Our silent book club group welcomes every reader and everything every reader reads and shares with the group. I’ve said this outright and heaven knows it is a strong current running through all our discussions, meetings and reports.
That is not to say that our conversations are blandly diplomatic and devoid of critical perspective. On the contrary, over the almost four years our group has been in existent, our members have become very comfortable not just with sharing wonderful reading experiences, but with being very candid about less-than-satisfactory experiences with particular works.
While the first rule of Silent Book Club is definitely *not* that we do not speak of Silent Book Club … what happens in our conversations seems to largely stay in silent book club, which is decidedly special. Even when the conversation gets lively, shall we say, there is always an abiding respect for other readers and their preferences, for authors, for publishers, for performers (such as those who narrate audiobooks, for example) and more.
What then is the meaning of the book lists we present with our meeting reports?
Empirically, they list alphabetically by author surname all of the recent reading of many of our members, whether they are in attendance or not. (Many members kindly provide their monthly reading lists, whether they are able to attend a meeting 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).
Qualitatively, the lists do not indicate what each reader had to say about a given title. But during our meetings, our readers might praise and recommend a work, might recommend it with caveats or reservations, or might firmly reject a work – but only for them, not necessarily for others. So, nothing is condemned outright (although some reviews can be pretty, ahem, vehement), but might be presented with, well, cautions attached.
Minus our group’s cumulative, ongoing commentary and the special alchemy of our interactions and earned trust of each other’s opinions, adding words of criticism or praise here have no fair context. Does that make sense? And doesn’t that confirm that the secret sauce here is the book lists and information coupled with the chemistry of our fellow readers?
Objectively, any title on any of our group’s lists means that at least one (often more) readers have given that title some consideration – and that is enough, to my mind, to say that another reader reading our reports and lists might consider it, too.
Here’s the latest!
- Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud
- Home of the Floating Lily by Silmy Abdullah
- Meredith, alone by Claire Alexander
- The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic by Dan Ariely, narrated by Simon Jones (audiobook)
- Poems by Ian David Arlett
- Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
- My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Fredrik Backman, translated from Swedish by Henning Koch
- The Man in the Red Coat by Julian Barnes
- Glorious by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven
- The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
- Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy
- The Conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar
- The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri, narrated by Grover Gardner (audiobook)
- Three Things about Elsie by Joanna Cannon
- The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie
- The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller, narrated by Nan McNamara (audiobook)
- Close-up on War – The Story of Pioneering Photojournalist Catherine Leroy in Vietnam by Mary Cronk Farrell
- A Little London Scandal by Miranda Emmerson
- Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan
- Go Tell the Bees I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon
- Something to Hide by Elizabeth George
- Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, narrated by various BBC actors (audiobook)
- The Radio Industry and Business Opportunity by James E. Hahn (1931)
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
- Book Lovers by Emily Henry, narrated by Julia Whelan (audiobook)
- Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
- Rabbit Foot Bill by Helen Humphreys
- And a Dog Called Fig: Solitude, Connection, the Writing Life by Helen Humphreys
- Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, narrated by Sura Siu (audiobook)
- The New Ontario Naturalized Garden by Lorraine Johnson
- The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, narrated by Jim Broadbent (audiobook)
- Blue Portugal and Other Essays by Theresa Kishkan/li>
- Palaces for the People – How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg
- London’s Number One Dog Walking Agency: A Memoir by Kate MacDougall
- Poguemahone by Patrick McCabe
- The Joy & Light Bus Company by Alexander McCall Smith, narrated by Bianca Amato (audiobook)
- Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
- Talking to Canadians by Rick Mercer (audiobook)
- The Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes, narrated by Julia Whelan (audiobook)
- A Carnivore’s Inquiry by Sabina Murray
- Cold Case North – The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett by Michael Nest, Deanna Reder and Eric Bell
- Every Leaf a Hallelujah by Ben Okri, illustrated by Diana Ejaita
- When We Lost Our Heads by Heather O’Neill, narrated by Jeanna Phillips (audiobook)
- Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives by Mary Laura Philpott
- Notes to Self: Essays by Emilie Pine
- Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley
- Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley (audiobook)
- The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
- Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley
- The Maid by Nita Prose
- Selected Poetry by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
- Exercises In Style by Raymond Queneau
- The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson, narrated by Katie Schorr (audiobook)
- The Book Woman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson, narrated by Katie Schorr (audiobook)
- Trickster Drift by Eden Robinson
- Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney, narrated by Aoife Mcmahon (audiobook)
- Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers
- You Look Like a Thing and I Love You – How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It’s Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane
- Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
- The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb, narrated by JD Jackson and Brendan Slocumb (audiobook)
- The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel, narrated by Morgan Hallett (audiobook)
- Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart, narrated by Chris Reilly (audiobook)
- Following Fish: Travels Around the Indian Coast by Samanth Subramanian
- The Space a Name Makes by Rosemary Sullivan
- Nine Lives by Peter Swanson, narrated by Jacques Roy and Mark Bramhall (audiobook)
- The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey
- The Times Cookery Book (1960)
- The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
- Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
- Book Love by Debbie Tung
- Embers by Richard Wagamese
- Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead, narrated by Mirron Willis (audiobook)
- The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams
- Still Life by Sarah Winman (audiobook)
- Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
- Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear
- Know Your Chances: Understanding Health Statistics by Steven Woloshin, Lisa M. Schwartz, H. Gilbert Welch
- City of Incident by Annie Zaidi
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.
Wishing everyone happy reading … and the chance to discuss that reading – happy or not – with other readers.
