While pondering and prepping for our latest upcoming silent book club zoom meeting (a mid-week, evening “pop-up”), I came across the following most wonderful quotation, tweeted by Jen Benka (@jenbenka), President and Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets:

“‘Distanced intimacy’ strikes me as a really good phrase for what reading always offers, that books are also technologies for being together alone or alone together … Unknown sources of distanced intimacy — they are out there, just beyond the frame.”

— Ben Lerner

Oh, didn’t that quotation find me at just the perfect moment? I responded on Twitter that the “distanced intimacy” of reading takes many forms. We can feel connection with a book reviewer’s thoughts, or those of avid readers here (meaning Twitter, but on social media and online in general) sharing their enthusiasm for a particular book … or just that feeling of reading and knowing others are experiencing the same words.

In particular, the concept works brilliantly for silent book club groups. There was a form of distanced intimacy even when we met in person, once upon a time. That fellowship of readers and its potent online distanced intimacy have been particularly vital forms of solace and connection throughout the pandemic, and will remain so in future, I absolutely know.

And so it was once again, when we gathered zoomily (but not gloomily) for another exchange of great book recommendations, discussion and comisseration.

Our latest combined reading list is not only a rich autumn cornupcopia, but also a treasure trove of ideas to store away for the winter. 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).

• Home Ice: Reflections of a Reluctant Hockey Mom by Angie Abdou
• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
• Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
• The Women of Troy by Pat Barker, narrated by Kristin Atherton (audiobook)
• Sally on the Rocks by Winifred Boggs
• The Tradition by Jericho Brown
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia E Butler
• How to Be Happy Though Human by Kate Camp
• Collected Stories by Roald Dahl
• Magpie by Elizabeth Day
• On the Proper Use of Stars by Dominique Fortier, translated by Sheila Fischman
• Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
• Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
• The Infinite Blacktop by Sara Gran (audiobook)
• Think Again by Adam Grant
• The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
• Living Nations, Living Words poetry anthology, edited by Joy Harjo
• Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez
• 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph
• Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
• The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King
• Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
• No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
• In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (audiobook)
• The Second Woman by Louise Mey, translated from the French by Louise Rogers Lalaurie
• Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
• The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed
• Black Drop by Leonora Nattrass
• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
• Masses on Radar by David O’Meara
• There There by Tommy Orange, narrated by Darrell Dennis, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Alma Cuervo and Kyla Garcia (audiobook)
• The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick, narrated by James Langton (audiobook)
• The Madness of Crowds: A Novel by Louise Penny
• State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton
• A Double Life by Charlotte Philby
• The Dig by John Preston
• The Only Child by Andrew Pyper
• The Gown by Jennifer Robson, narrated by Marisa Calin (audiobook)
• Normal People by Sally Rooney
• Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
• Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (audiobook)
• Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin
• My Mother, My Translator by Jaspreet Singh
• Wayward by Dana Spiotta
• Fight Night by Miriam Toews
• The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
• The Strangers by Katherena Vermette (audiobook)
• Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese
• Unreconciled by Jesse Wente
• Disorientation by Ian Williams
• Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
• The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
• Pride by Ibi Zoboi, narrated by Elizabeth Acevedo (audiobook)

More book-related articles, resources, news, recommendations and more are often inspired or offered by our members and/or come up during our discussions and chat, including:

• On the Proper Use of Stars by Dominique Fortier, translated by Sheila Fischman is one of many historical and imagined retellings of the Franklin Expedition. Our discussion about this book led us to Margaret Atwood’s series of lectures in the mid-1990s on the influence of the mysteries of the Canadian North in many works: Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature.
• Some of our members have been fascinated by A Ghost in the Throat, an intriguing melding of poetry, translation, memoir, history and more by the Irish poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa. The Poetry Extension recently interviewed her.

Boost your reading with much bookish manna from heaven, courtesy of our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists – find them all here. We just know you’ll find something new or unusual, or maybe something old and familiar, that will keep your reading mojo working.

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 hiatus, 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 and stay well, in this world and the worlds that books open to us.