There's a book club for that
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Book club events on Eventbrite jumped 33% during the first half of this year compared with last — driven largely by "hyper niche" meetups, the platform tells Axios.
Why it matters: These clubs are as much about finding community as finishing the book.
Readers are lacing up corsets, attaching prosthetic fairy ears, and gathering with fellow fans of the red-hot "romantasy" genre.
- They're reading together silently, sometimes not even the same book.
- And indie bookstores are hosting clubs for "weird girl" literary fiction and for readers who want to craft while they discuss.
The big picture: "The definition of a 'book club' is splitting into a dozen different directions, expanding to fit all kinds of readers, interests and social appetites," Eventbrite general manager Andrea Parodi tells Axios.
At Atlanta bookstore Offbeat Books, four clubs — including its "weird girl" reading group — have very different vibes, 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.
Zoom in: Bollinger says the "weird girl" book community is big online, but the club brings that niche into real life. Reading picks often feature "unhinged" or unlikable female protagonists.
- "There's actually probably a bunch of people in your relatively close local area that are also a bit odd like you, and it might be cool to meet some of them," she says.
- The club draws 12 to 15 people each month, though the crowd recently reached around 25 to discuss "Yesteryear," a buzzy tradwife thriller.
Between the lines: Book clubs are also getting a lift as younger generations embrace 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.
Yes, but: Many people still prefer to read on their own.
- In a 2025 Pew survey, just 7% of U.S. adults said they'd participated in a book club recently. Women (10%) were twice as likely as men (5%) to be members.
The bottom line: Looking for your people? There's probably a book club for that.
