Monthly Archives: January 2021

Started early, took my dog … enjoyed the company of booklovers, online and in the snow

Me in the snowy park holding a book, while Tilly the Airedale looks elsewhere

… although the dog was more interested in other dogs than in the books and booklovers … 🙂

Our latest online silent book club meeting did indeed runneth over …

Silent book club members in zoom screen

… but no one seemed to mind, so there clearly continues to be an appetite for regularly sharing our bookish delights and challenges, in whatever way we can meet. As you’ll see from our always generous and varied combined book list, our Toronto group (where the eastern boundary of the city extends to Wales, don’t you know …) is keeping its collective reading groove going with a wide range of contemporary and classic works in many genres and formats, from established and emerging authors.

After the zoom meeting, as most were settling in to their favourite reading chairs for the silent reading portion of the festivities, a handful of us (within local group guidelines, appropriate distanced – rest assured) ventured out to the local park for a quick meetup in the snow. (As I walked over, I thought of one of our book club members waxing wise and poetic about Wintering by Katherine May – in which we are encouraged to embrace literal and more metaphorical winters – and mused about how appropriate this was …)

Three silent book club  members standing in the snowy park with their books

Catherine in the park

Jo in the park

Sue in the park

When the sun is shining just as brilliantly, but it’s maybe a touch warmer and greener, we look forward to gathering there again for some silent reading under the trees. Till then, we’ll gather round our screens and in the cozy spots where we curl up at home, grateful we’ve found ways to continue to connect with our fellow booklovers.

Beth's silent book club reading

Dawn's silent book club reading

Kath's silent book club reading

Lyla's silent book club reading

Philippa's silent book club reading

Vicki's silent book club reading

Here is the latest and always gorgeous combined reading list from our group. The titles featured in each of our reports combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately, with narrator/performer information where possible).

The chat window of today’s zoom meeting was also brimming with book and book-related articles, recommendations and more, including:

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.

Even if things get darker for a time, we can light our way and our spirits for now with reading and continued connections to our fellow readers.

The chance to fling our virtual doors wide open

We miss our in-person silent book club meetings, at Press and in the park …

Silent book club in the park ... with a new friend

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist …)

but as I observed in our last report, gathering around a zoom screen can sometimes be just like gathering around a warm fire in good company. It felt exactly like that again, as we enjoyed a mid-week, evening “pop-up” silent book club meeting this week.

Although it was an evening gathering for most of the attendees, from our local east end Toronto neighbourhood and from other locations around the greater Toronto area, it was a very late evening for one of our newest members, who was joining us from Wales. It was particularly lovely to hear her voice, see her smile and view her cozy, book-lined office … and to realize that an actually very wonderful aspect of how our group has adapted and moved online is that it has given us the opportunity to fling our virtual doors open in this fashion.

Live meetings and the warmth of literally reading together are not in the immediate future, but they’re in all our dreams. At the same time, I hope this extended book club format will still be part of our meeting mix. We’ve made new friends, we’ve expanded our discussions and reading lists … and we’ve used the online realm (and, notably this week, it feels like we’ve reclaimed and redeemed it) to do it.

Books from Rosanne

Toronto library entrance, covid style, from Todd

Lyla's reading

Lyla's reading

Lyla's reading

Philippa's reading

Vicki's reading

Without further ado, here is another generous combined reading list from our group. As always, the titles featured in each of our reports combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately)

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.

It’s possible things are going to get darker for a time. We can light our way and our spirits for now with reading and continued connections to our fellow readers.

How our reading saved us and how we saved the joys of reading in 2020

As I reflected just last year (it feels like a very strange eternity ago), early January is my usual time to contemplate my year past in reading and to absorb and appreciate the musings of fellow readers as they share their own reflections. I’m doing that again, of course, but admittedly with more pondering (some of it bewildered), some trepidation and even some weariness, even as there is much to celebrate. This particular exercise of looking back is through a lens uniquely fogged and scratched and battered, about which enough has been said. This exercise also tussles with the conundrum of how reading can comfort, can distract, can bolster our spirits – but even that very practice was affected by the perils of this trying year.

As did so many events and gatherings this past year, the silent book club groups in which I take part all moved online during the first wave of pandemic closures and lockdowns. Again and still, the attendees of our silent book club gatherings collectively helped each other through struggles with our reading – intermittent concentration, flagging attention span, lessened energy, emotions triggered and so on – and I chronicled some of that in our reports, which I was determined to keep up throughout.

