Well, hello.

I enjoy a good book, and I'm sure many of you out there enjoy a good book, too.

But have you ever thought just to do it out in the public?

Well, I have with me today, my friend April.

This is such a joy to get to meet you finally, because I know we both are involved with WNIT.

Yes, yes, yes, I want to.

Yeah.

Thanks.

You guys are doing something really cool.

And I feel like we've heard about this trend in the past too.

But the collaboration of folks getting together to read silently.

Yes.

And Introverts Paradise is incredible.

So the Reading Hour South Bend is what you kind of put together?

Yes.

How long have you guys been doing this?

So my co-founder and I, Elizabeth Van Jacob, she's an academic librarian emerita.

Both of us were really struck two years ago.

So this is the start of our third year by a post by writer Rebecca Solnit.

So she's a social justice writer that I encourage people to read.

Super interesting.

And she had a post reminiscing about a place in Portland, a hotel in Portland where, you know, 20 years or so they hosted a silent reading hour or so, and she remembered it.

So fondly as a place where you would just show up.

Nobody spoke.

Everybody understood that people were just interested in the assignment to read.

And there they even had a there was a little tea bar there, I guess, and if you wanted to order tea you and slide your, what you wanted your order on a piece of paper to maintain the silence.

And she just talked about the, the, you know, the community, the sense of camaraderie and also, you know, the bliss of not being not having too much asked you.

So we this came to us, as something of interest, in part because we were still really coming out of Covid.

I feel like we still are healing from that time.

And so I made a little push.

I shared Rebecca Solnit post and just a stream of people I do this on, on Facebook and all these people are saying, oh my God, I would love to do this, let's do this.

And if I have free time, you say something like that, like, let's get a group together and just go do nothing together.

What a plan.

It's wonderful to be an adult.

It is.

I just I love it.

So you guys have been doing this.

How are you doing it?

Like once and so once a month.

And so, you know, I want to just emphasize this is a free idea, inspired by Rebecca Solnit.

But, you know, it's a cousin of things that are happening at tables, book store and other places that have, you know, occasions for people to gather and read silently together.

So we just kind of decided our vision would be to keep it to South Bend.

Okay.

To make it once a month and to we organize through Facebook, and just to show up at different places.

So we had a couple different goals.

One was to invite people to read in public.

So here in this sunny atrium, different areas.

That's exactly, see, and I see what you do there.

So to get people in different places, we chose this space in the DoubleTree Atrium in South Bend as our first space, and we've tended to do it most winters because the light is wonderful.

You've got these tropical.

We have the white noise going on behind us too, so that's a good idea.

So.

But we've made it, at bookstores, we've been at cafes.

We've met at the Potawatomi Conservatory Greenhouse.

We're trying to get people in different parts of town.

So a little bit about moving people out of maybe their comfort zone, helping them discover places that they may not, and discovering love to.

And something we talked about before we got started, too, was kind of the assignment of, the agenda to put yourself to read.

Yeah.

You know, I often have no intentions.

I know many people are just starting on their New Year's resolutions and they want to read, you know, books or whatever it is, whatever your goal.

Okay, maybe your five bucks a month if you're a hard reader, but this kind of gives you an opportunity to say, this is my time.

I'm scheduling it is and I'm going to do this, and I have other people to support me and that that's a really nice way to put it.

It's an appointment with yourself.

So, unlike other events where you might fret over whether people are going to show up or not, you know, worst case scenario, which has never happened.

If I show up for a reading hour and I'm the only one, I still have a beautiful hour where I've made an appointment with myself to read, not while I'm about to fall asleep, but during the day, which is wonderful.

During the day because people bring all sorts of different kinds of books.

They bring e-readers, they bring school books.

It's all ages, the books I'm an audiobook reader to absolutely just sit there and listen.

Yes, I love it.

There's so few places really where people of all ages can get together.

Sometimes I just look up and people really do understand the assignment.

They show up, they might smile, they sit down and they read, which is such a different dynamic as opposed to a book club.

Yes.

Where you have to say, I didn't actually read the book.

I'm here for the wine.

Yeah, yeah.

Or that there might be some competitive like, oh, you thought that?

Well, I think that this is just here in your world, with the pleasure of company.

So the only other, this was Elizabeth's idea that I really love.

The only other kind of, activity that we do is we never take pictures of people.

I think we honor people's privacy, but we do take pictures of the book covers that people are reading.

And then we share that on our Facebook page afterwards to say, like, what were we reading at the DoubleTree?

So that I think is wonderful because then you have, a reading period, you know, a little reading list of, oh, I kind of, you know, I should check that out.

It's fun to see that.

And the last couple of meetings, last couple of meet up, several people have been reading the new Louise Penny.

So those of us who are Louise Penny, addicts.

The new one dropped, and I was still, like, waiting 68th in line for the public library copy.

But you see that there are people who are reading series and wonderful to see a 12 year old reading next to an 80 year old reading next to some women friends.

I've been reading for like three months.

The Barbara Streisand book.

Oh, it's 48 hours.

Oh my goodness.

And it's it's a lot of Barbara I love it.

I love Barbara, but this gives you the opportunity to do something that right almost.

You know, it is your comfort, but bringing it to a new zone and also not having the pressures.

Yes.

Conversation if you want to.

I'm sure people do that as well afterwards.

Yeah.

Sometimes people, some people just kind of drift away.

Some people, you know, we hope it's a place where people who otherwise might not run into each other meet.

We certainly have regulars.

We have new people all the time.

I my dream would be that people go off and have a cup of coffee.

They get to know one another.

But it's a it's it has been a deep pleasure and again, an idea that I would give away to any.

Yeah.

Which is nice.

Which is a great thing to say too, because this can happen anywhere.

Absolutely.

You can take it.

You should and it should all across Michigan.

Absolutely.

And I know we have some other places that are doing this too.

When are you guys having your next meetup?

So our next one is, January 24th, I think it's a Saturday at Lang Lab.

So they've got a nice cozy reading space.

In the afternoon, I should of double check this.

Information so we know when all the updates are coming and your basement.

What's your Facebook page?

It's called, reading our South Bend in love.

And it is a group, so you do have to join just because we don't want, trolls in there.

So where's for little, you know, we ask you to say what your who your favorite author is and your favorite book.

Just so I have to ask you because you're already doing.

Yes, dinner in a book.

Yes.

I like to read you to read.

So tell me, what are some of your favorite authors or favorite stories?

Oh, goodness.

Yeah.

Rebecca Makkai I would say right now, The Great Believers, a beautiful novel about, people coming together at the beginning of the Aids crisis in Chicago.

That really made an impact on me.

Also, I'll just name one more the only book I think I've ever read through and immediately started reading again.

And that's Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the future.

So it's a science fiction book for people who don't necessarily like science fiction, but it's about the climate crisis.

He's all of his solutions.

It's got solutions in it.

So that's what I love about this book.

And I encourage people to read it and really talk with one another about the solutions that that he offers.

That is not just how do we mitigate harm, but how do we make a more beautiful world.

And he brings us there.

And it's it's quite healing and lovely to read in a moment where, the climate crisis could not be more vibrantly alarming to all of us.

Absolutely great recommendations for me.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I got a zillion I know I love it, but is there anything that people need to bring with them?

Something to read?

So I think sometimes people worry that, it's got to be a physical book.

Absolutely not.

People bring the New Yorker, they bring audio books, they read on tablets, they read on their phones.

We have, you know, people bring graphic novels, the wonderful proliferation.

I feel like I when I pillow just encourage you to do that.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, we'll see you at the next meeting.

Okay.

That sounds great.

Thank you so much.