I regularly come away from our silent (and often not-so-silent!) book club feeling ready to burst: with book recommendations, with revitalized enthusiasm for my reading (when it has flagged or been kind of muddled in recent months), with sheer joy at connecting and sharing with such an amazing, generous and eclectically inclined group of booklovers.

I’m bursting again as I assemble this report. Just scroll down and you’ll see the brimming reading list resulting from our latest gathering, which was another two-parter: a well-attended and lively zoom meeting with new and longtime group members, followed a short while later by a small, brief but so vital meeting in the early winter sunshine at the nearby park where we’ve met in the past to read silently together under the trees. Utterly rejuvenating, on so many levels …!

Here’s that gorgeous reading list … and when you’ve spent some engrossing time in these digital stacks, keep going. There are more bookish delights overflowing from today’s gathering.

• Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Audlib Project, Giller Prize finalists (audiobook)
• Maggie and Me by Damian Barr
• You Will be Safe Here by Damian Barr
• Damian Barr on Instagram
• Lost Family – A Memoir by John Barton
• Trio by William Boyd
• Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown
• An Enduring Wilderness: Toronto’s Natural Parklands by Robert Burley
• Brain on Fire – My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
• Cape Breton’s Magazine (issues 43, 47, 48, 58, 59, 66, 67 and 71)
• Down North: The Book of Cape Breton’s Magazine, edited by Ronald Caplan
• The Sentinel by Lee Child and Andrew Child
• Waiting for a Star to Fall by Kerry Clare
• The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke
• The Longest Evening by Ann Cleeves
• Letters from An American by Heather Cox Richardson
• The History of Great Things by Elizabeth Crane
• Love by Roddy Doyle
• Odd One Out by Lissa Evans
• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
• War on Peace by Ronan Farrow
• The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde
• The Peripheral by William Gibson
• Mydas by Jon Goode
• The End of Me by John Gould
• We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib
• Beach Read by Emily Henry, narrated by Julia Whelan (audiobook)
• Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen
• Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes, read by Julia Whelan (audiobook)
• Just Like You by Nick Hornby
• The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
• The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
• Your Still Beating Heart by Tyler Keevil
• Fled by Meg Keneally
• Indians on Vacation by Thomas King
• Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson
• In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson
• The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
• The Fall of the House of Dixie by Bruce Levine
• Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
• The Malahat Review
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen
• L.E.L. The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated “Female Byron” by Lucasta Miller
• I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell
• Hamnet and Judith by Maggie O’Farrell
• Good Evening, Mrs Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
• The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick
• Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce
• The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny
• Victorian London, The Tale of a City 1840-1870 by Lisa Picard
• Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta
• The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz
• Children of God by Mary Doria Russell
• Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla Saad
• Prey series by John Sandford
• The Unwrapping of Theodora Quirke by Caroline Smailes
• Ash by Sharan Strange
• Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
• How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa
• Caligula by Aloys Winterling

In addition to that rich and intriguing selection of books, we shared some other book-related news and items of interest, including …

• Elena Ferrante names her 40 favourite books by female authors (The Guardian)
  At least one silent book club member – I’m guessing there will be more! – is looking at this list as reading inspiration heading into the winter.
• Hay Winter Weekend
  With such a wealth of online literary events these days – festivals, book launches, readings, fundraisers and more – it’s not surprising that avid readers might be double booked (ahem) at times, toggling from one event to another. One silent book club member arrived at our zoom meeting today breathless with enthusiasm about a William Boyd reading and interview, one of many fine offerings from the venerable Hay Festival.
• Nut Press, curated by book squirrels – blog by Kathryn Eastman
  Our east end Toronto silent book club was delighted to welcome reader, writer, book blogger, rugby fan (can you guess which of the pictures above came from her?) and lawyer Kathryn Eastman of South Wales, UK, to our latest zoom meeting, and we look forward to her joining us in future. Much as we miss our in-person silent book club gatherings, the move to online meetings means we’ve been able to fling the virtual doors open wider to wonderful guests further afield. Kathryn, thank you for your wonderful book recommendations – including Tyler Keevil, a Canadian author now living in Wales – and your warm presence in today’s virtual gathering.

‘Tis the season to think even more than we do the rest of the year about purchasing books, during a year when purchasing books has particular urgency. During today’s gathering, we discussed the importance of doing what we can to support independent booksellers, and we traded recommendations about businesses that offer online, curbside pickup and delivery options.

• Here is a Canada-wide map of Canadian independent booksellers that have been highly responsive to the pandemic and have been supplying books to eager readers.
• Some particular favourites local to Toronto-based booklovers are: Book City, Type Books, Queen Books and The Novel Spot Bookshop.
• Here is another resource for bookstores in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).
• In South Wales, two of Kathryn Eastman’s favourite booksellers are Griffin Books in Penarth and Book-ish in Crickhowell

Our group co-founder Jo paid lovely tribute on the occasion of our silent book group’s third anniversary.

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are here.

You can also check out links to articles, CBC Radio 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 haitus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

A silent book club meeting with friends and neighbours, held at and in support of a local business exemplifies exactly the kinds of freedoms we are foregoing now to get through these unsettled and unsettling times … and is where we’re all going to want to be when we get through this. Read well where you are now, gather in the ways that are safe and make most sense, including virtually. Be well and let books buoy your spirits, make our ever changing and challenging circumstances more tolerable, and make the time pass swiftly.

