Todd Tyrtle is both a steadfast Toronto silent book club member and organizer of his own international book and tea chat online gathering, as you will quickly learn from his lively introduction to the latest Toronto meeting report. Todd is a wise and observant soul whose interests and activities are so varied, eclectic and vibrant that they almost defy categorization, so I’m going to borrow from one of his social media profiles to describe them further: blogging (at Go Outside Today), cooking, eating, cycling, traveling and doing a new thing every week for a year #52adventures.

I learned about the Toronto Silent Book Club back in 2019 from about as far away as one could: a Times of India article about one that had started in Delhi. Surely, Toronto, a city of readers must have something similar. A quick search proved me right. And so it was that in January 2020, I went to my first meeting having little idea of what to expect.

Some people imagine reading in front of a fireplace with a cup of tea while it snows outside. But from now on my view of cozy reading experience will forever be sitting in a room with other book lovers, the smell of coffee in the air, a scone in front of me with us all reading together. I love how my reading habits were shaken and refreshed. People were reading things I wouldn’t normally read and speaking about them so enthusiastically that I was moved to also try them. I owe my discovery of authors like Ali Smith, and Matt Haig to our group. Likewise, I owe my discovery of flash fiction and rediscovery of poetry to them.

And then, after two in-person meetings, the pandemic hit, and we were all banished to our little Zoom boxes. Even I, a big believer in the power of technology was unsure it would work but the meetings kept going strong, often meeting twice as often as pre-pandemic. Seeing how well it worked gave me an idea. If our attendees are no longer limited by our ability to converge on the same café at the same time, what could a silent book club look like?

And so, about a year ago, the International Book Talk meetings started. This group, consisting of people I’ve met in person, through blogs, or social media meets about once a month to talk about the books we love and our lives. Friends in Canada have talked about English and French books they’ve enjoyed. Others in India have talked about reading books in English, Hindi, and Kannada. A friend in Norway, born in India talks about reading a Marathi book about a famous musician.

It wasn’t long, though, before we realized that for us, books were merely a means of connection. Even with a smaller group than our Toronto contingent, meetings sometimes go up to two hours. Of course, we talk about books, but we also talk about our families, how we’re navigating the pandemic. We’re sharing stories of our childhood experiences in the US or how one person’s father in Pakistan started writing some of the first Urdu science fiction books after he retired. And sometimes it is the simplest of side discussions – what the weather is like where we all are – that it’s raining a little early in parts of Karnataka even as Toronto is getting snow in April.

Our small regular group has enjoyed this connection so much that we started inviting people to just join us. No book talk required. Just show up and enjoy the social connection. A couple of months after starting the book club, a second monthly meeting was started. This group has no agenda at all. Just show up and relax in a virtual living room. Bring a snack or tea and connect with other humans.

There has been so much suffering and sadness during this pandemic, but this group, that started with the idea of a “silent book club” was a blessing that will surely continue well beyond the end of the pandemic.

If we do say so ourselves, our combined reading lists never fail to amaze. As always, the books we shared run the gamut of subjects, formats, genres, styles and much more. 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).

• A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib
• Dangerous Women by Hope Adams (aka Adele Geras)
• The Iron Ring by Lloyd Alexander
• The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham
• Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Annappara
• Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
• The Secret World of Og by Pierre Berton
• Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
• Constant Nobody by Michelle Butler Hallett
• Value(s) – Building a Better World for All by Mark Carney
• Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
• The Queen’s Agent by John Cooper
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Blueshift by Joshua Dalzelle
• South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion
• Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
• Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck
• The Conjure-Man Dies: A Harlem Mystery by Rudolph Fisher
• Helium by Rudy Francisco
• My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi by Mahatma Gandhi
• The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World by Robert Garland, Colgate University
• Three Junes by Julia Glass (audiobook)
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
• The Humans by Matt Haig
• Mind Hacking – How to Change Your Mind for Good in 21 Days by John Hargrave
• A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
• Standard Deviation by Kathrine Heiny
• Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny (audiobook)
• Elizabeth’s Spymaster – Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England by Robert Hutchinson
• Fishnet by Kirstin Innes
• Mirrorland by Carol Johnstone
• Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
• Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur
• How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi
• Off the Road: Explorers, Vans, and Life Off the Beaten Track, edited by Robert Klanten, Maximilian Funk, and Sven Ehmann
• The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence
• Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie, narrated by Robin Eller et al (audiobook)
• The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy (audiobook)
• The Last Stargazers by Emily Levesque (audiobook)
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson
• Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
• The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
• Wintering by Katherine May
• Swim Home – Searching for the Wild Girl of Champagne by Kathleen McDonnell
• When We Were Young, edited by Stuart McLean
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, narrated by Frankie Corzo (audiobook)
• Elmet by Fiona Mozley (audiobook)
• Shouting at the Rain by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
• The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
• The Twilight series by Stephenie Myer
• The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri
• Us by David Nicholls
• A Promised Land by Barack Obama
• Hamnet and Judith by Maggie O’Farrell
• Camper Rehab by Chris Peterson
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• Little Housewolf by Medrie Purdham
• Excellent Women by Barbara Pym, narrated by Jayne Entwistle (audiobook)
• Ant Farm and Other Desperate Situations by Simon Rich
• Free-Range Chickens by Simon Rich
• Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
• The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell
• Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
• Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage by Dani Shapiro
• Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
• Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus by Lydia Sherrer
• You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero
• Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
• A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Sparks
• Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas, narrated by Dion Graham (audiobook)
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
• Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware
• A Match Made for Murder by Iona Whishaw
• Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang
• Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
• Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots, narrated by Alex McKenna (audiobook)

More book-related articles, resources, recommendations and more were offered by our members and/or came up during this meeting’s discussions and chat, including:

• Several of this silent book club’s members read with awe and enthusiasm Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. His newest book is Empire of Pain traces three generations of the Sackler family, who pursued the American dream fueled by philanthropy and funded by the development of the painkillers that are now at the core of today’s opioid crisis. Keefe joins Toronto Star journalist Katie Daubs to discuss his book on Monday, May 31st in an online event presented by the Toronto Public Library.
• A recommended companion to The Overstory by Richard Powers is the documentary My Passion for Trees with actor Dame Judi Dench.
• The compelling adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad is now streaming on Amazon Prime – highly recommended.
• The TV series based on Us by David Nicholls is now streaming on CBC Gem – also highly recommended.
• Silent book club member Todd, who wrote this report’s introduction, also recommends the poetry of Rudy Francisco: “This poem by Rudy Francisco is excellent and got me started reading him.”

We invite our fellow readers to boost their reading with fodder from our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists – find them all here.

You can also check out links to articles, 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.

Stay safe, stay well, keep your spirits up … and, of course, do your best to keep reading!