There are many ways to find interesting books to read, maybe on your Kindle or Kobo. Thanks to the advent of BookTok and BookTube, suggestions for books can come even when you aren’t looking for them.
But just because book influencers are talking about a book doesn’t mean you’ll like it, or even want to read it. Thankfully, there is another way: joining an online book club.
Join a book club using the Fable app
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Fable (available for iPhone and Android) is a place for readers to get together and talk about their favorite books. It’s an all-in-one platform where you can track books, buy them, read them in tandem with other book club members, and then discuss the books in a forum-style interface that’s redesigned for the smartphone.
But most importantly, it’s a place where you’ll find a plethora of book clubs, some extremely niche, some more mainstream, that are all run by real, passionate readers. A good book club that’s based on a genre or a theme can both help you discover books that you want to read, and help you form a habit of actually reading through those recommendations.
Book clubs in Fable pick a book to read each month, which are voted on by the book club members themselves. You can join any book club you want, and join multiple book clubs as well. The app search feature can help you narrow down on specific genres, too. For example, I’m really getting into cozy fantasy right now, and Fable was an easy way to find a couple of fascinating book clubs and book picks.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
The core of Fable’s interactive experience can be found in the Discussion and Schedule sections. The Club Lobby is a chat for the entire group, where you can get a Discord-style chat room for everyone in the club to contribute and ask questions, discuss books, and pick upcoming titles. The sections below these are defined by the book club owner and can be used to discuss particular chapters or sections of the book.
If you’re not the kind who likes discussing books, you’ll still find value in Fable book clubs because of the Schedule feature. Here, the book club owner can set a pace and milestones for the book, helping you stay on track. The milestones (finishing chapter six by May 10th, for example) are only suggestions—you’re free to read at your own speed.
Storygraph is a Goodreads alternative book club app
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Storygraph earned its reputation by being the antithesis of Goodreads. The app is free of ads and is run independently. Plus, it has features like half stars for more nuanced ratings, and reviews can be far more detailed than in Goodreads. Now, Storygraph has also added book clubs to the mix. You can now run or join a book club directly from the website or the app.
Storygraph has native support for picking books and voting on them. The book with the most votes gets selected, and the book club manager can create a meeting for discussion of books or particular parts of them. There’s also a forum interface where people can discuss the book and ask questions.
While the book clubs feature is live, it’s not added to the main website yet. You can join and create book clubs, but it all happens via links. You can’t search for book clubs like you can in Fable, but that shouldn’t stop you from exploring. This Reddit megathread has plenty of great Storygraph book clubs to join.
Find a book club on Discord
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
On Discord, you can find a community for anything, including books. You can use the book club tag on the Disboard website to find all publicly listed Discord servers related to book clubs. If you’re looking for a specific genre, use the Search field. Discord book clubs are organized in channels, and they are a great place to discover and discuss books with like-minded people.
Join in-person and online book clubs with the Bookclubs website
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
The Bookclubs website is dedicated to book clubs, both virtual and in-person. Here, you can find hundreds of clubs that meet in-person once a month. If there’s nothing around you, don’t worry: You can still join online groups for monthly meetings. There are also some clubs that don’t do virtual meetings, too, preferring to discuss using the website’s forum.
