Book Club Reading Retreat!

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I’ve always thought it was an injustice that writers’ retreats are a thing, but not reading retreats. At least, not as widely as writers’ retreats are. And so last year, I went on a personal reading retreat in Baguio, inspired by stuff I’d seen online about other reading retreats. 

It was glorious. But I wondered what it would be like to actually have a reading retreat with a group. So I floated the idea to my book club, Flips Flipping Pages--described what it was, showed them a few sites that organized reading retreats, etc.

And they ran with it. 

So from Jan. 31-Feb. 2, around 18 FPP book club members and guests participated in Bookish Baguio, FFP’s first reading retreat. The whole thing was organized by the book club founder, Gege, with help from a couple of other members. And the venue was this lovely Airbnb called Baguio Mountain Retreat, suggested by another book club member who knew the owner. The agenda for the weekend was reading, eating, and sleeping. And maybe visit a bookstore.

The thing to know about FPP is 

  1. It’s been around for 17 yrs; 
  2. It’s been meeting monthly, f2f—except during the pandemic—for the past 17yrs, and; 
  3. A LOT of the members are artists or into crafts. 

In its early days, the FFP book club meetings were a contest of costumes, loot bags, original bookmarks, and themed venue. That deserves a whole other post or posts, but I mention it to say that as we’ve grown older and more tired, things have become very lowkey. No more costumes or loot bags. Just good ol’ discussions. 

But not for Bookish Baguio. 

Barring the costumes, they all came back. We often call Gege “the hostess with the mostest,” because she loves styling parties and get-togethers, and she did what she’s always been great at here. You’ll get a taste of it in this video. 

There was a loot bag that you could personalize, several bookmarks, a reading light, and then the reading was slightly gamified, in that if you read 50 pages, you could get extra stickers or a keychain or a pin or other adorable bookish themed knick-knacks. 

S—-, a co-organizer, came up with a tracking system for pages read, because there were small awards every day given to people who read the most pages.

And B—-, another co-organizer, celebrated her birthday within the week, so she prepped a raclette party for everyone on the first night. On top of that, she also had an ongoing tea bar at the basement, where she made cups of tea, your choice of leaf, for anyone who wanted it.

We had too much food. The big table in the middle was always stocked with something to eat and there were snack bowls on every side table. 

On the second day, I mentioned I needed to go to Mt. Cloud for a meeting (yes, I snuck some work in), so eventually, the whole club joined in. Because of course, book store. With a great cafe on the lower floor. And where necessary, I also mentioned to some people that there was also a bike shop in the compound. 

There is a thing that happens when I’m in a bookstore with people who I think might be in need of a recommendation. And that is…I do my job. Not officially this time around, but for fun. My job is to convince people to buy books, and that is what I did with my book club. I talked up Duty Ka Ba?, Sa Wakas, Ang Kapangyarihang Higit Sa Ating Lahat, and maybe a couple more books I can’t remember right now. And they were bought. I could’ve sold more if the bookstore had more stock of some titles, but I hope that new stock has been reordered (and moved!) by this point.

It was also edifying to see fellow Flippers (what the book club members are called) pass around the one copy we had of Sa Wakas so people could read it. And log in another book finished, lol. By the end of the reading retreat, perhaps around 7 people had read Sa Wakas.

At the last day, S--- summarized how many books and pages we collectively read. I don't remember what it was, but it was a relatively large number. And I finished two books: 

  • Samantha Harvey's ORBITAL (winner of the 2024 Booker Prize) and
  • BUCKEYE by Patrick Ryan (has yet to come out in Sept 2025, and it is gorgeous. Likely the kind of novel that will make people cry, probably at different parts, depending on what resonates with them.)

I did finish more books when I did my solo reading retreats, though personally, my objective for being at Bookish Baguio was the companionship. There was food and friendship, gossip and ghost stories, laughter and love advice. And there was reading. I realize it is no small thing to be in the same book club for almost 17 years. 

I think the club wants to do it again, and if so, I don't think anyone would mind at all. 

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