Who Are The Shelf Indulgences?

“WHO ARE THE SHELF INDULGENCES?”

Probably a question you never thought to ask yourself your entire life. But I’m about to tell you an answer regardless of that.

The Shelf Indulgences is a random thought crossing over the frontal lobe to actually being put into action. The Shelf Indulgences, if you couldn’t tell from our logo, is a book club started in the later end of the Safer at Home initiative.

As a majority of Americans took to social media in their attempts to be productive during this quarantined time, so did I. In my attempt to part with things that “no longer spark joy in my life”, I realized a lot of space was dedicated to young adults books I used to plow through like a bag of Hot Cheetos. Sadly, those books were never touched again once I ended my high school career. In college, I had completely stopped reading for fun, mostly because my major was so heavily drawn from non-linear writing and research that it would take me weeks to finish an academic reading that left no space in my brain capacity for a winning tribute or sparkly vampires.

This brought to my attention of donating my unused books to local schools or libraries. But something in my heart just couldn’t quite part with the books yet. Maybe it was the abundant amount of space that would be my bookshelf when they left, or just not being able to give away books that had brought so much imagination to my life. This pushed me to reading them one last time before deciding whether they we worth keeping or if I should donate them so some 15-16 year old could enjoy them as much as I did when I was their age.

My re-reading of old books that I had in my collection somehow made its way into a weekly video call I have my friends to just check in and see how we’re all doing and just talk to people who aren’t our immediate family. Then the conversation slowly turned into a rapid turn events and in a usual Ally Fashion, I completely escalated the situation in suggesting creating a book club, merch line, and weekly video calls to further our understanding of the book. My friends who are probably the only people in the world who could stop me when my mind goes a mile a minute, had no control of me now. They readily agreed because honestly, we all don’t have a lot going on right now. We spent the next 30 minutes attempting to choose a cute, punny name that would stick, and finally we landed on Shelf Indulgences (Thanks Siri for choosing).

And thus the birth of the Shelf Indulgences. It’s a book club that rereads old books, chooses new ones, and attempts to elaborate our ideas and opinions, while also attempting to re-nurture an old hobby of reading for enjoyment. So Stay Tuned for our future books choices and discussions.