Finally, the summer heat retreated. We got to go outdoors for our reading session, rather than having to find somewhere with the air conditioner on. Autumn arrived distinctly late in our city. The southern part of China seems almost always stuck on summer mode. Me and Nina went to the beachside where there are plenty of seaside benches. We found one right by the sea, with no one sitting too close to us. Planes were flying constantly across the skyline. The weather was beautifully clear, and the wind felt so comfortable that day. Sitting by the water, we reflected on how much this weekly buddy read experience has come to mean to us over the past six months.

Catching Up & Urban Slow Living in the Big City

Since we missed last week’s session, we had a lot of updates to share about each other’s lives. People walked by now and then, but we were just completely immersed in our chat.

The autumn breeze was amazing, and the people passing by were mostly quiet and gentle. Everything reminded me of the early months of this year when Nina and I first started Secret Fallina Bookclub. It was a warm winter back then. We would always go to that nearby park and read under this tree or that one. I really miss how warm that winter sun felt.

Classic Book Discussion: Progress & Struggles with Charles Dickens

Again, we didn’t make much progress on David Copperfield since Nina was so busy with her life lately, and I had good excuses to just wait up for her.

Don’t get me wrong—I think we both love the book and the way Charles Dickens tells the story. It’s just a very challenging read for both of us in English, so we are kind of lagging behind on it. But I hope we’ll make some solid progress very soon.

After updating each other on life, we pushed directly into reading for 30 minutes as we usually do.

6 Months of Our Buddy Read Journey

Time flies. I can’t believe we’ve had 25 reading sessions already! That might not sound like a huge number, but it represents more than six months of meeting up every single week to read together.

I can see both of us growing into new versions of ourselves, while some core parts of us remain the same—like our passion for becoming writers and how deeply we value our time and freedom.

We didn’t grow Fallina into a big organization, simply because I believe neither of us really likes handling big crowds or administrative noise. We are both so content with how Fallina is right now. We manage to meet every week and talk about books and life—that’s all that matters to us at this stage of our lives.

I hope time passes slower and slower, so I can savor every moment of the reading sessions we share each week with deeper gratitude and intense affection for Fallina. This quiet, two-person buddy read experience is truly the most precious gift.

Until next week~