About Dog-eared

Our Story

Dog-eared began as Stories & Swills Chester, a Chester branch of the Birmingham-based book club that Emma brought to the city and hosted after moving back from Birmingham. Over time, the club grew, evolved, and developed its own unique community of readers.

With the blessing of Stories & Swills, Emma teamed up with fellow member Brontë to start an exciting new chapter: Dog-eared.

Our mission is simple: to create a welcoming community where people can talk about books, meet new friends, and feel completely comfortable being themselves. Whether you're a lifelong reader or picking up a book for the first time in years, there's a place for you here.

We're excited to grow Dog-eared beyond monthly book discussions, with plans for socials, special events, and collaborations with Chester's amazing independent businesses.

Membership fees help cover the cost of books (for Book Membership members), venue hire, event materials, and the planning of future Dog-eared events.

We're so glad you're here. Now, meet Emma and Brontë below!

Meet Emma

Hi, I’m Emma! I rediscovered my love for books in my late twenties after joining Stories & Swills Book Club in Birmingham - mostly to make new friends and partly to find a hobby that didn’t involve doom‑scrolling my life away. One thing led to another, I moved to Chester, started building a little community of my own, and now here we are: Dog‑eared!

When I’m not talking books, I work in marketing in the social‑care world and spend an embarrassing amount of time doting on my three‑legged Spanish podenco, Paquito - my chaotic soulmate. I also occasionally dust off my netball trainers and pretend I’m still sporty.

Meet Brontë

I started reading again in my early thirties after realising just how many hours I was letting disappear into my phone.

As a hairdresser, social media is a huge part of my work, but somewhere along the way I realised I was spending far too much of my life scrolling. I wanted balance. I wanted escapism. And, honestly, I wanted to claw back something that belonged just to me.

I used to absolutely love reading as a teenager, so coming back to books felt like finding a little piece of myself again.

I’ll read pretty much anything from smut to thrillers, and my favourite book of the year so far is The Lamb. I also love a coconut martini, a girls’ night out and any excuse to get people together.

I’m hugely passionate about people, and about making women feel good about themselves. That’s a big part of what I love about being a hairdresser, and it’s also why I wanted to create Dogeared alongside Emma.

I wanted it to be more than a book club.

I wanted somewhere people could come out, make friends, have conversations, laugh, drink something delicious, discover brilliant books and simply exist in a room full of like-minded people.