What running a decade-long book club taught me

It was 2016, and Nagpur, Maharashtra, was not a terribly exciting place to be for a 27-year-old. After a short stint working in a Mumbai advertising agency, I had made my way back to my hometown, Nagpur, to start my entrepreneurial journey running a co-working space. I found myself in my beloved city but where childhood friends had drifted apart or moved away. In this period of flux, I looked to one source for anchor, a source that had rescued me multiple times in the past: books.

In Mumbai, I had come across vibrant book communities like Broke Bibiliophiles and Swapbook Mumbai. The idea of Swapbook specifically appealed to me because it felt low pressure—just show up with a book and swap it. I reached out to the founder, Pravin Subramanian, and told him I wanted to start a Nagpur chapter. I felt like books could open a new chapter for me in Nagpur.

And that’s how I came to list the first Swapbook Nagpur meet on Facebook events. I had selected a cafe, invited (digitally) the handful of people I knew who would be interested, and was hoping for the best. On the day of the event, I walked into Mocha cafe and slowly, people started turning up. The format was simple enough: we had to introduce ourselves and the book(s) we brought, and people could then borrow or swap for books they found interesting. We barely got in a small break to place our orders as excitement got the better of us for the two hours that flew by. By the end of the meeting, we were a group of 21! I will never forget that experience of 21 total strangers meeting each other through books and founding a community.

Giving shape to the idea

The group decided to stay connected over Whatsapp and the book club meet was scheduled for every month. Within four months, we were 100-members strong and now there were practical concerns about keeping the meetings going. From hunting for cafes that would not mind a big group hogging space for two hours on the weekend, to making sure the group’s discussions on Whatsapp were moderated and maintaining a Google sheet to help members track their books, the tasks quickly piled up. I came to appreciate the labour that goes into keeping a community going.

Designing an inclusive environment especially, I discovered, takes effort. From the beginning, the boundaries were kept clear: there would be no ‘book of the month’ and absolutely no judgement. “Finishing a book picked by someone else can feel like a chore. At Swapbook, you can attend a meet whether you have read no books that month or 10 books,” says Mahima Vashisht, a regular who joined the book club three years ago.

Readers of all kinds—regular, occasional, new and even lapsed—were welcome. There were readers like Mridulata Chouharia who was 68 years old when she turned up at the first book club meet. “My husband had retired and we had settled in Nagpur but we felt like strangers here. We found out about this club and connected to so many people and books.” After the first few meets, it was natural for the group to linger well past the official timings as people socialised and formed new friendships. It felt truly rewarding to be an enabler. My anxieties around making friends as an adult found their answer in some easy friendships thanks to the book club, giving my life a newfound structure and rhythm.

No book club story is complete without some plot twists. Since the meets were designed to enable discussions, sensitive topics like politics, language and religion would sometimes lead to heated discussions and I had to turn moderator. Then I observed my personal biases were making me discourage some points of view too. So to keep my commitment to staying inclusive, eventually I resorted to changing the format of the meets so that discussions could still happen, but were tabled for the end.

Community to the rescue

The reciprocation from the community has been more than I had anticipated. When we had to switch to paid venues in 2025 as meets regularly crossed 30-35 attendees, members pitched in to cover venue costs, even volunteering to conduct the meets when I couldn’t. A milestone for me was when parents started introducing children to the book club. Priya Narayanan’s twin sons Ekansh and Darsh joined when they were 14 years old. “The meets help them build social confidence and develop critical thinking skills. In this digital age, this community has given them a powerful sense of belonging”, Narayanan says.

Over time, I leaned on rituals, small and big, to keep members engaged. Every weekend, members share a photograph of the book they are reading. Every year leads up to a grand Christmas meet where we do a potluck party and conduct Secret Santa. Last year, more than 100 people participated and gifted one another books. “People you don’t see for the entire year show up for Secret Santa and that’s beautiful”, says Suraj Motwani who has been a part of the book club for almost a decade. “My ‘to read’ list is books recommended by people I know from the meet.”

The unanticipated rewards

At the end of the day, building Swapbook Nagpur has been a tale of asymmetric rewards. I set out to make new friends in an old city I loved. I ended up with friends, acquaintances, a beautiful community of 800+ readers who revel in slowing down and going analogue.

Building the book club also taught me much more. The value of sheer persistence and dedication. Of the power of good-faith communities and connections. And most of all, it gave me the confidence that I could build things from scratch, something that has served me well not only in my business but also the work I picked up later. And I learnt to pick work that was cause-driven and could bring people together, all because of people who cared a little too much about books.

As another book club member Nishant Sonuley shared, “What keeps us connected is the small things like the excitement of picking your next read. Or maybe it’s just showing up anyway to see the people you have grown to care about”.