Members brought their own books and read quietly in a shared space for an hour. Conversation before and after was optional. The practice spread and gelled into a national organization.

The concept made sense to Perdomo, who grew up in Colombia, in a culture that exalted storytelling. Her father, a writer, and her brother devoured books. By comparison, Perdomo was a literary slow-poke.

“It kinda kept me from wanting to engage with books in my own way,” she says.

Eventually, she found her way back to words. She started blogging while she was an international studies student at UNCG, and she yearned for a community of like-minded readers.

Cue the NPR story. Perdomo checked the SBC website — “Welcome to introvert happy hour,” it trumpets quietly — and saw a chapter in the Triangle, but nothing in the Triad. So she and a friend started a monthly meet-up in Greensboro’s independent book store, Scuppernong.

The group met a handful of times before COVID and resumed their regular hushed assemblies in 2023.

Every second Sunday of the month, they draw a core of 10 to 20 people, just enough to fill every seat in the comfortable space at the back of the store.

“My goal is to make it a space that’s not stressful,” says Perdomo, who now writes a Substack newsletter. “We hear all the time, ‘I’m a slow reader,’ but here no one is going to look down on you because you haven’t finished that massive book you started.”

I’m intrigued. I’m not an introvert, but I am a rather slow reader.

Also, my husband has just given me The Backyard Bird Chronicles, a nonfiction handbook by celebrated novelist Amy Tan. I tote the book to the next SBC meeting and take a short-term vow of silence.

Beforehand, Rachel Wasden, who leads the gathering in Perdomo’s absence, explains that people will show up with stories in a variety of platforms — traditional books, tablets, e-readers and audiobooks.

Once, a guy worked on writing his own book.

The point is, everyone will do their own thing, quietly, together.

“Every time I tell someone about it, they say, ‘That’s so weird. Why wouldn’t you read at home, in silence?’” Wasden says.

Her answer: It’s about choice. And energy, a precious commodity for introverts.

“You get to participate, or not participate, as much as you want,” she says.

The funny thing is, by the time I make it to the back of the store, these introverts — average age mid-30s — are chatting up a storm. Rachel asks folks to introduce themselves with names, pronouns and a short description of what they’re reading.

Jeff is working his way though The Greatest Beer Run Ever, the true account of a Vietnam vet who returns to the war as a sort of civilian beer fairy to U.S. troops.

Priya is reading Fairy Tales of Ireland.

Enid has brought the same book she brought last time, Notes on an Execution, the story of a serial killer’s life as seen through the eyes of women in his life. But she might crochet instead.

Kelli, a first-timer, is well into The Yellow Wallpaper.

Heaven, another first-timer, is nibbling away at Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.

The reading list goes on. Rachel, who is plowing through She Who Became the Sun, a re-telling of the Chinese myth of Mulan, calls the meeting to order.

It’s 12:25 p.m., not that anyone is counting the minutes she’ll have to remain quiet.

Ready. Set. Silence.

Whoa. They weren’t kidding. Everyone is reading.

My attention snags on the store’s creaking wooden floorboards.

On the violin music that wafts through speakers at the front of the shop.

On the crispy whiff of pages turning.

I look up and scan the group. Does anyone want to . . . ?

Nope. All heads are down.

Surrounded by stories that I’m forbidden to tap via conversation, I wade into the book in my lap. It’s good stuff.

Tan, who, as a child, liked to draw and play in creeks, outgrew those joys as an adult. Only at age 64 did she sign up for a birding group that sketched their subjects in the field.

It makes me wonder: What could a “new thing” be for me? How long would it take to learn? And . . . what time is it now?

I check my phone. 12:49. Hmm.

Quite the variety of footwear we have in this circle. I need a pedicure. And who is that crooning on the speakers now? Andrea Bocelli?

I rub my eyebrows to reset. It occurs to me how much reading is like meditating, bringing focus to the moment, noticing how the mind wanders and reeling it in again. It also dawns on me why I’m a relatively slow reader.

Finally, Rachel speaks: “If you want to finish the page you’re on, we’ll come together in another minute or so.”

It’s 1:24 p.m.

I pretend to read for the last minute.

Rachel welcomes us back into communion with a prompt for discussion.

“Where does your mind go when you read?” she asks.

I can’t help but laugh. Silently, of course.  OH

Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry magazine. Email her at ohenrymaria@gmail.com. Find an SBC chapter near you at silentbook.club. Maria Perdomo’s newsletter, “here I am,” can be found at mariamillefois.substack.com.