Ours was a small but mighty gathering of members of the east end Toronto silent book club. We’ve been fortunate this summer to escape some of the pervasive pandemic isolation with some modestly sized and physically distanced book club meetings under the trees at the south end of Stephenson Park, a neighbourhood oasis. We’ve managed well-attended zoom sessions once or twice a month since the March lockdown – and those have been lively and ameliorating and gratifying – but the park gatherings have felt particularly vital and connecting. Sharing our books and reading together is what fundamentally drew us all together to begin with, didn’t it?

With hints of autumn in the air and tickling the leaves, it felt like this might be our last chance to meet in the park. Not only does it feel like we’re at a seasonal turning point, but who knows what turns and twists are ahead in the situation we’re all facing right now? It was some solace to see friends, and to share not only our recent reading but our recent and upcoming home and work and family challenges ahead, all tinged with the unknown.

We’re making tentative plans to return to our original silent book club venue, with a smaller and physically distanced in-person component complemented with an extended online component. It’s all being done with thought and care, but who knows if we’ll actually be able to do it? Is it possible we’ll be reverting and retreating as the days grow shorter? Dare we hope otherwise?

On one hand, how our book club will meet next is perhaps among the least of our worries. On the other hand, how our book club will continue in the weeks and months to come might help us – even just a bit – to cope with the worst of our worries. The world of our books and the fellowship and encouragement of other booklovers might be what sustains us.

Is this T-shirt not simply perfect? Thanks to silent book club member Emilia for attending an earlier meeting sporting this wonderful garment, and sharing the key link that means we can all purchase our own here.

Because the group was smaller this time, our combined reading list is somewhat more modest than usual, but still filled with wonder and gorgeousness and diversity. The list will blossom further in just a week, when a larger group of us meets again online.

• Blaze Island by Catherine Bush
• Antigonick (Sophokles), translated by Anne Carson, illustrated by Bianca Stone
• The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans
• V is for Victory by Lissa Evans
• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
• The Inspector Green Mysteries by Barbara Fradkin
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf
• Comforts of Home by Susan Hill
• Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James
• The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson
• Orrery by Donna Kane
• The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
• Bella Figura by Kamin Mohammadi
• Dear Mrs Bird by A.J. Pearce
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• #thesealeychallenge to read 31 works of poetry (one per day) in the month of August
• Ru by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman

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

You can also 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.

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.