From Books to Book Club
“Everything I was willing to do to talk about books to people becomes the story but it’s simpler in my mind. I wanted to talk about books, and I needed a space to talk about books. That’s what I’ma do.”
Literaryswag Book Club is a meeting that turned into a community, designed to find readers at the intersection of what they love to read and what they love to wear, to talk safely and honestly. That mantra or mission statement has become a documented enjoyable experience for the familiar and the uninitiated alike.
Before the swag was posted over international waters, it was just a hashtag byproduct of an unabashed Bedstuy bookworm’s literary lifestyle. By the time Literaryswag impacted timelines and the New York Times, Yahdon Israel had unleashed a triangle offense of Literaryswag iterations. First, there was the #Literaryswag posts on Instagram of anything and everyone that was stylish, and book related. Then, there were “My Literaryswag” videos, where writers talked to Yahdon within short videos, detailing their three favorite writers and three favorite designers. The crown jewel of this book-based barrage was the Literaryswag Book Club. But, this is 2015 and there’s no trifecta. There’s only the photo-based competition and seconds-long interviews. The Book Club as we know it, wasn’t even an idea yet.
The following is a story of how a reader’s incessant fire for books and posting photos on Instagram mixed with his need for community, turned into a firestorm that one of New York City’s oldest bookstores couldn’t ignore and one meeting couldn’t extinguish. I caught up with Yahdon and 8 attendees other than myself (applaud my objectivity,) to talk about that night and pressed record. This is the oral history of The Literaryswag Meeting.
“You love to hear the story again and again of how it all got started way back when”
- MC Shan
Yahdon: I mean, I would say that the origin of Literaryswag came to me through the witnessing of that boy on the train, reading a book and I just... When I think about it, he was the last person I would think to read To Kill A Mockingbird reading it the way he read it. It was almost like he was reading it as though he had to. He would look like he was reading it as though he wanted to. Like he was trying to figure something out by reading it or he had not thought that that book would be interesting to him and then he found something in it that grabbed his attention.
So, it was like watching a particular sort of urgency that it seemed that he was having with the book that was like, "Oh, this is something. There's something here." And that was it. Something just felt right. It feels like something. It was a feeling. It just feels different than just watching him read a book on the train. And I'm pretty sure, personally... He probably was defined by his own relationship and that really was the best way to start. It was an unexpected moment for me to encounter it and I can only surmise which 'I don't know', with the unexpected, like this book could be a lot better than I thought it would be.
What the picture made me realize is I never really paid attention to people reading books so much as people writing them. And I was like, "Yo, I want to see how much, how often people are reading books." And I can't... All I know is that I reached out to a bunch of friends and it was friends that I was close with. And I was like, "Yo, listen, You should start taking pictures of people and posting them." And they were like, "Yo, that sounds dope." And I genuinely believed that people believed that it sounded dope. And then people just didn't post it.
And then I had to think about things like, "Well, why aren't people posting pictures of people reading?" And there's no incentive to do it. And so that's when it just immediately became like, "Well, what would make people post pictures of anybody?" And I was like, "Money." And that was the summer before I started New School where I was just like, "Well, I know I'm going to come into like 10 bands in my student loans. So, let me pick out a thousand of that. And it was just like, "Let me just see what happens." There was really nothing larger than that. That was the sincere thing. It was like, "Let's see what happens." So when I made the competition, it was just like, "Let's see how many people post." I didn't know.
One of the things that endured about the eventual Book Club is its inclusiveness to anyone who likes books or would just like to talk about them. Yahdon really didn’t know the movement had legs until he started to see some of the people posting their own pictures, but the net was cast wider than people participating in a competition.
What is your introduction to Literaryswag?
Carlos: I’ve known Yahdon for a long time, since freshman year of high school. I don’t even know how many years that is but a whole bunch of years since 2004, I guess. I’ve always kept up with his antics and everything that he did, he’s always been inspirational even since high school, so you know anything he did I loved supporting.
