Houston Reading Parties

BEWARE OF A SCAM RELATED TO HOUSTON READING PARTIES. If you are an author (or anybody) who receives an email supposedly from me - Jane Nguyen - asking you to donate or pay anything to have your book featured in Houston Reading Parties - ignore the email. It is not me, and it is not this group. We do not have featured authors or books, and we don't solicit payments for anything other than general funds to pay meetup fees.

Please read note at the bottom about messages to the organizer.

• Rolling Stone: "Are Reading Parties The New Wellness Activity for Creative Leaders?"
• Good Morning America: "A look at the silent reading parties trend"
• The New Yorker: "Readers' Night Out"

We do not all read the same book at our reading parties (held mostly at Houston-area coffee shops.) Instead, each person brings any book or text they are already reading or starting to read. It could be a textbook, fiction novel, non-fiction book, several articles, a technical piece, a training manual for work–ANYTHING you want to read.

We sit and read silently for 30 minutes. At the end of 30 minutes, we stop and share anything we feel like sharing about what we’re reading (interesting content, unique writing style, funny character exchange, controversial ideas, relevance to our lives, etc.). Or we talk about whatever! Once we’ve shared and socialized for about 20 minutes, we go back to reading. (We cap the talk break at approximately 20 minutes so we don’t lose sight of what we came to do: read while relaxing with other readers).

General group guidelines:

1. Open to anybody age 18+. If you're a parent, bringing a mature, well-behaved kid age 12+ is okay. Said minor should read like everyone else.
2. We'll mostly be at coffee shops and spacious work/study/read-friendly restaurants. Most places will have coffee, alcohol, food, desserts, etc.
3. Please be respectful of everyone else. Any harassment or abuse of other members, whether in person or via text or Meetup messages, will not be tolerated. Please don’t contact any members privately either before an in-person event or after unless you’ve already spoken in person and they’ve indicated they welcome communication with you.
4. Please stay true to the spirit of the group by reading at these parties. It doesn't matter if you read off your device rather than a hard-copy book, as long as you're reading rather than working on a school assignment or work task, scrolling on social media, shopping online, or whatever else. Of course, I cannot police people, nor do I want to, but know that I made this statement about treating a reading party like a reading party.
5. The "silent reading" period isn't rigidly silent. It mostly is, but we'll naturally speak sometimes for whatever reason even before we get into sharing mode.
6. We sometimes have dinner (and/or drinks) events.

Feel free to message me if you have additional questions or concerns! :)

Note: if you have critiques or complaints about the group, I respectfully ask that you message me privately to voice them. Any critical or complaint post directed at me or anyone else posted in the discussion area for everyone to read will be deleted, and you will be removed from the group. I am definitely interested in your thoughts. I'm not interested in being harangued and put on trial on a public discussion board. If you want others to know how you feel about the group and to convey your experience, please use the Review function for that. Thank you!

– Jane