Starting a Book Club Is a Radical Act

I grew up in France as the youngest child with siblings much older than me. I had to entertain myself, so I turned to books. They became my world, and that love never left.

I always dreamed of opening a bookshop. At 35, I made part of that dream real with a small pop-up in Shoreditch selling books and stationery. So if anyone tells you your dreams are impossible, don’t listen. Dreams don’t always arrive all at once. Sometimes they start small. Sometimes they show up in unexpected forms. One day I hope it becomes permanent, but for now we create with what we have.

This is why I truly believe starting a book club is an act of resistance.

We live in a society that breaks communities apart and keeps us isolated. But reading together creates connection. It builds critical thinking and it opens our minds. And let’s be honest, that’s not something the system encourages. Most of us left school knowing very little about real life, relationships, politics or the darker parts of the world. We are watching a livestreamed genocide, and many people have no tools to understand the forces behind it. Books give us those tools.

Books are powerful.
Pens are powerful.
Notebooks are powerful.
Community is powerful.

So let’s reclaim that. Start a book club with a few friends. You don’t need 50 people. Five or six is more than enough. Choose books that expand your world and make you more empathetic. And if you don’t have people around you to start with, join one. London is full of them,  Eventbrite, Meetup, libraries, cafés.

Reading together rebuilds something essential in us, something we lose when we spend all our time online.

It’s time to be human again!

In a world that often tells us to consume and move on, choosing to read and reflect together is, in its own quiet way a form of resistance.