Dulce-Marie: I didn't really have one. I think I found out about it by browsing the Strand website or something. I can't remember why on earth I was on there. I was on the website and I saw it. I had never heard of Literaryswag before or anything like that. I'm not good at Instagram so I didn't find Yahdon before that moment where I saw this was happening on the website. The first meeting was real close to my birthday. So, I think I was on there looking for, someone had given me a gift card or something, just poking around, but I had no idea who Yahdon was until I happen to look in that day.
Kyle: Me and Yahdon used to go to the same high school. Then when he did the first competition, the very first (Literaryswag book) competition. I remember it was summertime and I had seen it on Instagram because we follow each other. And I saw “win a competition by posting pictures of people reading books and you could win $1k,” I was like hmm.
I won and after that I met up with Yahdon and took a picture in Union Square. We chopped it up. Basically, it was the first time we saw each other since high school and it’s like, this is a new person. He gave me “Native Son” and to this day it’s one of my favorite books to read. He’s trying to get this Literaryswag thing off the ground and he’s explaining to me crossing fashion and reading and making it cool.
Ed: I met Yahdon working though the Sandy Recovery Program and I was a caseworker, and he was doing some admin work because he was in grad school at the time.
So, I'm 20 years older than Yahdon and we’re both music heads and read books, so we used to have some great conversations.
When a book came out, every book that came out, especially black authors, even white authors, it didn't matter. Every book that he thought was great, he recommended. Like even when, “To Kill a Mockingbird” came back out.
John: I mean, I knew Yahdon really well, we were good friends. I was taking some portraits of him for a fashion shoot for the Brooklyn Circus. We had just done this open call casting on Instagram and Yahdon just turned up. He clearly was interested in ideas and thoughts. And so, we just literally struck up a conversation, struck up a friendship right there, which has lasted to this day.
I was aware he was doing an Instagram page and I was aware that he called it Literary Swag. And if I remember, he was doing pictures of people on the subways, reading books.
Zana: Well, actually it was through John.
John and I are friends. We've worked together on numerous projects. I hadn't been in New York long. Maybe this was my second year. I moved to New York in 2013.
Robin: Well, let's see. I think it was my daughter who said you should follow this guy on Instagram, because it's really our favorite things, fashion and books. Yeah, so I started following him and then, I mean, I'm not, I guess we'd say I'm really not his general demographic, I'm an old white lady from the upper east side. Anyway, so then he had that summer project, the contest, and honestly, I don't think I've ever had as much of a fun summer. I go way, way back (to 2014). So there I was that summer taking a million pictures of every person I saw with a book. It was so much fun.
Davis: I've known Yahdon for a long time. When I met him, he was a senior in college. I had sort of seen what he was trying to do for a long time with these early culture conversations when he was in Black Student Union. He was trying to make that bridge and make it so that literature was existing on the same plane, in the same cultural conversation with fashion. Like, “Look, how can I say like, you can have your Versace bag, your Supreme, Yeezys, whatever. And also have Ross Allison in the other hand? How do we make reading cool and make meetings necessary to lifestyle and power?”
Take me to “the Trap”
Yahdon: I was an MFA student at the New School. And that was the closest bookstore. That was it. It was down the block. And now I'm in MFA program and there's all these books that I'm hearing about that I've never heard about. And it's like, "Oh, you should read this, you should read that." And I'm like, "Oh shit, I got a lot of reading to do." And I looked at bookstores and I knew Barnes and Noble already, but I never heard of The Strand. I was like, "Oh shit, that's a bookstore?" And I went down there, and I was like, "Oh." And the thing that made me (connect) with The Strand, they would show you the suggested retail price and then they would show you what they charge. And you were saving two or $3 on every book. And I was like, "Oh, I like this." And that's how it started.
