If you like to read and you’re an introvert who likes to be around other human beings once in a while, then you’re in luck. Three silent book clubs in Thurston County hold weeknight, early evening get-togethers at local businesses where you can sit with fellow bookworms, eat your dinner, read the book of your choice, and not have to talk about the book in front of a group of people. The Capital City Silent Book Club and Lunar Reading Room are based in the Olympia area and the Prose & the Prairie Silent Book Club is based in Yelm.
The History of Silent Book Clubs
Also known as “happy hour for introverts,” the national Silent Book Club website says there’s “no assigned reading. All readers are welcome—ebooks, audiobooks, textbooks, comic books… it’s BYOBook. Our events are free and support local businesses.”
Started in 2012 by two women in San Francisco who liked the idea of enjoying books with friends but without having to do any homework, there are now more than 2,000 Silent Book Clubs that meet in more than 60 countries.
Capital City Silent Book Club Volunteers Offer Multiple and Diverse Reading Activities
The most active and populated of the three Thurston County silent book clubs is the Capital City Silent Book Club. It holds a regular meeting on the third Thursday of each month at Uptown Grill in Olympia and a bonus meetup on the first Wednesday (usually) of each month with rotating locations. Recent bonus meetups took place at Endless Sound Cellars and Altitude 15 in Olympia. As many as 60 people will attend these events.
Founding volunteer host Joni-Lynn helped start the Capital City club almost three years ago. Her current co-hosts also include Becca, Arwyn, Kevin, and Sarai.
“We kind of figured out what our strengths are,” Joni-Lynn says about how they divide up the duties for the chapter. “Becca’s our super creative one. Arwyn’s our organizer of documents.” She adds that Becca and Arwyn do most of the hard work and that she just pastes their creations along with captions to populate their robust social media presence. They also receive content and guidance from the national Silent Book Club. “They have done a great job of helping to guide organizers of silent book club chapters around the world and bringing us together in community,” adds Joni-Lynn.
The Capital City club also holds almost monthly pet-friendly, audiobook walks on Sunday mornings at various external locations around Thurston County and Weekly Reading Sprints on most Thursday evenings using the chapter’s Discord channel.
At the meeting on May 21 at Uptown Grill, once readers had a chance to sign in, find their bookworm spot, and order their food and beverages, Joni-Lynn made announcements and launched the reading hour. Once she did this, silence fell over the room. An hour later, readers piled their books in a “book stack” for her to snap a photo to memorialize part of the journey and mark its end.
That evening, first-timers Sarina and Brad Duncan started new books, having both finished their last read that morning. For Sarina, this was her 22nd read of the year. For Brad, it was his sixth or seventh book of the year. Sarina read a lot as a kid but Brad didn’t. “It was always forced on me so I never enjoyed it,” he explains. After college, he started to discover genres he liked. “I actually enjoy it now.”
High school senior Miles Kelcher attends regularly with his mom. “We’ve been going a lot,” he says. “What I like about this is that it kind of gets me into reading more.” He’s been reading the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. “My dad was reading it,” he says. “So, we have the entire series.”
Mystic Kindred Souls and Yelm Silent Book Clubs Meet Monthly
Paige Porter started the Lunar Reading Room in January 2026 and it meets on the Tuesday evening closest to the new moon to signify the beginning of something new, like a new book. This chapter also meets at Uptown Grill in Olympia. Their website describes the club as being created for “mystics, psychics, healers, dreamers, and kindred souls.” But Paige says that all readers are welcome. “Bring the books you want to read.”
The Prose & the Prairie Silent Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month with meetings taking place at different locations, most recently at the 507 Taproom & Filling Station, the Uptown Lounge, and Farrelli’s Pizza in Yelm.
Collaborations and written word-related experiences abound among the local groups. Prose & the Prairie joined the Capital City club for a Silent Book Club Anniversary Celebration in September at the Olympic Flight Museum in Tumwater. The Capital City club tried a South Sound Book Crawl trip in 2025. And the Lunar Reading Room hopes to organize an author’s reception.
For more information, visit the Capital City Silent Book Club, Lunar Reading Room and Prose & the Prairie Silent Book Club websites.
