About Aldea Book Club

The Story

Aldea Book Club was founded in 2020 in Monterrey, México, by a group of friends who wanted more from their reading lives than solitary consumption. The idea was simple: choose a book each month, read it independently, then gather to discuss it with the seriousness and openness the text deserved. No rankings, no skimming, no shortcuts. Just fourteen people and a book.

What none of them anticipated was how quickly the conversations would outgrow the living room. Within the first year, the group began inviting guest scholars — academics and experts whose work intersected with whatever the club was reading. A professor of Russian literature for War and Peace. A political scientist for Foundation. A Victorian scholar for Hard Times. The guest tradition became the club's signature: a bridge between committed readers and the people who have devoted their careers to the texts.

Six years later, Aldea has read more than 79 books, hosted more than 48 guest scholars from over 30 universities across six countries, and logged hundreds of hours of conversation about literature, philosophy, history, and the ideas that connect them.

The Philosophy

Aldea operates on a few principles that have held since the beginning.

Every member takes turns choosing the book. There are no vetoes. This means the reading list is eclectic by design — business books sit next to Dostoevsky, science fiction next to Voltaire, Latin American literature next to Hemingway. The club's range is a feature, not a bug.

The discussion is the point. Aldea is not a book recommendation service or a reading challenge. It exists for the conversation — the moment when a room full of people with different backgrounds, temperaments, and reading habits confront the same text and discover they read entirely different books.

Privacy is non-negotiable. This site documents ideas, not individuals. You will find no member names, no photos, no personal details. The insights belong to the group; the identities belong to the members.

The Guest Tradition

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Aldea is its practice of inviting guest scholars to join the conversation. These are not lecturers or presenters — they are participants. They read the book alongside the club, join the discussion, and bring expertise that deepens the group's engagement with the text.

Over six years, this tradition has brought voices from Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, the Sorbonne, UNAM, the Tecnológico de Monterrey, the University of Tokyo, and dozens of other institutions into the same conversation with fourteen readers in Monterrey. The result is something that doesn't quite exist anywhere else: a space where academic depth meets reading-group honesty, where a professor's analysis is tested against a reader's intuition, and where both are taken seriously.

The Format

Aldea meets monthly. Each session is dedicated to a single book, chosen by a rotating member. Sessions typically last two to three hours. When a guest scholar is present, the conversation often extends further.

Many sessions are recorded and archived. Selected recordings are available on the individual book pages throughout this site. The club reads in both English and Spanish, depending on the book and the preference of the member who chose it.

The Name

Aldea is the Spanish word for village — a small, close-knit community defined not by geography but by shared commitment. It felt right from the beginning.

This Archive

This website is the club's living archive. It is designed to grow over time — a new entry added after each session, a record of every book read, every scholar hosted, and every idea that mattered. It is not a blog. It is not a review site. It is a library — a permanent record of an ongoing intellectual project.