A third, new crop of platforms are digital book clubs that offer online space for community and discussion. One such platform, Fable, bills itself as a “social reading platform” where readers can join clubs moderated by celebrities, authors, and influencers from TikTok, or start their own clubs. One of Fable’s signature book clubs is hosted by Levar Burton, so the app is clearly wooing those of us raised on Reading Rainbow. I tested the free content on the site to see if Fable is worth joining. Once you’re signed up, you can edit your user profile, add a photo, pronouns, and whatever information you’d like others to know to a standard bio section. Your profile also shows followers and following, so other users can see just how influential you are. Given that popular BookTokkers have 100k+ followers, it seems strange that Levar Burton, our shining beacon for this app, has only 437 followers, including me, but I digress. Looking at my public profile, users can see the clubs I’ve joined, book lists I’ve made, and my reviews. One of @LiteraryLesbian’s picks, Crier’s War, has “Discussion Prompts” that you can access through the app, a PDF you can download with chapter by chapter questions about characters and plots. All the Folios are free to view, so if you want to know a handful of books David Sedaris or Jasmine Guillory recommend, they’re at your fingertips. I decide to join “Chamber of Classic Books,” moderated by BookTokker Cameron Capello, because the club is free and offers the free ebook of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. The club has 307 readers and about a dozen posts, organized by section. It’s here that I discover one of the coolest features in the app — and I do mean discover like some buried treasure because there is no tutorial or anything to point me to it. When I download Persuasion for the app, I can choose to read with the book club, which means I can see other members’ highlights and responses to the discussion questions that pop up in a corner with a “Let’s discuss,” tab. If you don’t mind reading a book on your phone or tablet, it’s definitely a more social way to read. If this feature is available on all the book club books (including ones you have to buy), that is a cool selling point. But as I mentioned, the “social reading” experience, which I think should be a key selling point, isn’t demoed or explained on the site. While I was disappointed that so many of the book clubs are premium, there are some free ones that look really interesting. For example, the “Authors Guild Banned Books Club” is moderated by the author of the banned book. At the time of writing this article, Fable has Jacqueline Woodson moderating discussion of her novel Red at the Bone. While the topic and author are amazing, the club seems to have the same low participation as many of the clubs I browsed. Despite having 2k members, there are only 20 comments in the “Kickoff” section. From perusing the app, this seems to be the average level of engagement, even for clubs with thousands of members. I was also left wondering whether the ebook of Red at the Bone came with a discussion guide. Maybe! I couldn’t tell. And while, it probably is very cool to have the read along experience with Woodson, the app is not selling it very well, and there doesn’t seem to be much engagement amongst members.
