ATTENDANCE: After a presentation on the upcoming activities of the city-wide club, the session was opened to the audience to share their ideas and preferences on books. Photo: Mohammed Ismail
INITIATIVE: Iman al-Doubali and her husband have co-founded the club.
By Umer Nangiana
Where do you go when you do not find many book shops around and you are already done with your available stock? You would probably head to a library. What if there are not many of those around either?
Where are the people who love reading? How are they surviving? What place would they go to in this city? There “must” be a book sharing fraternity or a reading club around, you say. Even the thought of not finding one would scare you at this point in time.
The good news, however, is that some good social platforms for readers have started cropping up in Doha.
In fact, one with most explicit and innovative ideas on reviving reading culture and encourage book-sharing has just recently sprouted, the Qatar Book Club (QBC). Founded by a Qatari-French couple two months ago, the QBC formally launched with its first session at Katara Art Centre (KAC) on Sunday.
Besides facilitating and encouraging book reading culture, the club aims at “breaking the ice” between the expatriates and the local Qatari community.
“There may be some expatriate people who would have never talked to a Qatari for instance and we intend to change this at QBC. It is a platform for both Qatari and the expat community members to connect and communicate,” Iman al-Doubali, a French expat and the co-founder of the club told Community.
The launch was attended by a large number of men and women from different expat communities besides locals. After a presentation on the upcoming activities of the city-wide club, the session was opened to the audience to share their ideas and preferences on books.
They were also facilitated in becoming the member of the club at the spot through a registration booth. An individual membership for a year costs QR150 and the members are entitled to attend the clubs all activities besides getting discounts.
However, if you are not a member, you can still attend the club’s book session or a workshop for a fee of QR30 to QR40 depending on the nature of the activity. Every activity would cost you a separate fee.
“The club is not funded so we will be relying on the fee from the sessions and workshops to carry on with our activities,” said Iman. She was content with the initial response from the people to the club launch especially from the Qatari population and she hoped more will come forward.
“We got a very positive and wide response. It was above our expectations. A lot of people told us that it was a great initiative and we could really feel the demand and the craving for reading in people,” said the club’s co-founder.
The idea of the book club sprouted out of the realisation that reading was not a popular culture in Qatar. It was in July this year after Iman’s husband, who is a Qatari, returned from military duty that they decided on starting the club.
Her husband, who is the co-founder, realised that book reading is not popular among the Qatari youth in particular.
Moreover, there are not many outlets for procuring books in the city either. “There are not many bookshops around and the ones that are there do not have much to offer,” said Iman. “We do not have many libraries too and those that are there, even giving free access to people, are not known to the people,” she added.
The QBC intends to provide a venue to the people where they can socialise besides exchanging books and reading preferences.
In the longer run, the club intends to have its own library. However this, Iman acknowledged, could not be achieved without people’s interest and participation in the club.
To woo people back to the culture of reading hence becoming part of the club, the QBC will organised a variety of activities. These include movie screenings based on book adaptations, workshops on art and literature, writing and photography competitions and activities for children.
About the book sharing aspect of the club, Iman said it was inspired by local students who as part of their project established a book shop where any person could take a book on the condition that he would exchange one in return.
The club has set-up one such book booth at the newly launched entrepreneurial hub 7ayak Hub for people to donate and exchange books. Book donations were also made during the launch event at KAC.
“We count on people to do it honestly and to do it in the right way,” said Iman. She said it was up to the people to decide the books and topic preferences for the sessions of the club, however, they intended to start with something of common interest; something that deals with treating the subject of breaking the ice between communities.
