A new “seductive, socially-charged, and slightly rebellious” book club concept is making its debut on Manchester’s literary scene this week, aiming to blend literature with fashion and nightlife.

Founded by Kya Buller and Sophia Wild, The Read Room is an accessible, bold and innovative space for book lovers, with monthly book clubs and after-hours literary discussions where you can discover new works alongside compelling conversation, music and a lively social atmosphere.

The Read Room launch party will take place at SOUP in Manchester on 19 March and promises “beautiful literature, great drinks, and your new favourite excuse to add new books to your shelves”.

The event will feature a series of readings from authors Jessie Elland and Lucas Oakley, music from DJ Paulette, Happy Hour drinks all night long and an exclusively curated playlist to mark the occasion. 

aAh! speaks to the creators of The Read Room to hear more about the vision for their new book club and upcoming launch party. 

Can you tell us a little bit about your vision for The Read Room and what we can expect from the book club when it launches? 

The Read Room aims to create an exciting, new literary event space in Manchester. We’re blending literature with nightlife, and it’s the perfect event for you to enjoy alone or with friends. We will be running our book clubs every month, and using our platform to share books we love with others, and hopefully entice our fellow readers to try new genres and authors by reading aloud excerpts of potentially undiscovered works alongside a drink or two and carefully-curated playlists. 

We want to cultivate a space that celebrates the written word in all its glorious forms, and we strive to make it accessible to everyone. With this in mind, we specify you don’t have to have done any reading at all to come to one of our Read Room events. Our aim is to introduce and share new and interesting texts to our community in a way that brings a fresh and engaging insight to literature. 

What inspired you to start a book club in Manchester? 

We are two best friends that met in Manchester and as much as we love it (and we really do!) it felt like there was something missing that combined a strong social aspect, with stimulating, thoughtful discussions centred around prose. We hope to resolve this with The Read Room.  

What kind of vibe is The Read Room going to bring to Manchester’s literary scene? 

We want The Read Room to exude a sense of being seductive, socially charged, and slightly rebellious. A literary society meetup happening after hours, to bring our community to the nexus point of literature, fashion and nightlife. 

What’s been the most exciting part of the book club journey for both of you so far? 

Reading through the lovely emails, DMs and comments from everyone who has resonated with our dream already. It truly means everything and more to feel your support and excitement for our upcoming events – we absolutely cannot wait to meet and host you all in due course!

What can we expect from the launch party? 

For our launch event we will have three nationally recognised authors coming in to deliver excerpts of their books. We have been incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to invite Jessie Elland with her debut novel, The Ladies Upstairs. We also have DJ Paulette, one of only two women to have a residency at Manchester’s legendary Hacienda, bringing her part personal account, part call to arms, Welcome to the Club. Finally, we are lucky to be joined also by a talented journalist, Lucas Oakeley, whose words have reached Vogue, GQ and National Geographic (to name a few), with his debut novel, Nearly Departed.

Alongside our abundance of talent, we will be hosting the evening with speeches, introductions and opportunities for Q&A. There will also be a DJ, and half-price drinks all night, courtesy of SOUP, so even if you’re new to bookish events, you can stay for the party.

What do you hope people will be able to take away from being part of The Read Room? 

The dream is for people to leave The Read Room (hopefully) with a brand new, captivating piece of literature that they have been inspired to take home with them. But in a wider sense, we hope to inspire confidence, with compelling conversation and evoke insightful opinions and dialogues. Our intention is that The Read Room will leave people with a lasting sense of curiosity and connection.

Free tickets for The Read Room’s launch party are available here – no pre-reading necessary! Follow @the_readroom on Instagram.