These bars are some of the hottest new places to read in silence in Toronto

Books and bevvies go hand in hand: many of us have curled up with a good book and a hot cup of coffee or tea, or maybe even lounged on a beach reading a novel while sipping a cool cocktail.

However, when we think of where to enjoy a quiet reading session, a loud noisy bar often isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

There are several bars in Toronto that are changing that perception by making their spaces into places that embrace literature, from hosting book clubs to silent reading sessions.

Club Paris, a bottle shop and wine bar by Paris Paris, has been holding a monthly themed BYO-book club where you can drink vino and talk books. Famous Last Words has always had a literary theme, but in addition to events like book exchanges and book trivia, they’ve also been hosting drop-in book clubs and silent book clubs. Danu Social House has hosted some silent book clubs as well.

“I actually learned about the concept from a TikTok, very millennial,” Harresh Sivamohan, who is the creator of a local Toronto silent book club group, tells YourCityWithIN. “It was a TikTok of someone in America hosting a silent book club and sharing tips on how to get one started. From there I also found out that there’s a whole organization for Silent Book Club.”

The concept of silent book clubs extends way beyond Toronto and its bars, with clubs meeting in places like cafes, libraries, bookstores and parks.

“It works as the opposite to a traditional book club, where instead of everyone reading the same book prior to the meeting and then meeting up to talk about it, everyone brings their own book and reads it on their own during the meeting,” says Sivamohan.

He says the typical agenda of a silent book club meeting is as follows: meeting up and socializing, people breaking off to read on their own, then heading home or continuing to socialize. While a cafe or library might provide a decent venue for this type of activity, silent readers have really latched on to bars as surprisingly great places for this mix of socialization and quiet alone time.

“I think bars are suited for book clubs, and silent book clubs, because they have an atmosphere of socializing, where people don’t have to be formal all the time and can go to catch up with friends, meet new people and just hang out,” says Sivamohan.

“I think Danu in particular is well suited because of how the owner Joshua has set up the bar in a way to be conducive for building connections and community. Both in the physical sense, the bar layout is really good for groups to meet and hang out, as well as the way the bar operates by hosting multiple community-run events every week.”

Sivamohan’s events have taken off, with a Meetup group already accumulating over 450 members. About 25 to 35 people have shown up to each silent book club meeting he’s organized.

Famous Last Words owner Marlene Thorne is old hat at the book club hosting game, and has been hosting an in-house book club since shortly after the bar opened in 2016. Since, she’s opened up the venue to any book club that wants to meet up at her bar, sometimes hosting up to four book clubs on the same night. There are even some clubs that have been meeting up at Famous Last Words for over seven years. They also usually host a silent book club about once a month.

“We also have a promotion for folks to bring their own book clubs. As long as they reserve in advance for a weeknight, Sunday or Tuesday through Thursday, with a book club of four or more we’ll hold a prime table, create a custom cocktail based on the book they’re reading, and give them 10 per cent off their bill,” Thorne tells YourCityWithIN.

“Bars are communal spaces and have long been places for folks to gather to share ideas, so I see book club discussions as a natural extension of that. At Famous Last Words in particular, books are at the heart of everything we do, our menu is a little book and all our cocktails are inspired by and named after novels, so it’s a really fitting venue for book club discussions, and particularly on weeknights we try to make the atmosphere as inviting and cozy as possible. I think most book clubbers would say that seeing what feature cocktail we come up with for their book is their favourite part of meeting at Famous Last Words.”

So far, Sivamohan has been sticking to bars for his silent meet-ups, hosting most of them at Danu and then having one at the more central downtown location of Imperial Pub. Now that the weather is getting better, though, he may start doing some silent book club meetings in parks (which could be BYOB…that goes for booze and books).

“I’ve also been thinking of hosting some meetings at other venues across Toronto,” says Sivamohan. “My pipe dream is to eventually host a meeting at an Indigo.”

You can keep an eye on his Meetup and Instagram page to see when his next silent book club meeting is happening, and if you’ve been inspired to start a book club of your own (silent or not), you can always get in touch with Famous Last Words to see if they can host it. Who knows, you may just find that reading in silence doesn’t always have to be a solo activity.