(Glenn Sumi of Now Magazine also offered excellent insights into the science behind why it’s been so hard to read a book during this rollercoaster ride of a year. I was happy to commiserate with Glenn about this reading affliction as he was researching the article.)

Respecting local guidelines and restrictions, our silent book club still managed to meet for brief, physically distanced, but still heart lifting gatherings in the park … even as the weather grew colder again.

Silent book club in the park in October

Silent book club in the park in December

This year, I decided to take up the daunting but wonderful Sealey Challenge for reading yet more poetry. Started in 2017 by American poet and educator Nicole Sealey, and steered through social media with the hashtag #thesealeychallenge, the idea is to commit and do your best to read 31 works of poetry over the course of 31 days in August. Before this challenge, I always have had a poetry collection on the go, but reading at this pace turned it into a whole new, mind-expanding experience – at times overwhelming but always exhilarating. What a boost, in many, many ways … ironically, I can’t seem to express my gratitude very poetically.

I continued my commitment in 2020 to a daily devotion to at least one poem … and usually more, as friends on Twitter continued to generously share their poem choices and reflections via the #todayspoem hashtag. I’m now heading into my 10th uninterrupted year of poetry tweets.

Another practice that continues to heighten my weekly reading joy as I navigate through books is that of #sundaysentence, championed and curated by author David Abrams. As I’ve observed before, seeking a beautifully or uniqued crafted sentence each week sharpens my attention when I’m reading, and I love discovering new works through the #sundaysentence choices of other readers.

In years past when I’ve looked back on my reading, I’ve reminisced about where I was when I was reading this or that, or I’ve linked to longer notes and reviews here on this blog, on Goodreads, etc. I’m not going to do that this year. In all honesty, I wandered around online a lot this year, trying to keep or regain my readerly grounding. That might sound counter-intuitive, since where but online were we being significantly enraged, upset and distracted? But in fact, I found lots of conversations on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, as well as vital zoom gatherings and events (many authors and literary festivals did an inspiring and commendable job of moving readings online, for example) that kept me going as a reader.

Here are the books I read, reread and read aloud in 2020.

January, 2020

1. Grand Union by Zadie Smith
2. I’ll Take You There – Mavis Staples, the Staple Singers and the March Up Freedom’s Highway by Greg Kot (read aloud)
3. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman
4. The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
5. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
6. Field Notes for the Self by Randy Lundy

February, 2020

7. behind the scenes at the museum by Kate Atkinson
8. Dominoes at the Crossroads by Kaie Kellough
9. Our Dogs, Ourselves by Alexandra Horowitz (read aloud)

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

March, 2020

10. Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
11. Arias by Sharon Olds
12. Music For Tigers by Michelle Kadarusman
13. Actress by Anne Enright
14. The Only Story by Julian Barnes

April, 2020

15. My Antonia by Willa Cather (reread)
16. Unlock by Bei Dao, translated by Eliot Weinberger and Iona Man-Cheong
17. For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: new and selected poems by Gary Barwin, edited by Alessandro Porco
18. Swamp Angel by Ethel Wilson (reread)
19. The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald (reread)

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

May, 2020

20. The Progress of Love by Alice Munro (reread)
21. The Baudelaire Fractal by Lisa Robertson

June, 2020

22. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
23. The Swan Suit by Katherine Fawcett
24. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
25. Early Stages by John Gielgud (read aloud)
26. In Another Place, Not Here by Dionne Brand

July, 2020

27. Good Citizens Need Not Fear by Maria Reva
28. Motherhood by Sheila Heti
29. Circe by Madeline Miller
30. Nanaimo Girl by Prudence Emery
31. Mr Salary by Sally Rooney

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

August, 2020

start of #thesealeychallenge (reading 31 works of poetry in 31 days)

32. The Outer Wards by Sadiqa de Meijer
33. Quantum Typography by Gary Barwin (reread)
34. Time by Etel Adnan, translated by Sarah Riggs
35. Rat Jelly by Michael Ondaatje
36. Evidence by Andrea Thompson, illustrations by Catherine Tammaro
37. The Witch of the Inner Wood by M. Travis Lane, edited by Shane Neilson
38. How She Read by Chantal Gibson
39. Silverchest by Carl Phillips
40. Vice Versa by Elyse Friedman, illustrated by Shannon Moynagh