Because what happened was I was on a train... I used to work in Far Rockaway S-B-O for disaster case management, when people were affected by hurricane Sandy. I used to take the 'A' train back from Far Rockaway to Brooklyn and ever so often I was running into Tamara Torres, who was an actress who played the 'Weeping Woman' on 'Orange Is The New Black'. And at this time I was already doing those interviews about the favorite three writers, the favorite three clothing designers. So I did one with her and she had actually done hers that was trenched all around plays, but she didn't pick traditional novelist or non-fiction writers. She had picked all playwrights. And so I had posted that video on Twitter. And I tweeted it with the thing, she responded to it. And I said, "I'm headed to The Strand now to go pick up some Arthur Miller plays."
And then she responded to it and then The Strand saw it. And then the person who was running The Strand handle. I think it was Whitney Hu at that point, cause she was running their social, reached out and said, "Get in contact with us." Then I get in contact with them. And they said, "We should do something together." That was a bookstore that by that time I was doing the Literaryswag stuff, it was just a place that I had went, simply because it was the closest place to graduate school that allowed me to save money. So alot of this stuff, wasn't like, "Oh, I was masterminding this situation to do something."
What was your relationship to the Strand?
Carlos: I think (the meeting) was my first time I was at the Strand to look around, see what they had, see what the collection was like.
Dulce-Marie: So the Strand, I don't know if I had any relationship at all. I'm an uptown kid. And so, whenever I needed books as a kid, I stayed a little closer to home.
Kyle: I had none. I found out about the Strand because of Yahdon calling it “The Trap.”
Ed: I thought it was golden. When I was in school, I would come home for the summer. I would come home on the weekends, like any college kid. I used to hang out in the Village and go to the Strand since high school. I knew the Strand was a place where you can get cheap books, look there first.
John: Oh, the Strand? I mean, I've been going to ... That's been my go-to for photography books since I landed in New York (from London) in 2005. I mean, I could spend two to four hours in there. I am just like a pig in (slop) rolling around, spending more money than I should do each time. I love it.
Davis: I did know of the Strand before (the meeting) because I know a couple of people in publishing. I think there are now more Black people that shop at the Strand now. Even when I first started the Strand as an adult in 2011 it was not, the Strand's a very White place.
I actually started to really love this brand when I went back, and I just started buying books for three dollars outside in the used books section.
"Let's try something, let’s see if it works.
And if it works, we'll continue. And if it doesn't well whatever."
Yahdon: The one thing I knew how to advocate for was that I would want it to focus on readers as opposed to making it a traditional event where you have a moderator and there's people who come. And I'm like, "I don't want a moderator. I want people to come because they really want to talk about the book."
This wasn't like a conscious, "I knew I was going to make a book club." I was just like, "Yo, someplace that I shop at all the time reached out and said they want to do something together. That's dope. I'm going to go to this meeting." That's it.
I definitely said, I wanted to see the last Thursday of this month. So, I think it was the last Thursday. It was September 24th, 2015.
What was your relationship with book clubs?
Carlos: I wanna say that was my first time. Around that time, I was getting into reading more books. Really into nonfiction so that’s a lot of what I was reading. I guess it may have been the first book that I've read that like spoke about the issues that were directly affecting the club in that way firsthand. That was the first book club, it was definitely a new experience for me.
Ed: Never in my life. I don't read for fun. I had never been at a book club. I only read when I have to, or I read for knowledge itself.
John: Yahdon came to a book club that me and a friend, Lenny, had started a long time ago. He was still quite young at that point, maybe 25. We were all in our late forties or mid-forties at that point with multiple children. Yahdon has a way of analyzing words and books and meanings and philosophy in a way that's quite unique and just very sharp. He was the only person (there) under 40 with no children.
Zana: John actually used to, or probably still does belong to another book club where it's all guys. The way that he always talked about the book club, I actually wanted to join.
I always tried to find an angle to get into their book club because I belonged to a book club in San Francisco and it was all women. I always thought it was interesting this whole division, women club versus men. I wanted to change it up. John was like, "Oh, well, Yahdon has this book club called Literaryswag. It'll be a diverse group of people and it's mixed." I'm like, "Okay." It was at the Strand, which is one of my favorite bookstores. I'm like, "Awesome."
