Silent Book Club gains traction in the Pittsburgh region

The rules of Silent Book Club are simple: No assigned reading, no homework and no small talk required. Members are expected to show up at a designated meeting place with whatever title they’re enjoying, sit and read. They can share thoughts if they want, but they don’t have to.

The concept has revitalized the idea of joining a book club.

It’s paradise for introverted readers and book vigilantes who don’t like the rules of traditional book clubs.

Teresa Torlone, 33, of Charleroi falls in the latter group. She discovered Silent Book Club, a global organization, while scrolling through TikTok late one night. She immediately sent the video to her best friend, Amanda Palombo.

“I called Amanda and asked if she wanted to do it with me,” Torlone said. “Within half an hour, we had an Instagram account made, emailed the founders, and we were off to the races.”

The best friends officially began the chapter in Lawrenceville in May 2023 and hosted their first meeting in June. Their group meets on the second Tuesday of each month.

Not only does the group feed the pair’s love of reading, but it serves as a
perfect solution to their semi-long distance friendship. Palombo and Torlone met while working together. Once they both ended up changing jobs, they tried to see each other as much as possible, but Torlone lives in Charleroi and Palombo in Butler.

“Pittsburgh is halfway between us,” Palombo, 32, said. “We’ll drive to each other for a good thing, but meeting in the middle is perfect for us. There’re so many good spots where (the group) could meet in the city.”

Silent Book Club began in the United Kingdom and spread to 59 other countries with 500 chapters worldwide. There are four in the Pittsburgh area — Lawrenceville, Robinson, South Hills and Ben Avon.

Palombo and Torlone began recruiting members through social media. When starting the club, they found that Pittsburgh’s original chapter had disbanded during covid, and began following previous members on Instagram. They were getting between 20 and 30 readers each meeting until a video of the club went viral on TikTok.

“We had a lot of growth come from that video,” Palombo said. “We went from meetups with 20 or so people to 60 people regularly showing up.”

With the level of growth the group experienced, Torlone and Palombo had to find a new meeting place that could fit everyone. They started meeting in Friendship Park in Bloomfield during the summer, but that location didn’t last once the weather turned.

“Finding a space that didn’t charge for us to be there was a huge challenge,” Palombo said.

Aslin Beer Company in the Strip District ended up donating their upstairs section to the chapter and has become their regular meeting place, making it easier for new members to find the reading community.

“We were super fortunate that (the club) blew up,” Torlone said. “It became a little community that we both love and exist in together.”

Carolyn Ingham, 23, of Lawrenceville, and Alyssa Meisl, 24, of West Mifflin, attended their first meeting together in February. Like most other members, Meisl discovered the club online and immediately sent it to Ingham, her friend from nursing school.

“I just like that you get to come and read your book and actually read while you’re here because that’s what I like to do,” Meisl said.

Ingham said that she always liked the idea of joining a book club. She said that during her day-to-day life if she sees someone reading a book that she likes, she’ll strike up a conversation about it.

“Like if I see someone reading Sara J. Mass, I’ll stop and say ‘Oh my gosh, that book is so good,’” Ingham said. “I just like talking about it with people and it’s a good way to get to know people and get friendly. When I looked it up, it seemed like a safe, welcoming, friendly environment.”

Anya Taffe, 26, of the North Shore and Jessica Frichtel, 29, of Irwin, had a similar experience finding the club. Taffe began attending Silent Book Club in the summer of 2023. Frichtel joined her a few months later after Taffe quit their Pittsburgh Sports League bowling team.

“I like that it’s a mix of talking for a half hour and then reading for an hour, and it’s not all the same book,” Taffe said. “I wasn’t really interested in a book club where there’s homework. This is a great mix of extrovertism and introvertism.”

Frichtel said that she’s been in book clubs with assigned reading before and wasn’t a fan. She said that if there was a book that she wasn’t crazy about, or that she didn’t have time to get through, she would have to skip that month and wait until the next book was announced.

“When (Taffe) mentioned this and said that we could read anything, I thought it was great,” Frichtel said.

Frichtel works at the Pittsburgh International Airport, and each meeting night she drives directly to Aslin Beer Company from work. She said that the club reminds her to set aside some time to relax and read a little bit more.

Cat Briggs, 34, of Bloomfield, said that her algorithm changed when she moved to Pittsburgh a year ago. In an attempt to make friends and get to know the city, she began researching different clubs around town when the Silent Book Club popped up on her feed. She was excited to build a community with other readers. Her fourth meeting was in February.

“It’s been a little slow going because you see people once a month but then you skip a couple of months, but for me, it’s knowing that this (group) exists, which is really great,” Briggs said.

Jed Sorokin-Altmann, 41, of Highland Park, attended his second Silent Book Club meeting in February after moving to Pittsburgh in July. He said that he works remotely with others who don’t live in Pennsylvania. Sorokin-Altmann saw the club as a way to find a community and make friends with the common interest of reading.

“I heard about this through an Instagram Reel,” Sorokin-Altmann said. “It was one of those ‘Things to do in Pittsburgh’ that popped up. Through that, I found some of my other book clubs.”

He is a member of three book clubs, two of which assign him books to read each month. He said that the different formats of clubs help him maintain variety in his reading.

Stevie Hosler, 40, of Bethel Park, serves as the leader of the South Hills chapter of Silent Book Club.

She started out as a member of the Lawrenceville chapter and found that Tuesday meetings didn’t work for her schedule. After talking with Palombo and Torlone, she emailed the founders and got the go-ahead to start her own chapter.

“It was appealing because I haven’t really joined a book club because I don’t like having to read a book that’s assigned to me,” Hosler said. “I’m very much a mood-based reader. I read based on how I’m feeling, and don’t like having a time frame for when I finish a book.”

She took a page from Palombo’s book and decided to begin recruiting members via social media, and held her first meeting in November. She said that around 20 people usually come to each meeting. Hosler said that the biggest struggle thus far has been finding a space big enough to house everyone interested in attending. At one point, interest was so high that Hosler had to close registration because there were more people interested than what she had space for.

“We were meeting at the Panera Bread in South Park, but now we’re meeting at the Panera in the Galleria Mall because their space is a bit bigger,” Hosler said.

She said that making friends as an adult with a child, husband and career can be extremely difficult.

“It’s been great,” Hosler said. “I have personal friends that I was already friends with that attend my club, and I’ve also started making friends. Now I feel like I have a community of people who are alike in interests. People that I can share things with. It’s been really enriching.”

Heather Weleski, 37, of Avalon, is another chapter leader who had the club come to her. Being an original member of the Pittsburgh chapter that disbanded during covid, she was able to start her chapter in 2022.

“I attended a few meetings and then bam, a global pandemic shut us down,” Weleski said. “After things started opening up again, I contacted the previous organizers who let me know that they were no longer in the area. I contacted Silent Book Club and let them know that we wanted to reestablish one in Pittsburgh and that I would be organizing it.”

Now, Weleski’s chapter meets at Anchor and Anvil in Ben Avon on the first Sunday of each month. They usually chat for a little at the beginning, grab a drink and then start reading. Like other chapters, everyone reads their own thing, and then toward the end of the meeting, they gather back up to talk again.

“I wanted to bring the group back because I love the concept,” Weleski said. “I struggle meeting new people as someone who doesn’t love the bar scene or clubs, so it is great to get to meet people in a no-pressure social setting.”

She said that her experience as a chapter leader has been great. As the Avalon Library director, Weleski is no stranger to taking charge and organizing.

“This has been such a positive experience,” she said. “I’ve truly made an amazing group of friends by leading this chapter. We are actually planning a book reading retreat in April with each other.”