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

41. Dart by Alice Oswald
42. Murmurations by Annick MacAskill
43. England by Nia Davies (reread)
44. Grain by John Glenday (reread)
45. Forge by Jan Zwicky
46. On the Menu by Jacqueline Valencia, illustrated by Jennifer Chin
47. The Mobius Strip Club of Grief by Bianca Stone (reread)
48. Crow by Amy Spurway
49. Cloud Physics by Karen Enns
50. Fields of Light and Stone by Angeline Schellenberg
51. Stranger by Nyla Matuk
52. Ornament by Anna Lena Phillips Bell

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

53. Everyone at This Party by Tanja Bartel
54. The Dzygraphxst by Canisia Lubrin
55. Juliet (I) by Sarah Certa
56. What We Carry by Susan Glickman
57. Belated Bris of the Brainsick by Lucas Crawford
58. behindlings by Nicola Barker
59. I Am on a River and Cannot Answer by Amy Miller
60. Riven by Catherine Owen
61. Magnetic Equator by Kaie Kellough
62. Short Talks by Anne Carson (reread)
63. Body Count by Kyla Jamieson
64. go-go dancing for Elvis by Leslie Greentree (reread)

end of #thesealeychallenge (reading 31 works of poetry in 31 days)

65. No Authority by Anne Enright

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

September, 2020

66. Plainsong by Kent Haruf
67. Antigonick (Sophokles) translated by Anne Carson, illustrated by Bianca Stone
68. Blaze Island by Catherine Bush
69. Modern Times by Cathy Sweeney

October, 2020

70. No Grave for This Place by Judy Quinn, translated by Donald Winkler
71. Dinosaurs on Other Planets by Danielle McLaughlin
72. Northern Light by Roy MacGregor (read aloud)
73. Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
74. Jack by Marilynne Robinson

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

November, 2020

75. Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
76. the fool by Jessie Jones
77. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

December, 2020

78. Waiting for a Star to Fall by Kerry Clare
79. Intimations: Six Essays by Zadie Smith
80. The End of Me by John Gould
81. Sister Language by Christina Baillie and Martha Baillie
82. Lost Family – A Memoir by John Barton
83. Up Jumped the Devil – The Real Life of Robert Johnson by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow (read aloud)
84. The Night Piece by Andre Alexis
85. How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

86. The Gifts of Reading by Robert MacFarlane

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

In 2020, I read a total of 86 works, not only a giant leap from previous years and a new personal record … but rather astonishing, in light of, well, everything. That broke out as:

  • 37 works of fiction (novels and short story collections) – the exact same as my 2018 total
  • 39 poetry collections and
  • 10 works of non-fiction.

I reread 10 books, more than usual and another way that I got through some stretches where my reading mojo was decidedly fading. I read 5 works in translation, read one graphic work and read 46 works by Canadian authors. My husband and I read 5 books aloud to each other this year and have another one in progress as we greet the new year.

I also kept track again this year of the publication dates of the books I read. In 2020, the oldest book I read was published in 1918 (My Antonia by Willa Cather, which was a vital and comforting reread), and I also read nine books published between 1954 through the 1990s, further fulfilling my now yearly intention to read or reread some more older books. More than half of the books I read this year were published in 2019 or 2020.

So far in 2021, I’ve read or have in progress:

  • Rachel to the Rescue by Elinor Lipman
  • One Year at Ellsmere by Faith Erin Hicks
  • Dearly by Margaret Atwood
  • Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
  • Shuggie Bain Douglas Stuart
  • Swivelmount by Ken Babstock
  • A Promised Land by Barack Obama (read aloud)

For yet another year, I’m looking back with quiet satisfaction (and with gratitude to the practices and people who helped and inspired) on my reading during an extraordinarily difficult year, and looking forward with quiet optimism to where my reading this new year will take me. I’m grateful to the writers, publishers, reviewers and fellow readers who have spurred on and broadened my reading. I’m thankful as always for the bounty of beautiful words that came to me via so many conduits, evoking such an array of ideas, trains of thought, memories and associations, providing so much off the page, too.

I’ll simply conclude …

It’s not how many you read that counts. It’s that you read that counts – and it counts so very much.