Have you heard of ? They are taking the world by storm — quietly.
The concept is this. People who like to read might like to read with others, but without being forced to read a book they don’t want to read or to go to the bother of forming opinions about it, as with traditional book clubs.
I was aware of Silent Book Clubs — by , naturally — but hadn’t encountered one. Then an email newsletter arrived touting the inaugural meeting of the Twentynine Palms Silent Book Club.
The newsletter linked to a Washington Post story about the trend, explaining that of the 950 official chapters, 400 had started in 2024.
“Recent additions hail from Abu Dhabi; Marietta, Georgia; and Twentynine Palms, California,” the desert newsletter noted, “proving that a hatred of small talk is universal.”
The first gathering would be April 21. By happy coincidence, I was going to be in neighboring Joshua Tree that weekend. This looked like fate.
Two days prior, Francoise Lazare filled me in. She and husband Patrick Zuchowicki own Desert General, a general store in Twentynine Palms with a growing selection of books. The couple organized last fall’s Twentynine Palms Book Festival, which will be back .
They are also sponsoring at the request of a shy customer, who said she wanted to be part of a book club but didn’t want to talk. According to the Silent Book Club , meet-ups usually take place in coffee shops, bars, libraries or bookstores and involve one hour of silent reading, followed by optional conversation.
“It’s like a book club for introverts,” Lazare told me. “The rule is there are no rules, no assigned reading. Everyone comes with their own book, audiobook, comic book. It’s a community gathering of people who like to read.”
Like any host, she worried aloud whether anyone would show up.
“It’s not that a lot of people come,” Zuchowicki chimed in reassuringly, “it’s that the people who come are happy.”
I put some thought into my choice of book. It was — highbrow alert — Marcel Proust’s “Swann’s Way,” the first book in his series “In Search of Lost Time.”
It wasn’t a book I was reading. In fact, it was a book I’d assiduously avoided reading, ever since buying it at a 60% discount 13 years ago during the Borders Books closeout sale.
What I knew about “Swann’s Way” was that it has long and winding sentences, page-spanning paragraphs and very little plot. In other words, it’s not a book to dip into during dull patches of a San Bernardino council meeting.
A full hour of distraction-free reading was a perfect way to get started.
Just before 11 a.m., I arrived at the Corner 62 complex and walked into Desert General, wearing a Ray Bradbury “Fahrenheit 451” T-shirt for the proper pro-reading tone.
A familiar face entered. Twentynine Palms local Mike Vail asked with surprise why I was in town, then asked what I was reading. I explained my long-term avoidance strategy.
“Your experience with ‘Swann’s Way’ is the same as mine,” Vail admitted. “I’ve had a copy on my shelves for years and haven’t read it.”
Lazare, by contrast, has read all seven books, and in the original French. She quoted the action-packed first line from memory: “For a long time, I went to bed early.”
“I am jealous of you,” she confided. “You are starting these books for the first time.”
It was a warm, sunny day. We congregated in the courtyard patio, where there was outdoor furniture, a shade sail and refreshments, including bagels from 29 Loaves.
Despite Lazare’s fears, 15 of us showed up. (Twelve were women. I like that ratio.) At precisely 11 a.m., observing the “Silence While Reading” sign, books opened and the chatter stopped.
The first rule of Silent Book Club is that nobody talks during Silent Book Club.
At 11:20, sounds were few: conversation drifting from a shop’s open door, the fluttering of a bird’s wings. The turning of pages from yards away was audible.
At 11:30, a late arrival took the chair next to me, pulling out a brick by Sarah J. Maas, “Crescent City,” and opening it. The next time I looked over, she’d put the book down and was leafing through an issue of Hi Fructose.
At noon, Lazare called time.
I was only on page 23, but that was a good place to stop, right before a four-page paragraph.
Lazare got things rolling, telling us about the nonfiction book she was reading, “The Conquest of Morocco.”
Vail spoke about a mystery, “Prague Fatale,” in which the protagonist is a homicide detective in World War II Berlin. “He’s constantly referring to how ‘I’m trying to solve one murder and my countrymen are over in Ukraine and the Soviet Union murdering thousands every day,’” Vail said.
Seven other readers followed, commenting favorably in most cases about historical fiction on the building of the Panama Canal (“The Great Divide”), a literary romance (“Lessons in Chemistry”) and a modern retelling of a Jane Austen classic in which a renter fights back against a corporate CEO gentrifying her neighborhood (“Pride and Protest”), among others.
I considered how to summarize the start of “Swann’s Way,” in which the narrator reminisces about being a nervous boy who couldn’t sleep unless his mother gave him a goodnight kiss. It seemed best to stay silent.
People seemed to enjoy the event and asked when the next one would be. Lazare scheduled it for May 26.
It turns out the Inland Empire has two other chapters of the Silent Book Club, in Redlands and Rancho Cucamonga. You can find them both on Instagram.
had its first meeting April 21 as well. How about that?
has been meeting monthly since December. Its next meet-up is from 6-8 p.m. Monday, April 29 at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, 8140 Haven Ave.
As the Twentynine Palms meeting ended, Vail shared that he hadn’t known what to expect but found he’d gotten a lot out of the experience.
“I have to confess,” he said, “that even though I’m an author, I hardly ever read for an hour.”
David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, something to shout about. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.
