A couple of years ago, many of us probably thought online meetings and gatherings were a temporary measure. We were willing for a time to put up with technical challenges and zoom fatigue to conduct business, to keep in touch with family and friends, to be entertained, to maintain all types of connections and so on. But eventually we would go back to in person activities, back to, er, normal – right?

Even as our silent book club group contemplates and actually makes good on live gatherings – and enjoys them immensely – we know that the online component, which often continues to be a genuine lifeline, is not going away. Because our virtual meetings have allowed us to include participants from elsewhere in the world, expanding our horizons and enriching our bookish camaraderie, we can’t and won’t close that door now that we can potentially head back to coffee shops and local parks. We still haven’t mapped out how a hybrid meeting would or could work, but as pictures from this month’s online and park gatherings attest, we’ll be doing both henceforth – and we’re all better readers and friends for it.

Our latest combined book list gathers the recent reading of many of our members, whether they are in attendance or not. This list is distinctly (blooming!) plentiful, as it gathers books mentioned in both May meetings, our mid-month “pop-up” and our regular end-of-month Saturday meeting. 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).

• Amongst Our Weapons (Rivers of London series) by Ben Aaronovitch
• What’s in a Name by Ana Luísa Amaral, translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa
• The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker, narrated by Kristin Atherton and Michael Fox (audiobook)
• The Women of Troy by Pat Barker, narrated by Kristin Atherton (audiobook)
• The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel
• The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
• Wise as Fu*k: Simple Truths to Guide You Through the Sh*tstorms of Life by Gary John Bishop
• Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks
• A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe
• The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier
• The Braid by Laetitia Colombani
• Our Spoons Came From Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
• Precious Cargo by Craig Davidson, narrated by John Cleland (audiobook)
• Sink Into Sleep: a step-by-step workbook for reversing insomnia by Judith R. Davidson
• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, narrated by Carol Bilger (audiobook)
• Where I Was From by Joan Didion
• Dying on the Vine by Aaron Elkins
• A Long Time Coming by Aaron Elkins
• Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann, narrated by Stephanie Ellyne (audiobook)
• Things Are Against Us by Lucy Ellmann (audiobook)
• A Practical Guide to Evil – Do Wrong Right by Erratic Errata
• Wished by Lissa Evans (audiobook)
• Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
• Eminent Hipsters by Donald Fagen
• Out There by Kate Folk
• Friendly Fire by Patrick Gale
• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
• Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
• Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
• Chhotu by Varud Gupta and Ayushi Rastogi
• My Broken Language by Quiara Alegría Hudes (audiobook) + additional link
• Leaving Earth by Helen Humphreys
• The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys
• Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
• A Little Hope by Ethan Joella
• The Journey Prize Anthology
• Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky
• The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance—What Women Should Know by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Say This by Elise Levine
• Breaking the Age Code: How Your Age Beliefs Determine How Long and Well You Live by Becca Levy
• The Slow Road to Tehran by Rebecca Lowe
• Room to Dream by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna
• Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod
• Animal Person by Alexander MacLeod
• My Conversations with Canadians by Lee Maracle
• Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
• Shaheen Bagh by Ita Mehrotra
• The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, narrated by Bessie Carter (audiobook)
• Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford (audiobook)
• Don’t Tell Alfred by Nancy Mitford (audiobook)
• So Many Beginnings: a Little Women Remix by Bethany C. Morrow, narrated by Adenrele Ojo (audiobook)
• Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through and Dough Don’t Rhyme – And Other Oddities of the English Language by Arika Okrent
• The No-Show by Beth O’Leary
• Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
• Mediocre – The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo
• The Library Book by Susan Orlean (audiobook)
• Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
• These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
• The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
• Ruth & Pen by Emilie Pine
• The Carbon Cycle: Crossing the Great Divide by Kate Rawles
• Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (audiobook)
• Laundry Love: Finding Joy in a Common Chore by Patric Richardson and Karin B. Miller
• High Conflict by Amanda Ripley
• Swimming Back to Trout River by Linda Rui Feng
• All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan
• Suit by Samarth
• Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr.
• Martha in Paris by Margery Sharp
• Next Time There’s a Pandemic by Vivek Shraya
• Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
• Almost Visible by Michelle Sinclair
• Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
• The Art of Focused Conversation by Brian Stanfield
• One Day I Will Astonish the World by Nina Stibbe, narrated by Joanna Scanlan (audiobook)
• The Fabulous Zed Watson! by Basil Sylvester and Kevin Sylvester
• Sailor Moon Eternal Edition Vol 1-2 by Naoko Takeuchi
• Cluster by Souvankham Thammavongsa
• All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
• The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
• Kyrie by Ellen Bryant Voigt
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, narrated by Phyllida Law (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. Here are the latest:

• Can you tell from our pictures that many of our silent book club members are also dog lovers? Our four-legged friends are often our fondest reading companions … which is why Off Leash, the new podcast from dog cognition expert and author Alexandra Horowitz, is darned near perfect for us. Maybe for you, too …
• Back in April (aka National Poetry Month), NPR (National Public Radio) featured TikTok poet Donovan Beck.
• The New York Public Library strongly recommends – and helps make easy – fighting book banning by reading banned books.

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.