an introvert, I'd rather curl up in a comfy chair or sofa and "go into" the novel's setting without distractions beyond a phone call or a knock on my door, which rarely happens.

Deb at Readerbuzz hosts the Sunday Salon