Let's Read Alone Together a Chat With the Co-Founder of Silent Book Club
About this episode
Jo Piazza discusses the Silent Book Club movement with co-founder Guinevere de la Mare, exploring the benefits of reading in public and its impact on loneliness and burnout.
There's nothing I love more than quietly reading. I love it alone. I love it in groups. But I especially love doing it in public, with the rest of the world buzzing around me, all absorbed in their own little worlds. What if the antidote to burnout, loneliness, and the attention economy was… sitting in a room with strangers and reading quietly? This week, I’m talking to Guinevere de la Mare, the co-founder of Silent Book Club, a global movement that started with one exhausted mom who just wanted to read a single uninterrupted chapter and somehow turned into thousands of chapters in more than 60 countries. We chat about why reading in public started to feel weirdly indulgent, how phones became the more “acceptable” way to check out, and why focusing on a book will actually bring us back to ourselves. There’s also detours into late-stage capitalism, wealth inequality, and why women keep finding themselves fixing broken systems on their own. Raises hand. Me, me, me. Check out everything Silent Book Club here. Discover their reading retreats here. Join our newsletter community here. ORDER The Parisian Heist here. Visit our lovely sponsors here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit…
People in this episode
Host: Jo Piazza
Guest: Guinevere de la Mare
Topics covered
- reading
- loneliness
- public spaces
- burnout
- capitalism
- women's issues
Keywords
- Silent Book Club
- reading
- public reading
- burnout
- loneliness
- capitalism
- women's issues
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Silent Book Club
More episodes of Under the Influence with Jo Piazza
- Money, Marriage, And The Myth of “Having it All — Ask Jo Anything
- Get Outside! The Indoor Epidemic Is Real and It’s Wrecking Our Brains
- My New True Crime Obsession in Utah—the Kouri Richins Murder Trial
- Gen Z Men Are Getting More Conservative. What the Hell Happened?
- The Fine Line Between Cult and Wellness Movement—One Woman's Escape From One Taste and Finding Humor in the Aftermath
- The Chess Queen Who Wants Women to Stop Waiting for the Perfect Move
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Under the Influence with Jo Piazza podcast page.