A Time to Read Books: Silent Reading, Together

In a world of frequent, omnipresent distractions, making — and taking — the time to simply sit and quietly read a book can be surprisingly difficult. There’s always something “more important,” or at least something more recent, intrusive, bright or shiny, competing for our attention.

For many of us, the habits and routines that once supported a regular reading life have gradually eroded over the past few decades - often replaced by scrolling, surfing or streaming.

If you want reading books to be a regular part of your life again (or still, or for the first time) one thing that can help is making an actual date to read, either by yourself or alongside other people.
That’s the purpose of this event.

Bring whatever book/s you want to read, whether physical or digital. You don’t even need to tell anyone what you’re reading unless you feel like it. The emphasis here is firmly on reading whatever you want.

The setting
We’ll gather in a small meeting room at the Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library downtown.

The library’s meeting-room chairs are reasonably comfortable — not curl-up-in-an-armchair comfy, but fine for a relatively short reading session. Your mileage may vary when it comes to chair comfort, so see the photos I've posted below this event blurb for a better idea of whether the available chairs will suit you.

The plan
It’s deliberately pretty bare bones.
We’ll gather, get settled and have brief hellos/intros at the beginning. Then we’ll spend about 60 minutes quietly reading our own books together.

There’ll be no background music and no organized discussion during the reading period. The idea is simply to create a protected stretch of quiet time in which silently reading a book is the one thing we’ve all chosen to do.

After the reading time ends, anyone who wants to can stay for a little informal conversation — about what you’re reading, reading habits, books generally, or anything else. Sharing is entirely optional.

Etiquette
The basic rule is simply to respect the fact that people have come to the event specifically for some quiet, focused reading time.

• Please keep phones and notifications on silent and avoid other activities that could distract the people around you.
• If you need to take a call, watch or listen to something, or otherwise use your phone in a way that could disturb others, please step outside the room (keeping in mind that people will also be reading or studying in the library areas near our meeting room).
• If you arrive a bit late, please try to slip in quietly without disturbing others - intros can happen later.

Of course, normal quiet things — changing books, getting up, taking a washroom break, having a drink, etc. — are absolutely fine.

Food and drink

• Drinks with lids are allowed in our booked meeting room; food is not.
• The library does have an indoor area on the 8th floor where eating is permitted, as well as outdoor space on the 8th and 9th levels where you can eat. For before/after snacks, there are also plenty of nearby cafés and restaurants, as well as a grocery store.

A small experiment
This event is part an experiment I'm doing with events designed to make it easier for people to bring regular book-reading back into their lives (or to start, or sustain, new or existing book-reading routines), and I’d like to see how this simple format works.

So if the idea appeals to you, but you can’t make this particular date, please feel welcome to send me a message to let me know. If there’s interest, I’d like to organize more of these types of events in this group.

Ideas for other reading-friendly venues are also very welcome - that is probably the biggest challenge with hosting this type of event, especially for free.