We’re very pleased to have Toronto silent book club member Tom Kennedy take over the “introduction to our latest meeting blog post” reins this month. Tom is Edmonton-born and raised in Toronto. He is a consultant. Tom loves sailing and squash and pretending to be a Michelin chef. Tom’s companion is a husky-mix named Aspen who takes him for unending walks around the countryside. With reading, Tom doesn’t have a favourite genre, but is constantly looking to inhabit meaningful, well-crafted storylines or experience emotionally complex events.

I propose we reclassify this humble book club into Non-Thesis MFA (Creative Writing) status. We exceed the criteria of several reputable entities, and I think are on our way to graduation.

We have accomplished educators from around the world, who come prepared to deliver important lessons. Professorial as they are chic, they are equipped with dramatic delivery and lessons in humility.

We study a range of periods, from prehistoric to Ancient Greece and Rome to 2050 Toronto. We exhaustively receive lectures on subjects from infants and children with their simple complexities and adult egos, from tribal leaders and heroes, to expansive adventurers. We have pondered the undead and have wondered at the dead’s current presence. The cultural diversity abounds, covered by our unwritten code of respect, with every race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and spirituality carefully considered. There are moments too where we appear to discuss beautiful nothings, posing as a verdant, peaceful vista in the countryside or solemn consideration of blurbs.

With our bi-monthly supplemental study groups we meet the 20-period 600-level credit requirement for training in research methodologies and scholarship assessment. I find the coursework challenging and rewarding, thanks to preparation.

Our monthly lessons consist of crisp thoughtful journeys through dozens of “new” books, which become recommendations and harsh critique too. Sometimes it is as valuable to eviscerate the fish as it is to enjoy the canape.

As a Degree Program I will not speak of the cumbersome student debt necessary to keep up with the program, except to say regardless of recent interest rate activity, the education has been immensely worth it. Let’s call it priceless.

The point I’m making is that I know I’m learning when I absorb our sessions. This sensation keeps beating quite a while after meetings end. I look at text, whether newspaper, a blog, a cookbook, or a new read I’m diving headfirst into – and I have this energy. Every couple of weeks, it’s wonderful to see the emotions and familiarity of our teachers … er, clubmates!

Here is our group’s latest combined book list, gathering up books mentioned and discussed by the end of our October 2023 meeting. Each list reflects the reading of many of our members, so dedicated to the group that they regularly provide their reading lists even when they can’t attend a meeting. The titles featured in each of our reports encompass print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks.

Any title on any of our group’s lists means that at least one (but usually more) readers have given that title some consideration. That’s encouragement for you and other readers checking out our reports and lists to consider it, too. Is that a recommendation? It might be, but not exactly or necessarily. Inclusion on this list always means that a title has been given thoughtful consideration and attention by our readers, which you can be assured counts for a lot.

• Castaways in Time by Robert Adams
• Normal Rules Don’t Apply by Kate Atkinson
• The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley, narrated by Jayne Entwistle (audiobook)
• Devolution by Max Brooks
• When Ghosts Come Home by Wiley Cash
• Where There’s a Will: Hope, Grief and Endurance in a Cycle Race Across a Continent by Emily Chappell
• Pet by Catherine Chidgey
• Grace by Grace Coddington
• Murder Before Evensong by the Reverend Richard Coles
• Bluff Your Way in Photography by John Courtis
• Swan Song by Edmund Crispin
• Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth, narrated by Xe Sands (audiobook)
• Trust by Hernan Diaz
• Disoriental by Négar Djavadi, narrated by Siiri Scott (audiobook)
• Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue
• Such Kindness by Andres Dubus III
• Street Photography Workshop by Brian Lloyd Duckett
• The Clarion by Nina Dunic
• Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
• A People’s History of Catalonia by Michael Eaude
• The Parade by Dave Eggers, narrated by Dion Graham (audiobook)
• What is the What: the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: a novel by Dave Eggers, narrated by Dion Graham (audiobook)
• Miriam Hopkins – Life and Films of a Hollywood Rebel by Allan R. Ellenberger
• Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery
• Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons by Charlotte Gray
• Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari
• Benediction by Kent Haruf, narrated by Mark Bramhall (audiobook)
• The Pump by Sydney Hegele
• Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey
• Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy by Faith Erin Hicks
• God’s Secret Agents: Queen Elizabeth’s Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot by Alice Hogge
• The Islands by Dionne Irving, narrated by Chante McCormick (audiobook)
• Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, narrated by Bernadette Dunne (audiobook)
• Mindful of Murder by Susan Juby
• The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
• This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger, narrated by Scott Brick (audiobook)
• Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger, narrated by Rich Orlow (audiobook)
• Yellowface by RF Kuang, narrated by Helen Laser (audiobook)
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, narrated by Hope Davis (audiobook)
• God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis
• Overland by Ewen Levick
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas
• Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh, narrated by Genevieve Gaunt (audiobook)
• The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, narrated by Dylan Moore (audiobook & print)
• Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, narrated by John Lee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Morrey, Kirsten Potter (audiobook & print)
• The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
• Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
• Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed
• Elmet by Fiona Mozley
• The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man by Paul Newman, narrated by Paul Newman (previously taped) and 7 others (audiobook)
• Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
• The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker, narrated by Bernadette Dunne (audiobook)
• Neglected No More by Andre Picard
• Over Easy by Mimi Pond
• Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid, narrated by Stacy Gonzalez, among others (audiobook)
• The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Sarah Booker
• Downfall by Robert Rotenberg
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
• The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
• The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff, narrated by Soneela Nankani (audiobook)
• The Fraud by Zadie Smith
• The Electric Church by Jeff Somers
• The Eternal Prison by Jeff Somers
• The Road Home by Rose Tremain
• Ultra Running Magazine (October/November 2023)
• The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (audiobook)
• The Castle of Otranto; a Gothic story by Horace Walpole, narrated by Thomas Copeland (audiobook)
• The Witches are Coming by Lindy West
• Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead, narrated by Dion Graham (audiobook)
• Shape of a Boy by Kate Wickers
• Blood on Satan’s Claw: Or, The Devil’s Skin by Robert Wynne-Simmons

Did we mention that the worldwide Silent Book Club network recently welcomed its 500th chapter?!? It had around 60 chapters when we joined as the first Toronto chapter in 2017.

You can always find our previous reports and book lists right here, growing every month.

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. Every club is a different size, format (in-person, virtual or combinations) and vibe, so contact a club’s organizers beforehand if you have any questions or preferences. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

If you’re in our silent book club group, if you’re in a silent book club group elsewhere in the world, if you’re in any kind of a book club, if you’re a book club unto yourself … or hey, if you’re thinking about starting a book club to welcome more readers into your reading life … however you celebrate books and reading … Happy reading!!!