Book Club Day UK: be a reading rebel, join a book club.
What is Book Club Day UK?
Book Club Day UK (11 September 2026) is a day that celebrates the joy, connection and impact of shared reading, while supporting more people to start or join book clubs in their communities.
For 2026, we are inviting people to be a reading rebel and join a book club, make their book clubs more visible or invite someone new to join their club in September.
The messages are get your books out, find your people and build stronger communities. The day is a chance to bring people together to enjoy the power of reading and book talk, us our Book Club Hub to apply for book club sets to read and review, discover resources and welcome new readers into their circle.
Meet the club
Tell us a bit about your club
We are Offline Books! We started meeting in March 2025.
I had the idea to start a book club because I was finding that I rarely had people to talk to about the books I was reading. So I thought if a group of people read the same book as me every month, I’d always have people to discuss them with!
I wanted to spotlight books by authors from Global Majority backgrounds particularly; for many of us our school curriculum only sparingly highlighted such writers, and it coloured a perspective on reading as something extrinsic, historical, and White. I thought that by introducing some of these writers to people, I might inspire people, who never found a way in with reading in school, to feel the magic I feel when I read.
It was also born out of a desire to revive my (and the collective) attention span! Reading has been something I’ve always loved, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found it harder to get back into the rhythm of reading; social media has been a massive distraction. But something else which has always followed me is that once I start reading again, I’m locked in.
I find reading, and promoting reading, to be increasingly pressing in an age where AI’s monopoly on access to information is inviting us to be unthinking and uncritical.
It’s easy to be unthinking. But without the autonomy to decide our own narratives, would we even write stories? Would we even have interest in reading them; if they weren’t summarised for us in ten, ribboned, ChatGPT-Google-search bullet points? Imagine a metaphor with a data-driven, ‘absolute’ interpretation. (Don’t! There’s still hope!)
What’s the story behind your club’s name?
The name ‘Offline Books’ represents some of the initial intentions for the book club; to improve our attention span, it helps to be offline more and away from the scroll. We made a connection between reading and being offline. Shortly after we named the book club though, a year into it existing at that (!), we launched an Instagram page for the book club and really took it online – which might sound counterintuitive, but we are only coming online to take people offline!
Where and how often do you meet?
We meet on the last or penultimate Thursday of the month, once a month in the evening. Our venues alternate; we have hosted at cafe’s, workspaces, art galleries, and outdoor in the park for summer meets.
Our club experience
What do your members enjoy most about being in a book club?
I think what our book club members enjoy most about the book club is the group motivation to read more, the community that has grown from regular meets and sprouted friendships outside of the book club.
What book discussions have stood out?
Our discussion of Death of England by Clint Dyer in March this year was one of our more heated and eclectic discussions. The play centres on multiple stories from modern England told in vignettes, encompassing the range of experience and perspective that exists in the country. In the midst of wider debates and public action taking place today, regarding race, national identity and ‘culture wars’, our discussion of this book flourished and was never-ending. We watched some of the National Theatre production of it during the meet, which brought something new to the space and was so fun it gave us the idea to start putting on regular movie nights!
Has your group ever done anything outside of reading together?
Officially, we have hosted two movie nights since we started our book club last year, and more recently we’ve been talking about making them more regular. However, I think something that works for us as a book club is the regularity of our monthly meets, and the space in between to miss each other’s presence and discussion builds anticipation!
Many of us in the book club are creatives, and we often share our upcoming events in the WhatsApp group chat – so we can see each other in between at these!
Does your group use social media, a blog, or a newsletter?
We are on Instagram offlinebooksmcr, where we share posters for our book club meets every month! It has helped us to reach the wider creative network in Manchester, and dozens of people have been directed to our meets via our page.
Our recommendations
📖 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz: This book really satisfies the appetite of third culture children of diaspora who grew up with stark parent-child generation and location gaps, presenting a gritty, realistic landscape with supernatural folklore permeating through it
📖 Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin: The sharp, concentrated nature of one of our shorter reads made it a sticking one that continues to be mentioned at current meets; it helps that it’s written in the evergreen voice of James Baldwin
📖 Death of England by Clint Dyer: State of the nation address whose relevance only continues to grow, painting a multidimensional picture of a country that sees itself as divided
📖 Barber Shop Chronicles by Inua Ellams: Our first read was a naturalistic, resonant read play that established palpable familiarity in only around 100 pages, and our acting out of scenes from the play at the meet made it more memorable!
📖 Assata by Assata Shakur: A visceral, ultra-intimate, poetic account of the life of a principled activist, which brought goosebumps, tears and laughs to us
Are there any authors or genres your group keeps returning to?
We are a book club that reads plays, poetry, and non-fiction as well as novels, but novels are still our most read medium. Magical realism is the genre we have returned to most.
Tips & Advice
What advice would you give to someone looking to start their own book club?
Be bold! One of the pillars of running my book club has been regularity – not being afraid to run the book club every month, even when you don’t know how many people will show up. You can still have a great discussion even if there’s only three of you, and numbers will probably grow through time and word of mouth anyway. Now, we regularly have around 10 people at our monthly meets.
How do you choose your books?
We vote in our group chat every month, after taking suggestions at the end of the previous meet. I also draw from a pool of books I scope out through various channels, which is particularly helpful when people are not sure what to read.
Find out more
Visit our page to hear more about Book Club Day UK and how you can get involved.
Download the Comms Toolkit and Workplace Toolkit.
Let us know if you would like to have a book club spotlight by emailing bookclubhub@readingagency.org.uk.
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