This is what I will be reading tonight. And you? What will you be reading?
This is what I will be reading tonight. And you? What will you be reading? Christopher Frizzelle

It's Wednesday, which means the Silent Reading Party is tonight. My dream is for the whole world to set aside two hours a week to read while listening to relaxing piano music, and tonight is the night we do that. Get your ticket here.

On piano tonight, live from the neighborhood of Ravenna, will be the brilliant composer and performer Paul Matthew Moore.

A word to the wise: Don't wait until five minutes before the party starts to buy your ticket, and then frantically email us wondering where the link is. Be a normal person and buy your ticket now.

As you know if you attended the party two weeks ago, Paul performed an original composition called "Elegy to George Floyd." We have made that available for you on SoundCloud—just click on that title.

People attend from all around the world.
People attend the Silent Reading Party from all around the world, including Australia and Singapore. DELIORMANLI/GETTY IMAGES

The reading party used to happen once at month at the Hotel Sorrento, and the capacity was set by the number of seats in the Fireside Room. But on Zoom during quarantine, we're hosting these parties weekly right now, and they have drawn attendees as far away as Singapore and Australia, where it isn't even Wednesday night anymore; it's Thursday morning.

We're looking forward to holding these parties at the Sorrento again as soon as it's safe. But for now it's pretty cool to be at a party with people from all around the world and all around the United States—including California, Kentucky, New York, Massachusetts.

You read whatever you feel like reading at the reading. It runs the gamut, and everyone brings different stuff each week: novels, nonfiction, how-to books, mysteries, histories, poetry, dystopian sci-fi, Us magazine, The New Yorker, children's books, Moby-Dick, textbooks for classes. Others choose to use the time to write, or draw, or stare out the window.

Tonight, I will be (re)reading Giovanni's Room, to prepare for The Stranger's next book club, which starts on Pride weekend in Seattle. (The book club lasts four weeks, and if you'd like to join us for that, you can sign up here.)

The only thing left for me to figure out tonight is what should be on my snack tray. See you at 6 pm PST!

PS: We will have a *special guest* at next week's reading party, and we'll be making an announcement about that tomorrow.