What fun book-related events/things do y'all like to do in your area? I'd love to hear about experiences people have had with in-person book events or activities. I'm trying to be better at going to those (I keep thinking I have time, and then so much time goes by and I realize I never actually got around to it).

I'm in DC and recently went to a book happy hour that was really fun! Everyone who attended walked away with a free book (all of the options were women of color and I loved that for me 😌). Several times I was talking to someone about a book (mostly Katabasis or Babel) and another person immediately turned around as if summoned and joined the conversation, which was a delight. (Sidenote: I did try to plug Pagebound because a lot of people were on Goodreads and StoryGraph.)

A popular local bookstore has had several "Black to the Future" book clubs that I've been wanting to go to, but sadly the day of the week doesn't work well for me.

Finally, there's a "store" in Baltimore that opens once a month and gives people ~55 minutes to pick out any books they want...for free. I have that on my to do list for Dec!

TNR as in to NEVER read. This post was inspired by a random tiktok once again but it made me wonder which books you guys never want to read? And why? Maybe even for petty reasons? For me it's definitely any book by Colleen Hoover. Never read a book, never will - thanks to random internet people.

I think I love Peter. I also completely understand why Alice can't stand Peter.

Im wondering where the community stands on negative posts about specific books. Ngl I’ve made some posts letting off steam on a book that was driving me a little crazy or a specific aspect of a book I didn’t like even if I enjoyed the rest of it. But I’ve read a few books recently where nearly all or around half of the few posts were people saying they didn’t like the book or might DNF because it’s either too confusing or involved a lot of tragic/depressing/ horrible events. I don’t think either of these reasons are necessarily a bad reason to DNF a book. I wouldn’t blame anyone for that! But it also made me sad because I felt like these books were very worth reading. I was enjoying them and I’d been looking forward to discussing what I did enjoy about them. I felt like I didn’t want to look at the forum anymore because I wanted to keep enjoying the book. Anyone else had a similar experience? Or have a strong opinion negative posts?