We need not recount here how the world – truly and literally the world – has changed. We’re all affected by it and living it. We’re struggling with fear and uncertainty and frustration, and we’re drawing on reserves of determination and courage and even good humour that we perhaps didn’t even know we possessed. When those reserves run low, one of the things we celebrated in the old world that can still replenish our spirits in this new world is a good, inspiring, comforting, diverting book.

As where we could go and what we could do narrowed down more and more each day, our silent book club membership kept in touch by phone and email. We devised a plan that scaled to what we could still safely and reasonably do to keep our book club tradition and its vital connections alive:

1. For this weekend’s silent book club double header, we asked everyone to read in spirit for an hour at the times at which we would have started in person: 10 am on Saturday and 11 am on Sunday.

2. For the Saturday meeting, those of us within walking distance of Press, the book / record / coffee shop where we normally hold our meetings, would meet (exercising proper social distancing) outside the shop at 9:30 am. One by one, we went in the shop to purchase our usual beverages and pastries, as well as some books. (I ended up buying out the remaining day-old scones. One does what one must.) In our email correspondence with club members, we encouraged everyone to drop by on Saturday or Sunday to support Press with purchases, if possible.

3. Following the Saturday in spirit reading, we convened online at 11 am to discuss our recent and current reading. One of our members is a facilitator by profession, and she elegantly steered us through the session. She made sure everyone felt comfortable with this technological solution, and steered the meeting so everyone had time to talk about their reading and then we had time to generally chat, in relaxed and genial fashion. It felt as close as I think it could feel to being around our usual table at Press, which was inexpressibly wonderful. I suspect I’m going to fall asleep tonight with the image of that Brady’s Bunch-esque screenful of dear bookish friends before my eyes.

After our last meeting at Press, I asked a favour of our members to provide a few words on what the silent book club means to them. The intent was to use those words as the introductions to future meeting reports, so these reports open with more of the voices of our group than just me all the darned time.

Todd went above and beyond a few words, with a blog post that made my heart glow when I first read it, and makes me kind of teary-eyed now. This hits hardest:

“The atmosphere is lovely. It isn’t just reminding me of childhood Sustained Silent Reading time at school, I am noticing it is something that I rarely get to experience these days: the experience of sharing comfortable silence with others. Very often with friends and family there’s a sense that if we’re together there must be a conversation happening. This is most definitely not the case here. I’m happy to be in the room with others but I’m also happy to simply be able to read and share space with them.”

Read Todd’s complete, wonderful blog post here.

I will open future reports with other members’ thoughts on their silent book club experiences. There will be future reports because we will meet again, one way or another.

Without further ado, here is this month’s book list, combined of books shared during our virtual session and contributed by members via email.

• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
• Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
• Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
• For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: New and Selected Poems by Gary Barwin
• Free Melania by Kate Bennett
• The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
• Radical Self-Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of the Buddha by Tara Brach (audiobook)
• Rising Strong by Brené Brown (audiobook)
• Rise Sister Rise by Rebecca Campbell
• Queen Meryl by Erin Carlson
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
• Thin Air by Ann Cleeves
• Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
• The Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill
• Animal Hospital: Rescuing Urban Wildlife by Julia Coey
• French Exit by Patrick deWitt
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• Actress by Anne Enright
• The Woman In the Window by A.J. Finn
• Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
• Early Stages by John Gielgud
• Too Close to the Falls by Catherine Gildiner
• After the Falls by Catherine Gildiner
• Coming Ashore by Catherine Gildiner
• Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre
• Little Yellow House: Finding Community in a Changing Neighbourhood by Carissa Halton
• The Boy by Tami Hoag
• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
• Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
• Field of Bones by J.A. Jance
• Remains of Innocence by J.A. Jance
• The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
• Music for Tigers by Michelle Kadarusman
• Nancy Drew 02: the Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene
• The Stand by Stephen King
• Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon
• Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan (audiobook)
• The Temptation of Forgiveness by Donna Leon
• Female Fortune by Jill Liddington
• In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
• Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot
• Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves by Rachel Malik
• Collected Stories by Katherine Mansfield (audiobook)
• Coffin Road by Peter May (audiobook)
• Summer Lightning by Tamara McKinley
• Inside Out by Demi Moore
• Dodging Elephants: Leaving the rat race for a bike race – 8000 miles across Africa by Alice Morrison
• Me Before You by JoJo Moyes
• Animalkind by Ingrid Newkirk and Gene Stone
• Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport
• The Monkey-Puzzle Tree by Elizabeth Nickson
• Geoff Nixon: Man of the Land, A History of Gunniguldrie and the Nixon Family
  by Robert Nixon
• Jean Nixon by Robert Nixon
• Saints and Sinners by Edna O’Brien (audiobook)
• Arias by Sharon Olds
• The Lightkeeper’s Daughters by Jean E. Pendziwol
• Still Life by Louise Penny
• Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher
• Warming the Stone Child: Myths and Stories about Abandonment and the Unmothered Child by Clarissa Pinkola Estés (audiobook)
• How to Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• The Huntress by Kate Quinn
• Many Rivers to Cross by Peter Robinson
• Good Girl Bad Girl by Michael Robotham
• Normal People by Sally Rooney
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling, illustrated by Jim Kay
• We are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer
• A Furnace Full of God by Rebekah Scott
• The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
• Love & Courage by Jagmeet Singh
• Autumn by Ali Smith
• Winter by Ali Smith
• Memento Mori by Muriel Spark (audiobook)
• On the Plain of Snakes by Paul Theroux
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti
• Irma Voth by Miriam Toews
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• Juliet’s School of Possibilities by Laura Vanderkam
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• The Uninhabitable Earth – Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells

As always, you can catch up on 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. You can check out links to articles, CBC Radio interviews and more here – some with San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich, and some with us here in east end Toronto.

Under the current circumstances, this text I put at the end of each silent book club report isn’t entirely applicable, but I’m going to repeat it with optimism anyhow:
If you’ve so far enjoyed the silent book club experience virtually, are you tempted to experience it firsthand? Via Guinevere and Laura’s Silent Book Club web site, you can find information on meetings happening around the world and close to where you live. If you’re interested in starting your own silent book club or are in the Toronto area and perhaps interested in checking ours out, check out the resources on the Silent Book Club web site, or please feel free to contact me for more information.

We will wait until we can again fling open our doors, venture out and gather in our communities. A silent book club meeting with friends and neighbours, held at and in support of a local business exemplifies exactly the kinds of freedoms we are foregoing now to get through these unsettled and unsettling times … and is where we’re all going to want to be when we get through this. Read well where you are now, be well and let books buoy your spirits and make the time pass swiftly.