That effing brilliant book club from TV

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A neighbour walks into a favourite local coffee shop (East Toronto Coffee Co!), spots our group ensconced in a cozy corner, silently reading and enjoying our beverages, pastries and the company of fellow readers, and addresses us:

“Hey, are you the book club from TV?”

and we reply, “Why yes, we are!”

and he declares, smiling:

“You’re famous!”

Why yes, I guess we are!

… and not only are we famous, but we’re effing brilliant!

… and not only are we all that, but our group’s continuous celebration takes many forms, including sharing moving passages from our reading:

“The desk is empty except for a pewter mug – a polo trophy won by her grandfather – holding pens, and a small Persian box with a design in dull blue and gold. It had been her mother’s, and had held paper clips. The box gives Sarah a sweet tiny rush of feeling. It still holds her mother’s paper clips, she has never emptied it. She feels a near magical connection to the box, and to the paper clips inside, which her mother had touched. She can’t explain why – her mother had touched many things in the house – but the little box is charged. It was part of her mother’s daily life, and is still here, whole. She knows this feeling is only hers. Her children may know that the box was her mother’s, that the paper clips were hers, but it can’t matter to them as it does to Sarah. She never uses the paper clips. She wants to keep the link intact, as though the presence of the paper clips themselves, light and silvery and insubstantial, means that her mother might use them still.”

excerpt from Leaving by Roxana Robinson

Our discussion meeting this month took a different tack. Rather than a topic related to reading and readers, group members Tom and Lisa led a discussion on a specific book: Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. As they described it, “SBC is founded on the subtle quality of silence. Addressing Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, [we] will be hosting a chat about silence as a powerful trope, and the importance and implications of confronting difficult issues out loud.” So yes, we were kind of gathering like a more traditional book club. It was an interesting change of pace, beautifully facilitated and instructive even if you had not yet finished the book or, in some cases, had blurred recollection of it because, say, one had read it during the early days of the pandemic.

The hands of a reader, holding a book, next to a table laden with more piles of books. The table, at East Toronto Coffee Co, has a

Silent book club member Vicki (that's me, with my signature messy hair and glasses), on screen getting ready for our zoom meeting, with books stacked next to my computer, including a stack of poetry collections I read during the Sealey Challenge, plus the novel Look After Her by Hannah Brown.

Standing outside the East Toronto Coffee Co coffee shop, holding two books: Look After Her by Hannah Brown and Disorder by Concetta Principe.

Silent book club meeting at the East Toronto Coffee Co, with the group's book selections spread out on the table along with beverages and pastries. The books include works by Concetta Principe, Hannah Brown, Karen Stiller, Andrea Abreu, Howard Jacobson, Benjamin Stevenson and John Ralston Saul.

Silent book club readers with their books open at the table at East Toronto Coffee Co

Oh my heavens, what another dizzyingly gorgeous and varied reading list we have to share again this month! Every title on our group’s lists means that at least one (but usually more) readers have given that title thoughtful consideration. That doesn’t mean that every work on our lists is expressly recommended – but that’s more than OK, we think. Inclusion on this list always means that our readers have devoted time and attention to a title – and that, dear readers, means a lot.


Wait, there’s more! How about some extra book-related articles, resources, news and recommendations? These items and tidbits are often companions to books on the list, or are inspired or offered by our members and/or come up during our discussions and chat.

Immerse yourself in our group’s previous reports and book lists 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 the worldwide phenomenon of silent book clubs via Guinevere and Laura’s Silent Book Club web site. In fall 2023, they welcomed their 500th chapter … and with continuing and astonishing momentum, they are now boasting over 1,000 chapters!!! (There were around 60 chapters when we joined as the first Toronto chapter in 2017.) 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.

And yes, if you see us silently reading “in the wild” … we are the book club from TV! 🙂

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