“Once upon a time, I was a reader.”
Many of us would probably explain our reading journey with this common refrain.
There was a time when finishing a book was easy, when spending an afternoon lost in a story and picking up the next book happened effortlessly. Then life got busier, and books moved down the list, as work, family, and screens took priority.
Preetha Tojy knew that feeling well. A former content writer turned life coach, she had been an avid reader in her younger days, but somewhere along the way, reading stopped. When she eventually decided to return to the world of books, she found that she could barely get through a passage without falling asleep.
“It made me anxious, and I kept wondering what happened to me,” she recalls.
Her solution was to find company. And in April this year, that idea became Booked, an online reading community that is trying to make the way back to books less intimidating for people.
Preetha was inspired by some tips provided in the book ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear. “I used some of the tips to make the tasks smaller and achievable for anyone. So, instead of expecting members to finish an entire book in a month. We read it in small portions, taking our time,” she says.
She divides a book into small, easily readable chapters. Then, shares the number of pages for the week in a common WhatsApp group for the community.
The members read the assigned pages, which Preetha says is usually just around 10, and meet online via Zoom on Saturdays.
“We discover what each of us experienced through the pages. Sometimes there are differences, even though we read the same thing. A character one found irritating may have made perfect sense to someone else, or a passage one person barely noticed may have stayed with another,” she says.
For Preetha and the members, these moments are as important as finishing the book.
“Reading opens doors to human conversations, and in this age where we are now talking to AI, I find that such exercises are becoming really important.”
Preetha likes to call these readers Booklings, not bookworms. “A bookworm is someone who reads a lot. A Bookling, for me, is someone who is finding a place for reading in their life.”
The first book they read was comedian and writer Trevor Noah’s ‘Born a Crime’, chosen because Preetha had read it earlier and felt it was a relatively light and engaging read.
Initially, five people joined. Six months later, the Booked community has grown to around 70 members and has read seven books already.
“I usually cap the online meets to 20 members in one session, so that it does not get too crowded. I share a registration link before a session through our WhatsApp groups,” she informs.
The group has also begun exploring Indian and regional writing. ‘Valli’, Sheela Tomy’s Malayalam novel translated by Jayasree Kalathil, became a particularly memorable read.
“Most of us feel sad that we can not read Malayalam well. That’s when we decided to try translated books. ‘Valli’ was such a powerful read that we became eager to meet the author,” she recalls.
“I reached out to her, and we eventually met her at DC Books, Convent Junction. DC has been quite supportive of us as well. What followed was a healthy discussion with the author about ‘Valli’,” she says.
The group recently picked up ‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell as a ‘snack’ read, as Preetha calls it. But even that has been interesting according to her.
“Reading it again as adults brought a different experience. As an adult, you understand it from a new perspective than when we were children,” she says.
Preetha hopes to take the idea to children eventually, introducing them to the slower pleasure of reading. For now, she says, Booked is turning an ‘I want to start reading again’ into ‘I am reading’.