Again, like the blog post title says … Even though winter seems to have arrived early and fiercely hereabouts, that did not stop a healthy contingent of dedicated silent book clubbers from coming out on Saturday. Between Press’ delicious hot beverages and pastries, and the waves of enthusiasm as we went round the table, I’m convinced that all booklovers in attendance were thoroughly warmed up before the meeting adjourned.

It’s just such meetings – where we not only touted our good reads, shared with respect our not-so-good reads, and recounted adventures and encounters associated with our reading and book acquisitions – that I know are going to get us through the cold and snow ahead. How wonderful, then, that we’ve been able to double our scheduled meetings – two a month – from December to March. This winter is going to whiz by like a fast-moving skater or toboggan, methinks.

We come away from every meeting not only having shared good books and welcoming, generous company and enjoyed peaceful reading, but having learned a lot or been a bit surprised. As I jotted down book titles and author names during today’s conversations, I found myself also noting interesting terms and quotations. Just for fun, I’m going to weave into the book list some of those intriguing excerpts and snippets.

• I Have Something to Tell You by Natalie Appleton

The silent book club member reading this book offered as food for thought the phrase “going for your 10” as part of the possible motivation for the protagonist in this memoir.

• The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
• The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
• The Baffler
• Sisters – The Lives of America’s Suffragists by Jean H. Baker
• High-Rise by J.G. Ballard

The silent book club member reading this book shared the startling opening line: “Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.”

• I Am Sovereign by Nicola Barker
• Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg (audiobook)
• Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole
• The Seagull by Ann Cleeves
• Patience by Daniel Clowes
• Watching You Without Me by Lynn Coady
• The Innocents by Michael Crummey
• Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
• Exile Quarterly
• Feathertale
• Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald
• Poems from the Pond by Peggy Freydberg
• The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (audiobook)
• The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Good Morning, Monster by Catherine Gildiner
• The Torn Skirt by Rebecca Godfrey
• The Humans by Matt Haig
• The Radleys by Matt Haig
• Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig
• Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig

One of the two silent book club members talking about this book during today’s meeting mentioned Haig’s bolstering words: “When depression slugs over me I close my eyes and enter the bank of good days and think of sunshine and laughter and turtles. I try to remember how possible the impossible can sometimes be”.

• The Body in the Wake by Katherine Hall Page
• The Hand on the Mirror: A True Story of Life Beyond Death by Janis Heaphy Durham
• The books of Georgette Heyer
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li (audiobook)
• Mobile by Tanis MacDonald
• Ongoingness by Sarah Manguso
• The Black House by Peter May
• The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson
• Circe by Madeline Miller
• I.M. by Isaac Mizrahi
• The Dead House by Billy O’Callaghan
• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
• This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett (audiobook)
• Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter
• A Better Man by Louise Penny
• Popshot Quarterly
• In Search of Lost Time Volume 4 – The Fugitive / Time Regained by Marcel Proust
• Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
• The Farm by Joann Ramos
• The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
• Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
• Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout (audiobook)
• My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (audiobook)
• Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
• Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
• The Reality Bubble by Ziya Tong
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• One Drum by Richard Wagamese
• The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman’s Rights Convention by Judith Wellman

The silent book club member reading this book mentioned the term “burned over district” with respect to what led to this first woman’s rights convention. This refers to the western and central regions of New York State in the early 19th century, where religious revivals and the formation of new religious movements of the Second Great Awakening took place, to such a great extent that spiritual fervor seemed to set the area on fire.

• The Hidden Life of Trees, What They Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben

Enjoy our previous silent book club meeting reports and book lists here.

We’re pleased and honoured to have been interviewed about the silent book club concept and how to start a club of one’s own.

• CBC Radio’s Ontario Morning (starting at 41:20)
• CBC Toronto web site
• a series of interviews across Canada with CBC Radio, including Toronto’s Here and Now
• The Christian Science Monitor – Witty banter optional: The no-pressure, no-homework book club

San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich were most recently featured in a wonderful piece on the NPR web site (yes, National Public Radio, thank you very much!). Extensive and enthusiastic coverage silent book club coverage includes this piece in the February 2019 issue of O, the Oprah Magazine, describing the club’s genesis and extolling its virtues 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.