Why shared reading is the new bonding language for book worms

Reading, often a solitary activity, when done with community, can mean many things. Depending on the context you’re reading in, a poem about freedom can represent rebellion, a letter to a tree can mean love, a note in the margins of a historic text can mean provenance and an article in the newspaper can be a record of culture and society.

Reading together can be a way of building empathy and noticing the intrinsic humanity of people from ‘other’ groups and a means to connecting with people who might have different perspectives and experiences but shared values. There’s something powerful and extraordinarily beautiful about coming together and building a community for the sake of reading and learning. And at a time when attention spans are low, distractions are many and reading is supposedly a dying activity, people are coming together and bonding over their shared love for the written word.

For instance, across the country, a silent reading community has been flourishing. In different areas of several cities, people are meeting once a week, for two hours, at a park or some other public place, to read together in silence. Chapters range from Bengaluru’s Cubbon Reads to Lodhi Reads in Delhi and from Kerala’s Thrissur Reads to Mumbai’s Bandra Reads.

“Community reading isn’t new. Even today there are public libraries. But because of social media, public reading is getting more attention now,” says Abhimanyu Lodha, who has been organising weekly sessions of Bandra Reads since 2023. Every Sunday, from 8 am to 10 am, people come together at Jogger’s Park to read. “The first meeting had about seven people,” recalls Lodha. But now, he’s seen up to 90 people at the sessions, with an average of about 50 attendees at a session. “It started as a reading thing, but now there are people who come to write, crochet, knit, or with a mat and pillow, nap for two hours under a tree,” he says about their growing community. Whatever you do, the only prerequisite is that you do it silently.

A similar initiative, Readers of Bombay, is hosted by Charvi Thakkar, who also started out in 2023. At the reading parties she organises, readers meet on Saturdays and Sundays, for an hour in the evening, to read together at a cafe decided by Thakkar. Before and after the meeting, you can discuss the book you’re reading and talk about books more generally. “The reading aspect remains the same. But everyone likes to discuss what they’re reading and after you’re done reading you get to talk about it immediately,” she says.

Through these sessions, Thakkar has gotten book recommendations that she never would have come across otherwise, and made friends that go beyond just being a reading buddy. “Reading at home is full of distractions, but through these reading parties you’re carving out time for reading. When it’s scheduled by someone else, you make reading a priority,” she explains. Like Bandra Reads, Readers of Bombay also makes sure participants consciously set apart two hours a week for reading.

While these initiatives are encouraging community reading in public places, another community, Read A Kitaab, is addressing the need of wanting to discuss what you’re reading in a more detailed way. The community, founded by Ekta Bhandari and Anurag Kothari in 2021, organises meet ups where people spend two hours discussing books in a general way. This is different from the book of the month, which is their book club. Here, you can simply talk about books based on the month’s theme, which can range from ‘literature in translation’ to ‘feminist literature’ and ‘who would you be if you could be a book character?’.

“Conversations are important. Change is going to happen through conversation,” says Bhandari. With a focus on building community around reading, they are 19,000 strong today, with events in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune and more, besides Mumbai, which is where it all started. They are focused on simply bringing people together over a shared love for books, and readers read in different languages, come from different backgrounds, have different political views, and so on. The founders are mindful about ensuring this remains a non judgmental space. “We’re an unbiased community. We don’t judge people for the books they are reading or the views they have about books,” says Kothari.

It’s encouraging to see people come together over their shared love for books, but community essentially means feeling a sense of belonging. And there are also initiatives that ignite this feeling without ever meeting their participants. With roughly five thousand books in circulation, Shruti Sharma, who started Books on the Delhi Metro in 2017, now calls the initiative a mobile library. About 50 volunteers, called book fairies, leave books in different spots like the seats, platforms, and anywhere else, which they decide beforehand. Each book has a note explaining the initiative. They encourage people to read it and then put it back, so that the book stays in circulation for the next reader.

“Our books have removed the societal barrier. Readers include everyone, like a lecturer, labourer and a housewife. Even the police staff standing there all day reads. Everyone is part of this community,” says Sharma. “Reading is the thread that binds us, even when there are social barriers.”