Teesside book club creating a ‘safe space’ for women hoping to expand

A Teesside book club that was launched in March last year has attracted more than 100 women to come together and share their opinions.

Ahead of World Book Day on Thursday, March 7, Teesside Live spoke to Robyn Claridge, who co-founded The Open Book Club with Amy Schumm. The club hosts monthly meet ups and social events and currently has more than 165 members who come along.

All the members are women but men can join the book club too. One meet-up takes place at Signals in Saltburn and the other is at Play Brew in Middlesbrough.

Robyn, 24, who lives in Middlesbrough and works at Teesside University ’s marketing department, explained: “Initially it started off as me and my friend Amy. We both love to read and talk about books that we’ve just read and we thought it would be good to do it on a larger scale.

“We also just wanted to create a space where women could come together, meet new people and socialise. We’re both in our twenties and I think once you’ve been to uni and started work it’s quite difficult to meet new people and get out there socially.

“One thing we’ve always said is we want to create a safe space for women to come together and talk and share their opinions freely without feeling like they’re going to be judged or being shunned. Me and Amy have met so many new people from our book club who we would consider friends now.”

Robyn and Amy, a primary school teacher who lives in Saltburn, found that after they finished reading a book they often had thoughts and opinions to share but they didn’t always have someone to share them with so they started the book club. Members read a different book each month, exploring various genres from romance to thrillers to short classics, and women have travelled from as far as Newcastle to come to the meet ups.

The bookworm friends have had positive feedback from members and they have noticed that they “don’t see anyone on their phones” during the session and everyone has “proper conversations in real life” while sitting at a table with people they had never met before.

Robyn added: “I like the fact that when you are reading you switch your brain off and you’re in someone else’s shoes and it’s quite good escapism. I also like the social side of it afterwards.

“I like to interpret things in different ways and see how other people have interpreted something. It’s quite good and eye opening to see how people’s opinions differ from your own.”

Robyn and Amy have plans to expand the meet-ups to other places in Teesside, including Stockton, Billingham and Norton. Find out more about The Open Book Club on Instagram.

For breaking news in your area direct to your inbox every day, go here to sign up to our free newsletter