No matter how much we sit behind our glowing screens, there will always be those with a passion for books.

“I love books,” club creator Ananya Buxi said simply when asked why she created Hooked on Books, explaining how she and a group of friends came up with the idea.

“We decided a book club was necessary,” she continues, “It started out as Harry Potter fan-club, but we knew that that was way too restricting, so it expanded into a book club.”

The process of developing the book club was foreign to Buxi, just a freshman, who said that she was unsure of the formation.

“I didn’t know if anyone would even join…” Buxi said, “I remember having a very hard time just gathering 10 people, which was pretty scary at the time because if I couldn’t get 10 people, how could I expect it to be a big, successful club?”

At one point, Buxi feared that her club wouldn’t begin until the following semester. Thankfully, the forms were signed off and the club became official.

Her hard work paid off when, by the start of second semester, the club began at a meeting in Sponsor Catherine Emory’s room. Within that first meeting, leadership positions were decided and the first book selected; the group would begin with the book club classic, “The Help.”

Buxi says book club is for people into reading who want to share their love of reading, meet others with shared interests, and enhance their reading skills.

Members have already begun to praise the club. Sreya Bitra says she joined book club “to open more doors to different genres.”

When asked about what she would say to students questioning about joining the club, Adviti Bhanja said, “I would tell them to join because 1) you get to read books that your peers love and 2) you get to do it with your friends and discuss.”

Her main goals is to make this book club known as a “successful club with many members.” She hopes it will be known as fun place with fun people to get together, communicate, and read.

Though the club is just starting, Buxi has big plans for the future. She details a plan that involves collaboration with other schools. She wants to compete against other high school book clubs in events similar to Battle of the Books. In elementary schools such as John Creek, she wants to teach kids how reading can be fun in an age where technology can be overpowering.