M. Suzanne Terry

I am a big fan of reading in community. I like gushing about my favorite parts of a book, and I enjoy hearing what others thought of it. This is why I am a member of more book clubs than I can usually handle and also why I enjoy readathons (such as the Dewey that is coming up on April 30).

I also really love reading alone.

Despite the fact that I talk about books almost constantly (particularly when I post here), there is also a rich inner life that comes with reading. In fiction, I get to wrap my mind around other alternatives and worlds, and it helps me better understand my own. In nonfiction, I get to learn from the perspectives of others who have lived very different lives than I have in a way that doesn’t often happen in passing conversations. The best books accomplish both of these things, regardless of genre. Reading sparks imagination, empathy, creativity, and wonder. It can be a solace or an awakening.

This is where I started with my reading life. I didn’t join my first book club until well after graduate school. That doesn’t mean I didn’t love reading just as much back then as I do now. In fact, there are some elements of reading strictly solo that I miss sometimes. I weighed what I read solely against what I knew and believed, and the ideas that made the most sense at the end of this wrestling match were the ones that endured in my worldview. There are other ways to learn how to think critically, of course, but being mostly left to my own devices for what is still the majority of my reading life is what makes doing so seem like second nature to me now.

While my bookish life has become markedly more social in the last decade or two, I carry over some elements of solitary reading. I track most of what I read, but there are some things that I hold so close that I don’t even mark them on my Goodreads lists. I still argue out loud in my living room with authors I don’t agree with (you’re welcome, neighbors). Whenever I have a mostly free weekend (or when I’m so exhausted I cancel everything I’m planning and force a free weekend…like this one coming up), I hunker down with my current TBR list, only surfacing to drink coffee, eat and sleep.

If you love reading but have zero desire to join a book club, you’re not alone (well, technically you are alone…that’s the point…you get it). You don’t have to be social about it. It can be just as rich an experience as reading in community. Maybe even more so, sometimes.