Windowseat Books breaks the mold with a new kind of book club

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A Nanaimo book club with a twist is starting up in town and it’s giving participants the chance to choose their own book to read. Windowseat Books is launching Read Wild Book Club, a theme-based meetup where each participant can read a different book that matches a proposed theme.

“We will be meeting every three months, most likely on the last Wednesday of the quarter,” Windowseat Books owner Andree Bizier tells The Discourse. “We’re asking folks to come and read us your favourite passage, gush about the characters, and meet up with all the other book lovers in Nanaimo.”

Instead of the usual book club discussion centred around one book, Read Wild book club will be the space for readers to share what they like (and didn’t like) about the book they’ve chosen. 

Readers can give a reading from their book and chat about what ways the various books engaged with the chosen theme. Andree tells The Discourse meetings will be more about the love of books and reading instead of trying to dissect one in particular.

“I personally love adding more books to my [To Be Read] list,” Andree says. “And I hope Read Wild Bookclubbers leave the get-together with 10 other books they want to read.”

The first meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 29, starting at 6 p.m. at Cliffside Brewery Co. The theme is sea creatures, and any fiction, non-fiction, poetry or script matching the theme can be read.

What prompted the inaugural theme? Aundree says the desire to hype some in-store books helped.

“Specifically Remarkably Bright Creatures which is a story told from the perspective of an octopus and How Far the Light Reaches, a memoir told through 10 awesome sea creatures, and [we] thought of all the other cool books we knew about that would fit that theme, and voila!”

While everyone is invited to participate in the monthly reading theme, registration for the meet up at Cliffside Brewery is required as space is limited. 

You can join the Read Wild book club by making a purchase at Windowseat Books and asking to be included in the reading group.

Already have a book you want to chat about at an upcoming book club meetup? Have no fear, your purchase doesn’t have to be for the book club and might even spark an upcoming theme.