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| Axios Finish Line |
| By Mike Allen and Erica Pandey and Jim VandeHei · Sep 09, 2026 |
| Welcome back! Smart Brevity™ count: 291 words … 1 min. Copy edited by Amy Stern. |
| 1 big thing: There’s a book club for that |
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| Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios |
| Americans may be reading less, but bookstores are thriving and book clubs are bringing people together. Book club events on Eventbrite jumped 33% during the first half of this year compared with the same time last year, Axios’ Sami Sparber reports. The intrigue: The book club boom has been largely driven by “hyper niche” meetups that bring together readers who love the same genres or have the same hobbies, Eventbrite says.Readers are lacing up corsets and attaching prosthetic fairy ears to gather with fellow fans of the red-hot “romantasy” genre. They’re reading together silently, sometimes not even the same book. Indie bookstores are hosting clubs for people who want to craft while they discuss books. Case in point: At Atlanta bookstore Offbeat Books, each book club has its own vibe, owner Lindsi Bollinger tells Axios.The horror club spills into movie talk, while the nonfiction club is run “pretty much like a classroom,” with PowerPoints, a projector and discussion questions. There’s also a “weird girl” reading group — part of a literary trend celebrating books with messy, strange, complicated female protagonists. Between the lines: Book clubs are also getting a lift as younger people get more into offline hobbies and in-person hangouts.“One of my favorite parts of book club is when we have ended the book club and people are just talking to each other … maybe making plans outside of the book club,” says Hannah Mathews, a bookseller at Offbeat Books who facilitates the “weird girl” club. Share this story. |
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The intrigue: The book club boom has been largely driven by “hyper niche” meetups that bring together readers who love the same genres or have the same hobbies, Eventbrite says.
Case in point: At Atlanta bookstore
Between the lines: Book clubs are also getting a lift as younger people get more into