Like the butterfly effect, it starts with a flutter. For Bengaluru residents Shruti Sah and Harsh Snehanshu, book pages fluttered in the wind when they started reading together under a giant peepal tree in Cubbon Park in December, 2022. It made them start a reading group – a way for people to gather, bring a book, any book, and read it silently, as others did the same. For those looking to get back to reading, it offered a social push. For those too distracted to read at home, it created a calm, dedicated space. For everyone, it’s a silent challenge to put away the phone and dive into the pages instead.

Cubbon Reads has been meeting every week since January 2023 and now has 500 readers. It’s inspired similar clubs in other cities and neighbourhoods. “It’s a great way to organically make friends as an adult,” says Abhimanyu Lodha, co-founder of Mumbai’s Bandra Reads, which hosts about 50 to 60 people every Sunday morning in Jogger’s Park. Pune Reads is now 40-members strong and meets every Saturday morning .

Starting a reading community isn’t the problem, maintaining it is. Here’s how to get local bookworms to read together, week after week – perhaps even forge friendships along the way.

Keep it distinct from a book club. Readers just need to bring themselves and the book they wish to read. Everyone reading something different, no one’ judging. It does away with what Sah and Snehanshu call the “needless intellectualisation” that comes with book-club discussions. There’s also no pressure to finish a quota of books per month or to even socialise.

Locate your readers. They may be on the outskirts of the city or in the building next door. With Bandra Reads, “people come every Sunday from as far as Borivali and Kalyan, at 8am,” says Lodha. Before establishing one, check your proximity to other reading groups. Why beat ’em when you can join ’em?

Share the load. Ask reader friends to take charge of the group so it’s not all you. Lodha co-founded Bandra Reads with Amie Fazulbhoy in June 2023. Both take turns to put out updates, invite authors, and occasionally host events such as jam sessions. They haven’t taken a break yet, no matter the weather. “We read under an umbrella if we have to,” jokes Lodha. “Nothing can keep us away from meeting every Sunday morning.” Aditi Chauhan curates Pune Reads with Sonal Dharmadhikari, Gauri Karekar and Ninad Tengse. At least one of them shows up every Saturday morning in Shivaji Nagar’s Kamla Nehru Park. They ask readers who can’t make it to read from home during the same 8am to 11am slot. “That way, everyone feels like they belong, even if they miss a session,” Chauhan says. Crossing the six-month mark with the same readers is the first indication that it’s working.

Swap stories. About life and books – even the ones that you didn’t like. Pune Reads has persuaded older readers to pick up more contemporary works, and got younger readers to consider titles from before they were born. Bandra Reads hosts an anti-book swap, in which readers exchange books they disliked, in the hope that it might become someone else’s favourite. Inviting authors to talk about their books is one of their popular draws. On some Saturdays, the families of Pune Reads trickle into the park to read together. “We’re here to find joy in reading again,” says Dharmadhikari.

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