John: “We’re like this is the Brooklyn Dad’s Book Club so no, no and no. Sorry Zana.” She had just moved from San Francisco. I had known Zana since 2000, 2002 or something and worked with her. So I'd kept in touch with her. And she’s talking about leaving her job and moving to New York and she didn't know anyone. She loved reading and she wanted to get into these circles and stuff. And so that was the reason for inviting her into Yahdon's book club. I knew she would go.
Robin: Well, I'll be honest, I have really mixed feelings about book clubs, because I do, I mean, I'm an English teacher, so, for me, everyday work is a book club. And I've been in many book clubs, and I'm not a good book club member.
I'm too controlling and I don't like when people are unprepared. And the book clubs I've been in, it's like, when my kids were little and there'd be a book club, we talk about the book for 30 seconds and then talk about our kids the rest of the time. Or I was once in one where we decided we would take turns and really prepare. And I remember this so well, the book that I had prepared was The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, and I prepared like a boss. What can I tell you? I know how to prepare a lesson, but I was the only person who prepared.
Davis: You know before that moment I don't think I'd ever been to a book club.
“Let’s do a book club”
Now that there is the green light for a book club meeting, the most pressing question is what the book is going to be. Yahdon turns his attention to what will get people in the seats AND talking. As many books as there are to choose from, there was only one book that season that made more sense/cents than the others.
Yahdon: "Okay, let's do a book club." And it was like, "Okay, well look, what do you want to do?" And I was like, "I want to do 'Between The World And Me'", because that was... We had that conversation late July, early August, 'Between The World And Me', had just come out and I was just like, "This is the biggest book.” Which book will attract the most people to a conversation? And that was the book for that reason. And I was like, "Let's do a book 'Between The World And Me.' And they were like, "Oh, could you get Ta-Nehisi to come?" Then I was like, "I don't know that guy to get him to come." And they were like, "What writers can you get?"
There wasn’t much time or even a budget to promote. Even without the author as the anchor to help mitigate the risk, Yahdon couldn’t be happier with the odds of a successful first time event at his favorite bookstore.
It’s September 24th, 2015 and everyone is making their way to the Strand.
Carlos: I went there alone; I think I got there a little early because I was getting out of work. First time I was upstairs in the rare book room so, it was super interesting for it to be up there my first or second time there.
Honestly, I was a little anxious for Yahdon because I remember like, I think he needed to hit a certain quota or something like that. So, im gonna be real I was like I hope people show up and get to experience it. To be in a space like that, I didn’t really know much about the Strand. From what people were telling me, what I was seeing while I was there to me, it seemed like a big deal, so I just wanted it to be a success for him. I was just anxious that night, I remember that for sure.
Dulce-Marie: I had tried to convince my roommate to go with me, she’s an extrovert but that didn’t work out.
I had no idea the rare book room existed until I went in it. I remember being like, wow, this place is so pretty. I remember just walking around and staring at the walls for a little while because I guess I got there a little while before the meeting actually started. So, I remember going in a circle and looking at all the books before I actually found a seat and sat down.
Kyle: Honestly, I just wanted it work out for Yahdon..I had never been to a bookclub before and was just going to see something different, go with an open mind to enjoy the experience. Enjoy the conversation. So, I really, I just wanted it to go well for him. Whatever he’s doin and tryna to achieve I just want him to achieve it.
I remember being at Strand in the forbidden book room..I mean rare book room and I was like I'm not touching anything...I remember seeing the price tag on one of the books and I said I’m gonna keep my hands in my pockets and ima just look at everything.
Ed: I had to support Yahdon. So, the intriguing part was I was going for the discourse. I was going to hear how other people felt about the book. The reason being is because I already knew that me not finishing the book, I already knew what I wanted to share and already knew what I appreciated about the book the most. And what I appreciated about the book the most is this hard conversation that you have to have with your child.
John: I went together with Zana and she became a friend of Yahdon's through me. And we were both really excited that Yahdon was doing this. So there was this element of excitement walking over to the Strand. It was a beautiful day. Was it Fall? But it was beautiful. The weather was beautiful.
