From October 4–10, Libro.fm and Silent Book Club are urging audiophiles to join a Banned Books Week Read-In. More than 400 bookstores, libraries, and SBC chapters will host a social event for readers who enjoy talking to strangers as much as donning headphones and retreating into a story.

Participating locations can register their meetup time and location on the organizers’ global map, and curious readers and longtime SBC-ers are invited to walk in to their nearest event. Stores and libraries receive a toolkit with resources, including suggestions for conducting a banned-audiobook walk, letter-writing to representatives, or a banned-book swap.

In addition, every in-person participant can choose a free audiobook copy of either How to Defend Books and Why: Book Bans and How We Fight Them, by Danny Caine, or Banned Together: Our Fight for Readers’ Rights, a YA short-story collection edited by Ashley Hope Pérez.

“This is our second year doing the read-in with Silent Book Club, and both years, we have seen such a phenomenal turnout and interest from not just our bookstore partners, but also the libraries in our network and wider community,” said Olivia Butze, Libro.fm’s associate director of marketing and communications.

She added that the American Library Association and Authors Against Book Bans are helping spread the word through their own channels, and some locations—including Penn State University libraries—are getting the word out too.

“Back in June, we had one of our library chapters reach out to say, ‘I’m putting in budget for fall planning—are you going to do the read-in again?’” SBC co-founder Guinevere de la Mare told PW. Sign-ups suggest the idea is catching on: in addition to the U.S., locations in Canada, the U.K., Australia, and Trinidad have scheduled events.

Caine’s manifesto, How to Defend Books and Why, was published by Microcosm, and the Portland, Ore.,–based press made it available as an audiobook specifically for the read-in. Bookseller attention has increased the manifesto’s visibility, Butze added, and the read-in will introduce it to more people.

Recorded Books produced the audio edition of Pérez’s Banned Together, which also is available in paperback from Holiday House. Libro.fm and SBC informed Banned Together’s contributing authors of the read-in and audiobook giveaway, encouraging them to tell their networks about Banned Books Week and “help spread the word as far and wide as we can,” Butze said.

There’s a fundraising element, too. Participants can purchase limited-edition merch, with all proceeds going to the ALA’s Unite Against Book Bans campaign. “We created a series of vintage concert tees, with an ‘I’m with the banned’ slogan and a list of tour stops,” de la Mare said. Libro and SBC got permission from authors Maia Kobabe (Gender Queer) and Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) to use their book titles in the shirt design.

Advocacy for the freedom to read should not end with Banned Books Week, de la Mare said. “This will roll right into a big Get Out the Vote campaign, leading up to November,” she said. Authors such as Juliet Faithfull (Liar’s Dice), Kate Quinn (The Astral Library), and Ariel Sullivan (Beneath) will share their favorite banned book recommendations through the SBC, and the site will provide information on how to check voter registration and find polling places.

Asked about the politics of the read-in, de la Mare recalled Roxane Gay's galvanizing presentation at the American Booksellers Association's 2017 Winter Institute. "From now and to the foreseeable future, everything we do as readers, booksellers, and authors is political," de la Mare asserted, paraphrasing Gay.

This article has been updated.