Our latest silent book club meeting report is introduced by longtime member Rick Plume.

Rick Plume is a retired photo editor who worked with The Canadian Press for almost 44 years. He’s now a wanna-be reader who loves spending time with his wife doing the things they love and laments there’s just not enough time in a day to fit everything in.

Books. Books for entertainment. Books for learning. Books for a different opinion.

I’ve had a life-long love affair with books. They’ve been my constant companions and friends through life’s adventures. Always there. Always offering up something new.

And then came Covid and my wife’s “Retirement.”

To say my reading has undergone a change is an understatement. Prior to these life-changing events, my wife worked, and I, being already retired, could read whenever I wanted. Long, glorious hours curled by with a good book, a cup of coffee and a couple of cats. Life was good.

That changed when my wife was forced to work from home. At first she worked away in the library or, when the weather was nice, in the garden. Life was still good. While she worked I could read.

And then she noticed. She noticed that retirement looked good – she might even be able to have some free time to read books.

And then things changed. She retired. And she had time. Lots of time. But, and here’s the big “But.” We didn’t sit down and read our books, as reading is a solitary pleasure. We started to do things together. We have a lifetime of “things” we wanted to do built up and we’re doing them. Life is still good, but in a different way.

Reading is taking a bit of a hit these days. I still get in an hour or two some days, but it’s usually in the overnight hours, when my wife and the cats are asleep. I miss the in-person meetings of the Silent Book Club. When they resume, I think I’ll invite someone new …

Our latest combined reading list is a veritable Jólabókaflóðið (’tis the season!) of bookish delights. 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 of the Floating Lily by Silmy Abdullah
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, narrated by Stephen Fry (audiobook)
• Even Greater Mistakes: Stories by Charlie Jane Anders
• Eating India: An Odyssey into the Food and Culture of the Land of Spices by Chitrita Banerji
• Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney
• Jayber Crow: The Life Story of Jayber Crow, Barber, of the Port William Membership, as Written by Himself by Wendell Berry
• Triple Cross by Tom Bradby
• Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture by Gabe Brown
• Magnetic North by Jenna Butler, narrated by Marysia Bucholc (audiobook)
• Open House: A Life in Thirty-Two Moves by Jane Christmas, narrated by Dawn Harvey (audiobook)
• The Grandmother Plot by Caroline Cooney
• Try Walking Your Niagara by S. Cooper, J. Howard and T. Sewell
• Second Place by Rachel Cusk, narrated by Kate Fleetwood (audiobook)
• Murder Between the Worlds by Morgan Daimler
• The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
• Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee
• Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
• Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden
• Revelator by Daryl Gregory, narrated by Reagan Boggs (audiobook)
• White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad
• The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
• The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth
• The Sweetest Remedy by Jane Igharo
• Sail Away by Celia Imrie
• The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
• The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell
• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
• The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes, narrated by Aoife McMahon (audiobook)
• Palaces for the People – How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• A People’s Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers by Victor Lavalle
• The Fox by D.H. Lawrence
• Bad Advice: The Most Unreliable Counsel Available on Grammar, Usage, and Writing by John McIntyre
• Denial by Beverley McLachlin
• Rizzio by Denise Mina
• Books of Liane Moriarty
• Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh
• A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa
• To Star the Dark by Doireann Ni Ghriofa
• How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
• These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
• The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
• Duck Feet by Ely Percy
• 149 Paintings You Really Need to See in North America by Julian Porter and Stephen Grant
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym, narrated by Mary Sarah (audiobook)
• Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• Normal People by Sally Rooney
• In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
• A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve
• Rescue by Anita Shreve
• The Unwrapping of Theodora Quirke by Caroline Smailes
• A Beginner’s Guide to Murder by Rosaline Stopps
• Books of Elizabeth Strout
• Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor
• Best Canadian Poetry 2021, edited by Souvankham Thammavongsa
• Fight Night by Miriam Toews
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, narrated by Beata Pozniak (audiobook)
• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, Marin Ireland, Dion Graham
• Lily by Rose Tremain
• Quiet Girl in a Noisy World: An Introvert’s Story by Debbie Tung
• The Strangers by Katherena Vermette
• City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and ’50s by William Weintraub
• The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, narrated by Pippa Bennett-Warner (audiobook)
• Indian in the Cabinet – Speaking Truth to Power by Jody Wilson-Raybould
• The Newcomer by Laura Elizabeth Woollett
• Sorry, Please, Thank You by Charles Yu
• Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
• Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria

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:

• Iceland started marking “the Christmas book flood” in 1944, when it gained its independence from Denmark. The Jólabókaflóðið tradition culminates each year in an evening of reading and celebrating book gifts on December 24th.
• If you don’t have a real one, a virtual fireplace will help you to create a cozy reading atmosphere wherever you are.
• The New York Public Library (NYPL) online shop offers the perfect mug for the beverage you’ll be enjoying with your flood of books next to your real or virtual fireplace.
• And continuing with the fireplace theme … Poetry of Resilience recently presented Hearth & Fire with Danusha Laméris and James Crews, along with guest poets Jane Hirshfield, Michael Kleber-Diggs and Kim Rosen. Enjoy a replay of this moving poetry event here.

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are always available right here for your enjoyment and edification, not to mention gift-giving ideas – even gifts for yourself, of course! New discoveries, old favourites and more – we guarantee there’s something in our generous reading lists that will keep your bookish appetite fueled.

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, and some are re-emerging carefully with in-person gatherings. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

Stay safe, stay well … and immerse yourself in a flood of books this holiday season!