Zana: The idea that we were having this book club in this historic location, with all these diverse people, was just very interesting.
Robin: So, I was a little skeptical, but of course I figured, this has got to be really interesting just to go to this thing at the Strand Book Store, because I know Yahdon has interesting friends. I also knew, and I mean, this is going to sound weird, I also knew I would be a minority there, and that's not a usual situation for me. And so that was something I found very interesting. I knew I would be older than most of the members and whiter than most of the members. And that's something I found very interesting.
Davis: When I've arrived I was sort of fascinated because well, that's actually the special part about the Strand. It's the rare book section where they have like the original 2001: A Space Odyssey and obviously photo books that's signed by Sammy Hugo. Gaining that room in the Strand was not easy and it's not cheap. And traditionally it's only open for a few hours a day.
It was nice being able to step into a space that felt very much like it was for other kinds of literature and have Black culture literature and that was not insignificant. And I'd imagine it must've been really hard for him to get people into those spaces.
DURING THE MEETING
Yahdon: This is my first time doing this at this level and I got 29 people to show up and I would have been happy if 10 people showed up.
When I think about the feeling, I was just in the sense, grateful that our conversation about a book was happening without the writer being there. If I think about the feeling of what it meant to be in that room, I think at the baseline level, it was exciting to be in a world where people just want to talk about a book.
Carlos: I don’t remember everything exactly or how the conversation went, I do remember that I did say somethings but like I feel like I was a different person back then and that conversation was like one of the catalysts to change my mind about certain things. I have a feeling like whatever I contributed that night, I probably don’t agree with it now.
I feel like the younger me, I felt too logical about certain things and didn’t really think empathetically maybe from the perspectives or experiences of other people. Hearing experiences from people, that I never had to go through just made me think like, damn maybe my way of thinking isn't all that right. There were a lot of things happening socially around that time. I think like that meeting was really one of the catalysts to spark new ideas and growth in my mind to become the person I am now. Hearing other people’s experiences that I never had to go through.
Dulce-Marie: I don't remember any one thing in particular. I remember thinking at one point, the meeting itself definitely wasn't white. That space though, the Strand, I remember thinking, wow, I wonder if any of the employees are listening to this or if the owners happen to be here listening to this. I remember thinking, this is having a very frank conversation about racism and death, in this bookstore, in this part of New York that's very much... I don't know how to describe that area anymore. It's so close to NYU, which is another predominantly white institution. That's what I remember surprising me. The conversation itself was really cool. I don't remember any details in particular, but this idea of having this conversation in this big literary space where I don't remember seeing any black staff when I walked up there, that stuck with me.
Kyle: Ight when I was there, I felt like everything flowed but I did realize one thing about myself. I was quiet and actively listened. I had never been at a forum where there were so many people talking about the same thing at once so, for me I was very interested in the way people can interpret the same situation differently. Just listening to these different perspectives realizing I didn’t think about it that way or different aspects of the book. There’s so many different angles to one book. It really helped me be more open minded in my day-to-day interactions.
John: I had never been in the rare book room, so that was special. And the atmosphere of everyone that was there, there was a sense of excitement that me and Zana had. I got the feeling that everyone who was there knew Yahdon in some way, shape or form or another. This was not random people who just turned up from the street was my feeling. And everyone has the same literary bug that Yahdon was able to create in everyone, this appreciation for literature and an excitement to talk about it. And it felt like a safe and happy, positive zone where everyone was really confident and happy and respectful. It was a, yeah, it was a really beautiful space to be in.
Zana: I don't think I had any expectations. When you are with a book club, the few that I've been with, oftentimes, they were never that big. That particular night there just seemed like that was a lot of people. With book clubs, you tend to, when you're talking about something, there's so many diversions.
What I thought was interesting was how this one was always on track. We stayed within the confines of the book somewhat, so there were not many intimate or personal stories there. I definitely didn't have any expectations. I was definitely amazed by how large it was. It definitely seemed to be that there were a few people who were vocal. There were a lot of people just listening. If you had a strong opinion or any opinion, you just spoke up and then the conversations took off from there.
