Community
The Long Table
A monthly slow-reading table in a Bristol library, now in its seventh year. Nobody has finished the book.
I booked a table at Bristol Central for a Tuesday evening in 2019 because I wanted to read for two hours without checking anything. Four people turned up. It has run every month since, and the rule has never changed: we read, in the same room, in silence.
The problem
Every book group I had been to was a discussion group that used a book as an excuse. Nobody was reading. People arrived having skimmed, apologised for it, and then talked confidently for an hour.
What we did
- Two hours, in silence, in the same room. No set text.
- The last twenty minutes are for anyone who wants to say one thing. Most do not.
- No hosting, no introductions, no name badges. You can come once and never again.
What came of it
Eighty-one sessions. The regulars are eleven people, four of whom have never spoken to me. We are collectively partway through a great many books and nobody has finished the same one.
It turns out reading together in silence is a team sport after all.
