Atlanta
On a current Sunday afternoon, dozens of individuals explored the Margaret Mitchell House — the historic Atlanta property the place the creator wrote “Gone With the Wind,” now refashioned as a museum. Between partaking in dialog and sipping drinks, lots of the friends had been hoping to strike up a friendship.
But about a half hour into the gathering, you can hear a pin drop because the vigorous scene reworked into the hush of a library. For the following hour, pages turned till silent reading time made means for extra dialog. After all, a book is simply the icebreaker at a native assembly of the Silent Book Club, which has occasions all around the world.
Silent Book Club meet-ups — and related on-line or IRL gatherings resembling reading events and BookTok — are gaining in recognition. They all play a half in a casual motion to get extra folks serious about reading for pleasure, which has been in decline over the previous 20 years within the United States, in response to a 2025 study that analyzed American Time Use Survey knowledge from greater than 236,000 members.
“It’s a great way to meet people, make friends, and take time away from the hustle and bustle of life and just sit down and read,” mentioned Aiden Quayle, who attended the Atlanta assembly. “Party is definitely not the right word, maybe like a hangout.”
That low-key vibe gives a wholesome method to reset within the age of the countless scroll. Leisure reading is useful as a result of it permits the brain to “decompress” by absorbing data that isn’t tied to a explicit function, mentioned Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association.
With depression, stress and sleep anxiety on the rise within the US, Jessica Bone, lead creator of the 2025 research, mentioned that constructing reading habits is “potentially even more important right now for supporting people dealing with those things.”
Bone, a senior analysis fellow in statistics and epidemiology at University College London, mentioned these occasions may not essentially imply extra adults are leisure reading, which might embrace bodily and e-books, magazines and newspapers. But with structured time put aside, those that attended the Atlanta assembly mentioned they spent extra time reading.
These gatherings do sign a pattern of reviving a tradition of reading for pleasure, Bone mentioned. “Maybe it’s just that those kinds of things are encouraging people who already read to read different kinds of books … or to kind of read for longer,” she added.
Developing a reading behavior can broaden vocabulary, increase data and stimulate the creativeness. Reading at least once per week is related to a decreased threat of cognitive decline for older adults, a 2020 study found.
Regular reading has been proven to also promote health. The exercise reduces stress, anxiousness and depressive signs whereas supporting higher sleep. The behavior has even been linked to elevated longevity — a 2017 study confirmed extra time spent reading is related to decrease mortality charges.
As an added bonus, reading — regardless of being a person exercise — develops empathy, in response to Helmick, who makes use of they/them pronouns.
“Regardless of age … it supports lower anxiety, higher socialization factor and the ability to navigate the world without having to pay the tuition of life experience,” they mentioned. “It gives you a wider variety of life and experience and allows you to enjoy those narratives and those experiences without actually having to live them.”
Reading Rhythms additionally hosts reading events in cities all over the world. The get-togethers purpose to create group, and attendees should purchase tickets on-line.
As cofounder John Lifrieri places it, the gatherings are “book agnostic,” that means any reading materials is welcome.
“We’ve seen people come with a corporate finance textbook that they’re kind of interested in,” Lifrieri mentioned. “We’ve seen people pop in headphones for the hour experience and listen to their favorite audiobooks.”
But whereas reading on-line and on gadgets “count” as reading, “it’s possible that they might be getting kind of more distracted by notifications or other content, and therefore kind of spending less time doing that reading,” Bone mentioned.
Additionally, reading through social media or on-line hypertext may cause the physique to comply with a dopamine cycle, somewhat than permitting the physique to chill out, Helmick mentioned. In a dopamine cycle, the brain releases the chemical dopamine in response to a rewarding expertise, reinforcing the conduct. Repeated publicity causes the brain to be much less responsive, requiring extra of the identical conduct to launch a related stage of dopamine.
Lifrieri agreed. Despite being format agnostic, he mentioned, Reading Rhythms has a “gentle no-screen policy,” he mentioned. The occasion emphasizes how reading might be an “antidote to this instant gratification, dopamine cycle pipeline that we’re all on, where attention spans are dropping through the floor.”
At the Silent Book Club gathering in Atlanta, members famous how they’ve found a love for reading even when it’s onerous to seek out the time.
“This is a good way to kind of set aside time each week to actually read,” Quayle, an attendee, mentioned.
It’s harder to build reading habits as an grownup than as a schoolkid, Bone mentioned, but it surely definitely might be finished.
While Lifrieri says reading was “never something I was great at as a child,” now he chooses to learn earlier than mattress every evening as an alternative of scrolling on his cellphone. His sleep high quality has improved since he began reading, he famous.
“It’s a great way to help me go to sleep, actually calm my brain down from all the craziness that’s on my phone,” Lifrieri mentioned.
Even Helmick, the president of the American Library Association, admits to not reading as a lot “as I sometimes feel like I should.” They suggest setting some reading time apart late at evening or early within the morning to “level set” other than the day’s actions.
As for locating a good learn, Helmick mentioned they typically try 15 to twenty books at a time. “Don’t feel bad about checking out multiple books and then not finishing them, or even starting them and saying, ‘This doesn’t work for me and moving on to the next.’ There’s really no moral compromise in saying this is not a book for me.”
And how do you have to select these books on the library or a bookstore? Neuman suggested that an grownup strategy reading the identical means kids do — by letting curiosity cleared the path.
“Very often, they’ll be interested in a particular topic,” Neuman mentioned. “They want to see a video. They want to see a movie, and they want to read about it. These cross-media connections are really important. … They’ll want to be with the subject a little bit more.”
Curiosity works for grown-ups, too. For instance, if an grownup is fascinated by vehicles, “learning more about them through some mechanism of reading, that’s the way to begin,” Neuman mentioned.
It’s essential to not assign extra necessities to reading for pleasure, Neuman mentioned, resembling forcing your self to hit a “minutes spent reading per day” quota.
“When we talk about time, we’re de-emphasizing the sheer joy of reading,” she mentioned.
“It’s never too late to start reading one way or another. Just read whenever you get the chance.”
Helmick emphasised that growing a reading behavior would possibly look completely different for everybody.
“I think it’s finding what works for you and embracing it with both arms,” Helmick mentioned. “By the end of a couple weeks, you typically have a reading habit right under your belt.”
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