Join the Egalitarian Book Club in 2026
Are you looking for an online book club that reads and discusses works by authors representing different genres, styles, backgrounds, and voices year-round? Join us in 2026!
I started the Egalitarian Book Club in a Facebook group back in 2020. Like many others, I felt extremely isolated during the pandemic and needed to find a way to connect with others … so I started an online book club.
I also wanted to be a part of a book club that read and discussed a vast array of books and authors because I have always read a bit of anything and everything, otherwise I get bored and fall into reading ruts.
At first most of the members of the Egalitarian Book Club were personal friends I invited and Book-of-the-Month (BOTM) subscribers. At the time, BOTM was beta-testing a book club feature (since extinct), which I decided to take advantage of by starting my own book club through their offerings. And it was a major success for quite a while, boasting hundreds of active and highly engaged members. We had so many great online chats and video calls about so many different and interesting books and were able to genuinely connect with one another during a volatile and precarious time.
I quickly learned how many readers out there were eager to find a safe space online to talk about whatever they were reading, regardless of what they were reading, and how many people really wanted to use what they were reading as a medium to connect with others. I also learned how many people felt pressured to read certain things they really didn’t want to read and or how they felt pressured to read more books than their schedules allowed, which prevented them from reading anything at all when they could. And I wanted to alleviate those pressures for group members.
There have also always been plenty of book clubs focused on thrillers, romances, and bestsellers — as well as those reading groups full of ‘grammar nazis’ and English college grads who like to think they’re above everyone else by suffering through and regurgitating wholly unoriginal thoughts and observations about mostly boring and outdated Classics written primarily by dead white men, along with an occasional novel that’s received a prestigious or elite-yet-obscure literary award. But there haven’t been that many book clubs out there reading a bit of anything and everything on purpose in a sincere attempt to expand hearts and minds and bring different people with different backgrounds together— which should be the entire point of reading and talking about books, right?
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy thrillers, romances, bestsellers, and some of the Classics written by famous dead white men, and we have read those genres in the Egalitarian Book Club. But I also enjoy reading experimental poetry and dense prose and stories about female rage and dystopian YA and immigrant narratives and translated epics and novels that challenge traditional literary forms and historical fiction that isn’t centered around WWII and heartbreaking memoirs, etc. And I know there are many readers out there who feel the same way I do, who want to regularly encounter new and different perspectives and writing styles and genres and voices, etc. Hence: The Egalitarian Book Club.
What you read greatly influences how you experience the world, and I will never take that bit of knowledge for granted, especially in our current world, which is a world that I want to see in all its frustratingly beautiful complexity, and why I want to keep the Egalitarian Book Club going.
Once the pandemic more or less came to an end, engagement in the Egalitarian Book Club’s Facebook group started to dwindle over time, so we took a year off then came back in 2024, sort of, as I didn’t have the bandwidth to post in the group as often as I once did, which was necessary to keep group engagement going on Facebook. To help with this issue— the issue of finding enough time to create custom images and captions for every single post posted in the group— I decided to move the book club to the Fable app, which wasn’t so successful. So, we moved the book club to the Storygraph app… and are now down to only a couple handfuls of members there.
Going from hundreds of active book club members to a couple dozen mostly inactive members has been quite the adjustment, albeit an understandable one, considering how BOTM discontinued their beta book club feature, the pandemic tapered off, and how incredibly challenging it is to get people to jump from app to app. Still, in 2026 I hope to reinvigorate the Egalitarian Book Club and grow its membership again. I know it won’t look the way it once did, but I still want it to thrive, as I know how rewarding it can be.
Here’s how you know the Egalitarian Book Club will be a good fit for you:
🎯You believe that reading is fundamental to changing minds, expanding hearts, and building meaningful connections with other humans.
🎯You enjoy reading a variety of genres and books or are at least interested in trying to do so.
🎯You read works by authors who have diverse backgrounds that are different from your own or are at least interested in seeking them out.
Here’s what you and other book clubbers can expect:
Until there are more active members to vote on monthly picks, I have selected the first four Egalitarian Book Club picks for 2026. (Members will be able to vote on future book club selections in the Storygraph app once we have more active members participating in online discussions. Also, feel free to message me with your book and author requests at any time.)
JAN: The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad
Join the Egalitarian Book Club’s Buddy Read for this book in Storygraph, which ends on January 31st. You will be able to discuss and reference page numbers and sections of the book in the Buddy Read. And while you can read at your own pace, here’s a reading schedule you can follow if you want one:
Week 1 (Jan 1- 4): Chapters 1-2
Week 2 (Jan 5- 11): Chapters 3-4
Week 3 (Jan 12- 18): Chapters 5-6
Week 4 (Jan 19- 25): Chapters 7-8
Week 5 (Jan 26- 31): Chapters 9-10
FEB: People Like Us by Jason Mott
Buddy Read and reading schedule TBA
MAR: I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
Buddy Read and reading schedule TBA
APR: Poetry by Emily Dickinson
You get to select your own edition/book of Dickinson’s poetry for this pick, as there are so many available. Discussions about Dickinson’s poetry will take place in Substack chat threads during the month of April.
In the future I will try my best to announce upcoming book club selections with plenty of advance notice so that you will have the time you need to acquire copies at your local bookstore or library. For this reason, it will also be rare that we read brand-new releases the same month they come out. This way, our book club selections will remain accessible to most people who want to read with us.
And while Storygraph will be the main app we use for book discussions, I will also regularly post in Substack about the monthly book selections we’re reading, primarily in subscriber chats, so be on the lookout for incoming Egalitarian Book Club chat threads.
Let me know if you have any questions about the Egalitarian Book Club and be sure to share this post with anyone who’s looking for a book club to join in 2026 :) I can’t wait to read with you all this year!
© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.
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