April showers also bring excellent opportunities for cozy silent book club gatherings

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April was showering in earnest today, but it did not deter sufficient numbers of readers from carefully bundling up their books and reading devices and meeting for our largest gathering of silent book club devotees to date: 18 around the tables marked “Reserved for Book Club”. Several new readers joined the group that has made this book club inviting and compelling since its inception in the fall of 2017.

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After last month’s coverage of our silent book club, we put a lot of thought into how to manage the deluge of new interest. As we acknowledged, the charm and vitality of silent book club meetings comes from the size of the group and setting in which the meetings are held. At the same time, we were keen to welcome new readers and enjoy their company, hear new book recommendations and perspectives on the joys of reading, and just generally spread the silent book club love around. That love includes, by the way, our willingness to advise others on how to start clubs of their own. Be in touch if we can help you start a club of your own.

When CBC Toronto turned the spotlight on our group, another great benefit of the coverage was that it helped shed light on other silent book clubs in the Greater Toronto area and others that are re-inspired to give it a try. Some of the groups we discovered include:

The following is the book list which sums up all the titles presented and discussed within the group this month, with an infusion of many brand new titles thanks to the brand new attendees. If you follow our book lists from month to month, you’ll notice that some titles are repeated, which happens when a book gets passed to a new reader or another reader reads and wants to discuss the same book. At some point, I’m going to create a master list of all books discussed – eliminating duplicates – to get a sense of how many unique books our group has discussed since its inception in October, 2017. After today’s meeting, I estimate it’s around 350+ titles.

When we go round the table before the silent reading portion of the gathering, each reader offers capsule reviews of what they have finished or are in the midst of reading – positive or negative, always constructive. Our list as I present it here has no rating system, just a link to either publisher information or generally positive reviews or informational pieces. The list is not inherently a list of recommendations, just a record of what we discussed. Mind you, I think it is a pretty good list of recommendations, as it continues to reflect a diverse and vibrant range of subjects and genres that might spark the interest of anyone keeping up with our club.

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As always, you can enjoy our previous silent book club meeting reports and book lists here.

In addition to the recent coverage by CBC Toronto, our silent book club was included in a late 2018 feature about silent book clubs in the international news publication The Christian Science Monitor. Enjoy the article here. San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich are featured in the February 2019 issue of O, the Oprah Magazine, describing the club’s genesis and extolling its virtues (if we haven’t done that enough here!) as the concept and clubs spread worldwide.

If you’re interested in starting your own silent book club or are in the Toronto area and perhaps interested in checking ours out, please feel free to contact me for more information.

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