Toronto silent book club member Catherine Xu introduces our latest silent book club meeting report with singular style and perspectives. She joined our group during the pandemic and has become a steadfast presence in the year (happy anniversary!) she’s been with us. As we’ve observed in the last couple of years, meeting virtually means that we’ve been able to fling our doors open wider and extend the boundaries of what constitutes east end Toronto, which includes both Pontypridd in Wales and Catherine’s home, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA.

Greetings from Catherine in New Jersey, USA. Reflecting on my past year attending regular Toronto silent book club meetings, I found myself much more immersed in the world of books, audiobooks, poetry, and more. I am truly thankful to Vicki and Jo for welcoming me into this circle and everyone’s recommendations. Below are just a few new activities I have enjoyed.

• Listen to more audiobooks and seek out favorite narrators.
• Bring reading outdoors. Nature offers the best reading soundtrack.
• Attend poetry events, including Bryant Park poetry readings and Governors Island Poetry Festival.
• Try more non-fiction, especially related to natural sciences.
• Learn to talk about a book and formulate my thoughts around it, beyond just “I liked/hated it”.
• Research and select book reviews, author interviews, and book club discussion guides.
• Enjoy poetry read out loud (in forms of podcasts and audiobooks). And then read it on my own and share it with a group.
• Discover and share New York Public Library events, resources, and exhibitions.
• Join more book clubs! While we don’t have assigned reading in Silent Book Club, I do enjoy expanding genre/medium with various book clubs that offer assigned reading. I have joined a few different ones through work, hobby groups, the library, and the local bookstore.

As the world opens up, I would love to welcome silent book club visitors who find themselves heading to New York City. Jersey City is just across the Hudson River. Check out:

• Jersey City Waterfront: Walk along the waterfront to take in the Manhattan skyline
• Van Vorst Park – beautiful park and garden situated across the street from one of the Jersey City libraries. Wonderful flowers all year around and a weekly Farmers Market
• Word bookstore – My very first book club experience (in-person) was hosted by this bookstore. They have since moved to online book club meetings so anyone can join the book club discussions.

Reader Profile / Ice breakers

Reader Name: Catherine

Professional field: Financial Services

Location: New Jersey, USA

Reading Format: Digital ebooks and audiobooks on Libby library app (New York Public Library)

Favorite Reading Nook: any outdoor park (non-winter). Couch with virtual fireplace (winter)

Most memorable book from the past year: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. I appreciated the quiet and introspective part of this book, while the world was slowly opening up. The narrator offers a good balance of snail facts with her own personal interactions with her pet snail.

Best bookstore for visitors: Toss up between the NY Library shop and the Strand.

Recent booklish accessory: bookshelf themed iphone case

A bookstore discovery from your travels: Powell’s bookstore in Portland, Oregon. I spent quite a few hours here!

Non-reading related hobby: dance

Non-traditional reading?

• Podcast interview transcripts/show notes: See Tim Ferris show or How to Save a Planet call to action
• Department of Salad newsletter
• Hand-written notes in public places. Examples include Letters to Trees at Madison Square Park and Questionnaires at the Rubin Museum “How do you start healing?”. I enjoy reading handwriting and also ruminating on the Q’s and responses that people provide. A cafe I visited in Seattle a few years ago also had large guest books where people wrote love notes, doodled, and their reviews of the cafe/surrounding area. It was really great reading through it and adding my own words to the collection.

Our combined reading list gathers the recent reading of many of our members, whether they are in attendance or not. 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 Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus
• Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum
• Tell Me the Truth About Love by W.H. Auden
• Mad Shadows by Marie-Claire Blais, translated by Merloyd Lawrence
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
• Fraud by Anita Brookner
• A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe
• At Home by Bill Bryson
• Season of Fury and Wonder by Sharon Butala
• Fashion Climbing by Bill Cunningham
• La Définition du Bonheur by Catherine Cusset
• Self Comes to Mind – Constructing the Conscious Brain by Antonio Damasio
• Decartes’ Error by Antonio Damásio
• The Grove of the Caesars by Lindsey Davis
• Girl in Ice by Erica Ferencik
• The Wars by Timothy Findley
• Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley
• This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel, narrated by Gabra Zackman (audiobook)
• Born in Blackness – Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War by Howard W. French
• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
• The Killings at Badger’s Drift by Caroline Graham
• Death of a Hollow Man by Caroline Graham
• Married Life by Tessa Hadley
• The London Train by Tessa Hadley
• Accidents in the Home by Tessa Hadley
• All the Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac
• Again Rachel by Marian Keyes
• Woman Eating by Claire Kohda
• Road Ends by Mary Lawson, narrated by Ishan Davé, Jess Salgueiro, John Fleming (audiobook)
• A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
• The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Girls by Mary S. Lovell
• The Slow Road to Tehran by Rebecca Lowe
• Room to Dream by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna
• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy
• Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, narrated by John Lee (audiobook)
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
• O Cidadan by Erin Moure
• Breath by James Nestor (audiobook)
• A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa, narrated by Siobhán McSweeney (audiobook)
• Holding by Graham Norton
• Run, Rose, Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson
• The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw, narrated by Janina Edwards (audiobook)
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• The Suspect by Michael Robotham, narrated by Robert Glenister (audiobook)
• Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
• Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera, narrated by Almarie Guerra, Samuel Maria Gomez (audiobook)
• Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney, narrated by Aoife Mcmahon (audiobook)
• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (audiobook)
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
• The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson
• The Heroine with 1001 Faces by Maria Tatar
• The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
• The Last Beekeeper by Siya Turabi
• Begars Abbey by V.L. Valentine
• The Break by Katherena Vermette
• Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
• Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead, narrated by Dion Graham (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:

• The Toronto International Festival of Authors presents the Motive Crime & Mystery Festival from June 3-5, 2022.
• Today’s silent book club meeting fell on Canadian Independent Bookstore Day. Today’s combined book list would make a good shopping list with which to support our independent bookstores any day of the year!
• Today’s silent book club meeting also feel on the last day of National Poetry Month. All are encouraged to continued to read poetry every month, of course.
• You can find selected One Book One Philadelphia books and programs online.
• Poetry in Motion is a series of poems displayed in public transit in cities such as New York or San Francisco.
• Dewey’s Read-a-thon, carried on in tribute to a beloved reader, happens every April and October. Learn more about it here.
• An excellent complement to Fashion Climbing by Bill Cunningham is the documentary Bill Cunningham: New York.
• Toronto Public Library’s Adult Literacy Services matches learners with volunteers who tutor them in basic reading, writing and math. The program is for English-speaking adults 16 years or older. One of our silent book club members has signed up to volunteer with the program and suggested others check it out.

Poet Raymond Antrobus reads the poem “Dear Hearing World” from his poetry collection The Perseverance (on this month’s reading list)

Our previous silent book club reports (for online and in-person meetings) and book lists are always available for you to enjoy and get some reading inspiration right 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 hiatus or modified schedules, 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.