I prepared for our latest silent book club online meeting in the midst of a literal storm. Rain was pelting down and the lights were flickering. I was so keen to do what I could to be connected again with my fellow readers that I had a candle nearby, battery backup on alert for my laptop and my phone at the ready to use as a wifi hotspot if our home internet connection dropped.

As I prepared, and then joined the zoom session with happiness and relief, I considered how the meeting was like a calm in the midst of the storm – in many ways, and in the midst of several storms. The continued waves of uncertainty, frustration, ennui and sadness with which we’re all contending during the pandemic are a form of roiling storm. And now, the veritable tsunami of protests around the world against racism and police brutality, and how these necessary upheavals compel us to confront our own biases and deficits of knowledge and understanding, are a storm like no other.
Reading continues to be a vital part of our way forward to greater understanding, insight, support and respect. Paradoxically, we are navigating these storms together but isolated – which makes our opportunities to connect with each other and with the words and accounts of those experiencing injustice so critical.

This latest meeting had the reassuring constancy of faces and voices, and of discussion that we all welcome and relish. We dedicated time to talking about the storms we’re riding through and out together, and the diverse books that help us with our ongoing education. It was gratifying to realize that numerous titles our group has already discussed and shared are part of that essential syllabus, but also humbling to know that we must constantly expand that list, seek those books, strive for that understanding. So, we will always be looking for eye-opening reading, adding to that list and sharing it, amongst ourselves and with anyone coming to these reports, interested in what we’re reading and discussing.

We debated a bit about whether or not to offer a separate reading list in this report, singling out the works that we’ve found elucidating and/or that we individually and collectively want to commit to reading more of. There are merits to both approaches. A separate list can give emphasis and prominence to titles and subject matter. One blended alphabetical list, as we usually present in our reports, passes no judgement, but indicates that by a title’s presence, it was given attention and consideration by at least one person in our group, and that title was discussed, considered and probably read by others.

Just because we are still largely sheltering in place, does not mean we need to grow complacent and remain in place in terms of our thinking and learning. Diversity should be integral to our reading all the time, never as a required reading / homework assignment type of thing. So, we’ve blended all the titles once again in our (we hope) always capacious, always welcoming, always enlightening book list.

• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Calling by Inger Ash Wolfe (alias for Michael Redhill)
• Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
• Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
• Transcription by Kate Atkinson
• Emma by Jane Austen
• Bread Out of Stone by Dionne Brand
• Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
• Embrace the Grim Reaper by Judy Clemens
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Skin We’re In by Desmond Cole
• Kudos by Rachel Cusk
• Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
• A Mind Spread Out on the Ground
• Learning about Jane Elliott, including her Commitment to Combat Racism survey
• Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
• The Swan Suit by Katherine Fawcett
• Civilization: the West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson
• The Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay
• Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
• Less by Andrew Sean Greer
• Loving Large: A Mother’s Rare Disease Memoir by Patti Hall
• Benediction by Kent Haruf
• The German House by Annette Hess
• The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time by Arianna Huffington
• How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi
• Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X Kendi
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• Unsettling Canada by Arthur Manuel
• Policing Black Lives by Robyn Maynard
• Full Disclosure by Beverley McLachlin
• Truth Be Told: My Journey Through Life and the Law by Beverley McLachlin
• The Progress of Love by Alice Munro
• The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht (audiobook)
• So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
• Rituals for Work by Kursat Ozenc and Margaret Hagan
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
• The Story of Captain Cook (An Adventure from History) (A Ladybird Book Series 561) by L. du Garde Peach
• Still Life by Louise Penny
• Mrs. Simcoe’s Diary, edited by Mary Quayle Innis
• Salvage by Duncan Ralston
• Invisible No More by Andrea Ritchie
• Normal People by Sally Rooney
• The Five: The Untold Stories of the Women Killed By Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
• Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (audiobook)
• Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• The Witch of the Inner Wood by M. Travis Lane
• The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
• Indigenous Writes by Chelsea Vowel
• Black Like Who? by Rinaldo Walcott
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
• The Nightwatch by Sarah Waters (audiobook)

You can always catch up on our previous silent book club meeting reports (our online and in-person incarnations) 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, the text I usually put at the end of each report isn’t entirely applicable, but I’m still going to repeat it with continued 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.

The sign-off from our recent reports is, I think, still very applicable:

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, put the current situation in perhaps new and fresh contexts, and make the time pass swiftly.