Robin: It was fascinating. I mean, I had read the Ta-Nehisi Coates book more than once. I knew it pretty well, but I knew it from my vantage point. It was really interesting for me to hear what it meant to people who were coming from different vantage points.
Davis: Classic me, I didn't do the reading, so I sat down and focused on conversations with everyone, but the conversations were so great they actually inspired me to go and read the book anyway.
The night is ending, and everyone assembles for one of the few pictures that made it from that night five years ago but there are some thoughts about if there’s going to be another book club meeting in the rare book room.
What did you feel at the end of the meeting?
Carlos: My perspective by the end of the night was already changing and it continues to marinate even after that.
To me one big thing, especially after high school finished, we go into the world and go into jobs, different parts of the city and all that. It definitely was in a sense, I felt like I wasn’t surrounded by people that looked like me or came from the same neighborhoods that I come from or some of the experiences. So, I didn’t feel I was getting a lot of that until book club and that was one of those times where I was like, damn I'm really surrounded by people of color. Black people that come from the same neighborhoods I come from but maybe had different experiences that I didn’t get to experience. That was what was so special about it, being surrounded by these voices and in a big city like NYC, sometimes you miss out on stuff like that.
Dulce-Marie: I felt good. I remember being surprised. I thought there should've been more people there. But it was nice. I thought initially there would be another one at the Strand, but I remember thinking to myself, I got to follow up.
I really appreciated the conversation, especially since reading is a big part of my job (as an educator). Like you're constantly reading in the name of work and what are you going to do with this book? Who are you going to introduce it to? All this stuff. And it was a chance to read for yourself, but still read with community and be able to share and engage with people. And so much of the reading I do is in community but it's very much not for myself.
Kyle: I remember having a great time and saying “he got somethin.” It may not have been the amount of people they(the Strand) wanted but I'm like “yo he has something.” The fact that he could get this many people to sit down and have a conversation and be engaged the entire time. Didn’t it like, go over time a little bit? I said to Yahdon, “they might not see it, but you got something.”
Ed: Yo it's golden. I'm so glad I put it in my schedule. I'm so glad I went.
John: So, leaving it, I was really happy. It was such a good atmosphere.
Zana: Well, I was excited about being part of this group. I was interested in seeing where we would go from there, what the next book would be. There was definitely that excitement about the future and just how this would play out.
Robin: I felt this really great energy and I was really moved by how many people there that just really loved to read and, again, I'm an English teacher, so that's what excites me, is finding out that people love to read, and that so many people there wanted to talk about what they read, but also were very good listeners, really attended to what other people said.
Davis: So, I just finished college like four months before that. It was nice because it felt like a lot of the same people from Pace, in general. It was a different thing where you guys would just give us the space to connect with each other and that's what stuck with you the most when you're a member. It's a classic Maya Angelou quote, "People will never remember what was said but they will remember how you make them feel."
As good as the group felt about the meeting itself, for an independent bookstore, it just wasn’t viable enough to keep the Strand as a home for another meeting. The store was impressed with the turnout, but this would be a onetime engagement. To Yahdon, the win was the feeling of meeting about a book. The story with Strand ends but the seed for what the club can become is planted.
Yahdon: It was like, "No, I get it." There wasn't even an emotional response. I was like, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense." I was happy. I was grateful for the fact they allowed me to do the first one there.
I think what was dope about it was to have something I had never done before feel right. Like that time period, I was just so much in the head space of literally trying to build something I didn't know I was building. I just felt like I had a deep commitment.
I could explain why, in retrospect to what didn't happen before like, “You don't really hear about people reading books and being fly” and all these different things, but the truth of the matter is, that just really spoke to how I saw the world, versus, is that true or not? That's what I felt needed to exist and that was the rationale for why I created it. Like my rationale for it now was just like, "Oh, I was looking for a community of people to talk about books who read them."