Warmest thanks to Toronto silent book club member Mary Schulz for the introduction to our latest sbc meeting report. Mary has also graced this blog with some excellent book reviews, here and here.

Comfort. It is something we all crave from time to time. Perhaps we appreciate comforting pleasures more than ever as we near the anniversary of the start of this pandemic. It is strangely comforting to know that the world keeps behaving as it should at this time of year, bringing us days of blinding sunlight followed by greyer days of snow upon snow. Comfort foods, libations and human connection continue to be vitally important as we return home from walking, walking and more walking.

So, too, our Silent Book Club remains a comforting oasis in the midst of so much uncertainty. Even meeting virtually has become “comfortable” – the new normal. Seeing the familiar faces of friends from across the street and across the globe feels almost as good as sitting around the coffee table at our neighbourhood cafe. Hearing about – and seeing!- one member’s latest canine addition to the family, swapping tidbits of neighbourhood gossip (and wondering how alien or familiar does this sound to our book club member who tunes in from Wales?!) and sharing a laugh at the absurdity of it all make us feel that perhaps everything hasn’t changed, after all.

Falling into the easy routine of going around the circle, listening to what has enthralled our group book-wise (or not!) over the past month, scribbling notes to “check this book out!”, we laugh at the predictability that one member will stretch us to read poetry while others will help us re-think what a “good read” really means. Perhaps we should give that author another try; after all, so many in the group seem to enjoy her books. Or maybe it’s ok just to listen this month, if reading has not been top of mind of late.

Silent book club is a gathering of friends. Sometimes those friends are like-minded, sometimes not so much. But the group is knitted together by the wonder of words. How DOES she do it? How beautifully written was that?! Even if we don’t always understand their full meaning, words move us and make us feel.

And after all, isn’t that what a really great gathering of friends is all about? Feeling. Talking, laughing, sharing. And did we mention, “feeling”? Feeling safe and amongst friends, many of whom are just down the street or around the corner. Who knew that books could do all that? Well, we did, I guess. And thank goodness for that.

Here is the latest, positively 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 Crown Ain’t Worth Much by Hanif Abdurraqib
• Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdurraqib
• They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
• The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (audiobook)
• We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Dearly by Margaret Atwood
• The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, narrated by Shayna Small (audiobook)
• Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans
• In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made by Norman F. Cantor
• Phillis by Alison Clarke
• Atomic Habits by James Clear (audiobook)
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
• Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias In A World Designed For Men by Caroline Criada Perez
• Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ by Giulia Enders
• Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan
• The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020, edited by Diana Gabaldon
• Art Matters by Neil Gaiman
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman (BBC Dramatisation)
• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (BBC Dramatisation)
• Good Omens by Neil Gaiman (BBC Dramatisation)
• The Beguiling by Zsuzsi Gartner, narrated by Amanda Cordner (audiobook)
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
• Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks (audiobook)
• The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
• Mind Hacking – How to Change Your Mind for Good in 21 Days by John Hargrave
• The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill
• A Net for Small Fishes by Lucy Jago
• Love is an Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar
• The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner, narrated by Richard Armitage (audiobook)
• The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson, narrated by George Guidall (audiobook)
• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
• Indigenous Relations – Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality by Bob Joseph, Cindy Joseph
• The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes (audiobook)
• Indians on Vacation by Thomas King
• knife | fork | book poetry chapbooks
• This Can’t Be Happening at MacDonald Hall! by Gordon Korman
• Rachel to the Rescue by Elinor Lipman
• The 99% Invisible City, A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt
• Slow by Brooke McAlary (audiobook)
• The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy (audiobook)
• The Cockroach by Ian McEwan, narrated by Bill Nighy (audiobook)
• Northeast Foraging by Leda Meredith
• Teardown: Rebuilding Democracy from the Ground Up by Dave Meslin
• Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
• In Ethiopia with a Mule by Dervla Murphy
• Songs for the End of the World by Saleema Nawaz (audiobook)
• The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You by Dina Nayeri
• A Promised Land by Barack Obama
• Paddle Your Own Canoe by Nick Offerman (audiobook)
• Rituals for Virtual Meetings by Kursat Ozenc and Glenn Fajardo
• Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
• The Best of The Best of Canadian Poetry, eds. Molly Peacock and Anita Lahey
• Yes Please by Amy Poehler (audiobook)
• The Cretan Runner by George Psychoundakis
• The History of Sir Charles Grandison by Samuel Richardson
• The Parasitic Mind by Gad Saad
• The German Heiress by Anika Scott
• What Does Photography Mean to You? edited by Grant Scott
• The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve
• Star Wars: Light of the Jedi (The High Republic) by Charles Soule
• Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
• Dark August by Katie Tallo
• How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa
• Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas
• The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber, narrated by Ben Stiller (audiobook)
• Jane Austen – A Life by Claire Tomalin
• Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui
• Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler, narrated by Andrew Macleod (audiobook)
• The Sun is a Compass by Caroline Van Hemert
• Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
• Square Haunting by Francesca Wade
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman
• The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
• The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir (audiobook)
• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
• Something Fresh by PG Wodehouse, narrated by Jonathan Cecil (audiobook)
• Red Sorghum by Mo Yan

The wrap-up discussion and the chat window of today’s zoom meeting also brimmed with book and book-related articles, recommendations and more, including:

• A suggested complement to Barack Obama’s memoir A Promised Land is the new podcast featuring Obama in conversation with Bruce Springsteen.
• Several of our silent book club members have enjoyed the short story collection How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa. Thammavongsa also has a new short story entitled “Good-Looking” just published in The New Yorker, which also includes audio of her reading it.
• One of our silent book club members praised both the book and the cover design of Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias In A World Designed For Men by Caroline Criada Perez. Take a look here.
• Repeating again some of our favourites bookstore recommendations, local to Toronto-based booklovers are: Book City, Type Books, Queen Books and The Novel Spot Bookshop. In Waterloo, Ontario, Words Worth is much beloved. Still in lockdown, you can still support these and other bookstores by purchasing through their web sites.
• Listen to Irish author Marian Keyes on BBC Sounds.
• Ontario Heritage Trust presents a free lecture with award-winning author Esi Edugyan and a virtual visit to Uncle Tom’s Cabin Historic Site.

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.

Let’s continue to light our way and our spirits with reading and continued connections to our fellow readers.