Many have likened their isolated pandemic days to the movie Groundhog Day, where every day repeats of the last and it all becomes a seemingly endless, blurry loop. But just as the protagonist of that movie works to break out of that loop and emerges a better person, the repetition of our current days is not without its benefits as we iterate and improve upon what turns out to be important. In its modest way, how we’ve modified our silent book club gatherings has broken many of us out of the distracted loops that have affected our beloved reading practices, and have helped to sustain us through the day after day of the current situation.

We repeated again this month what we did last month, a two-part silent book club meeting. We started online with a zoom meeting …

… and then some carried on offline with their silent reading at home, and some of us gathered for a physically distanced gathering in a tree-lined neighbourhood park.

(It was, by the way, utterly glorious under those trees. It was a 30 degrees C + day in Toronto, but it was noticeably several degrees cooler under the trees. The park grass right up to the trees was parched, but was still green right under the trees. In addition to the breeze swirling in the treetops, an occasional GO train passing on the tracks just south of the park also stirred up the air pleasantly and, surprisingly, did not distract from our reading. And oh, did I mention the beautiful hawk swooping overhead …?)

During both parts of today’s meeting, many members remarked that their usual reading tempos were returning. The rich and bountiful collected reading list which follows is clear testament to our rejuvenated concentration and enthusiasm.

The titles featured each month combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately). Interestingly, our members who particularly enjoy audiobooks (one member distinguishes when she has read a book “audio’ly”) regularly read and compare the print to the audio editions of a book, often with different reviews.

• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Behindlings by Nicola Barker
• The Opium Clerk by Kunal Basu
• The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
• In Another Place, Not Here by Dionne Brand
• Empty Planet – The Shock of Global Population Decline by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson
• People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (audiobook)
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
• The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
• The Cat Inside by William S. Burroughs
• Molly: the true story of the amazing dog who rescues cats by Colin Butcher
• Chicken Soup for the Volunteer’s Soul by Jack Canfield
• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
• Brother by David Chariandy
• Self-Portrait in Black and White: unlearning race by Thomas Chatterton Williams
• City of Djinns – A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple
• A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• American War by Omar El Akkad
• Nanaimo Girl by Prudence Emery
• Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
• Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
• The Butchering Art, Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris
• Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by BJ Fogg
• Out of Darkness Shining Light by Petina Gappah
• Early Stages by John Gielgud
• Loving Large: A Mother’s Rare Disease Memoir b
• A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
• The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf
• Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf (audiobook)
• The Chai Factor by Farah Heron
• Motherhood by Sheila Heti
• The Benefit of Hindsight by Susan Hill
• The Fallen Man by Tony Hillerman
• The Ghost Orchard: The Hidden History of the Apple in North America by Helen Humphreys
• Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones
• A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost
• The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly
• When They Call You a Terrorist – A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele
• Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
• Road Ends by Mary Lawson
• French Kids Eat Everything : {And Yours Can Too} by Karen Le Billon
• Severance by Ling Ma
• Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him by Roy MacGregor
• The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre
• Dead Mom Walking by Rachel Matlow
• In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen
• John Adams by David McCullough
• The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
• Circe by Madeline Miller
• Dishonesty is the Second Best Policy and Other Rules to Live by by David Mitchell
• Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
• The Red Sweet Wine of Youth (The Brave and Brief Lives of the War Poets) by Nicholas Murray
• Shut Up You’re Pretty by Tea Mutonji
• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (audiobook, read by Cassandra Campbell)
• Becoming by Michelle Obama (audiobook)
• Broken Places & Outer Spaces: finding creativity in the unexpected by Nnedi Okorafor
• Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (audiobook, read by Tom Hanks)
• Good Citizens Need Not Fear by Maria Reva
• Ladies of Liberty by Cokie Roberts
• Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
• Mr Salary by Sally Rooney
• Normal People by Sally Rooney
• The Five: The Untold Stories of the Women Killed By Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
• The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
• The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter
• M Train by Patti Smith
• Crow by Amy Spurway
• Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J Ryan Stradal
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• The Door by Magda Szabo (audiobook)
• Everything You Love Will Burn by Vegas Tenold
• The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• The Witch of the Inner Wood by M. Travis Lane
• Away by Jane Urquhart
• Forbidden Hollywood – When Sin Ruled the Movies (1930-1934 Pre-Code Era) by Mark A. Vieira
• Square Haunting by Francesca Wade
• Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh
• Educated by Tara Westover
• What Ho! The Best of P.G. Wodehouse

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are 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.

Learn more about silent book clubs 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. Some clubs are currently on haitus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

We’re starting to meet again in person, modestly and very cautiously, but not without justifiable trepidation that warrants alternative ways of gathering. 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, gather in the ways that are safe and make most sense, including virtually. Be well and let books buoy your spirits, make our ever changing and challenging circumstances more tolerable, and make the time pass swiftly.