The traditional ways we celebrate are curtailed right now, suffice to say. Group co-founder Jo still strikes a very fine celebratory note as she observes that our silent book group is now 3, thank you very much! Hers is a joyful recounting of how our group came to be, how it has evolved and how it continues to flourish and sustain us. Couple that with the warmth and connection glowing from our device screens during this week’s “pop-up” (meaning somewhat spontaneously scheduled) silent book club zoom meeting and we know we’re going to make it through the swiftly descending darker days and nights.

Let this gorgeous list of our recent reading lift your hearts, too. The titles featured in each of our reports combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately).

• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (audiobook), narrated by Lisette Lecat
• Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
• Swivelmount by Ken Babstock
• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
• Blaze Island by Catherine Bush
• Virgin River by Robyn Carr (audiobook), narrated by Therese Plummers
• Uncertain Terms by Clare Chambers
• The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham (audiobook)
• White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
• Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
• Landing by Emma Donoghue
• The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
• Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
• V for Victory by Lissa Evans
• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
• The Swan Suit by Katherine Fawcett
• Celtic Tales by Kate Forrester
• Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (audiobook)
• The End of Me by John Gould
• Safe as Houses by Susan Glickman
• Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf (audiobook)
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf (audiobook), narrated by Tom Stechschulte
• Just Like You by Nick Hornby (audiobook), narrated by Ben Bailey Smith & Hattie Ladbury
• Barracoon – The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston
• The Company We Keep by Frances Itani
• The Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell
• Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles (audiobook)
• The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline
• Luster by Raven Leilani (audiobook)
• Coming Up for Air by Sarah Leipciger
• The Fall of the House of Dixie by Bruce Levine
• The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
• March Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell (graphic novel)
• Sargent’s Women – Four Lives Behind the Canvas by Donna M. Lucey
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• Dead Mom Walking by Rachel Matlow (audiobook)
• Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride (audiobook)
• The Cleverness of Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith (audiobook), narrated by Adjoa Andoh
• No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (audiobook)
• Beneath the Bleeding by Val McDermid
• Full Disclosure by Beverley McLachlin
• Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• The Lake House by Kate Morton
• The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
• Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
• L.E.L. The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated “Female Byron” by Lucasta Miller
• Good Evening, Mrs Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes
• In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park with Maryanne Vollers
• The Best of The Best of Canadian Poetry, eds. Molly Peacock and Anita Lahey
• The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
• The Hangman by Louise Penny
• Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny
• A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
• I Just Can’t Stop It: My Life in the Beat by Ranking Roger, with Daniel Rachel
• The End of Animal Farming by Jacy Reese
• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (audiobook)
• Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (audiobook)
• Jack by Marilynne Robinson
• Normal People by Sally Rooney (audiobook)
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (audiobook)
• Reasons to be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe (audiobook)
• Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe (audiobook)
• How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa
• In Search of the Wild Tofurky by Seth Tibbott
• The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin, narrated by Meryl Streep (audiobook)
• Revolution by Deb Olin Unferth
• Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward (audiobook)
• Word Problems by Ian Williams
• Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (audiobook)
• The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum by Sarah Wise
• Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson (audiobook)
• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (audiobook)

Through it all, we continue to share our group’s successes and delights with readers around the world.

Silent book clubs are showing that reading alone, together, is good for us
by Kasia Delgado, iNews UK
September 29, 2020

We’re entering month 7 of the global pandemic and reflecting on how it has changed us. #silentbookclub looks different now. In Torino and Toronto (pictured) readers gather in person, outside, safely distanced, with masks.
from Silent Book Club on Instagram
September 28, 2020

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are here.

You can also check out links to articles, CBC Radio 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 haitus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

A silent book club meeting with friends and neighbours, held at and in support of a local business exemplifies exactly the kinds of freedoms we are foregoing now to get through these unsettled and unsettling times … and is where we’re all going to want to be when we get through this. Read well where you are now, gather in the ways that are safe and make most sense, including virtually. Be well and let books buoy your spirits, make our ever changing and challenging circumstances more tolerable, and make the time pass swiftly.

by Jo Nelson

In August of 2018, three of us, Vicki, Jo, and Kirsten, were among the neighbourhood people gathering in Stephenson Park for Kirsten’s yoga class. Activities in the park were a true local community development initiative catalyzed by Peter Woodcock to address some challenges in the park and community.

As we walked from the park after the class, the three of us got to talking about a book club as another activity to bring the community together. One of us had tried to start a traditional one that didn’t work. Vicki enthusiastically introduced us to the concept of a Silent Book Club, where everyone could read whatever they wanted during the month, we would share our lists with no judgement, and then spend a companionable hour sitting silently together reading. We were inspired and decided to try it, meeting at a neighbourhood used book and record store/coffee shop called Press to support the local economy as well as the cultural aspect of reading!

The first meeting had 4 participants, who had read everything from poetry to novels to a car repair manual.

Through Vicki’s invitations and connections, the group grew exponentially during the first year. Within months, we were beyond our informal beginnings. We found ourselves having to buy more chairs for the coffee shop, and then declaring a limit on numbers that could attend at one time. Vicki organized a central email address and a growing file of members and contact information. She posted stories, photos, and lists of the books we had read in her blog. Eventually media invitations to talk about the club began to come in. From there, several other Silent Book Clubs spun off in other neighbourhoods across Toronto and beyond.

The eclectic interests of the members have inspired many of us to try new authors and genres that we would not have tried on our own. There are a number of books that have been passed from person to person, and sometimes back again. Between us, we have read poetry, non-fiction, historical novels, classic gems such as Little Women and Proust, the entire collection of Louise Penny’s mysteries set in Quebec and Kent Haruf’s stories of a small town in Colorado, graphic novels, women’s adventure stories, Indigenous and Black authors, books about Toronto and by Toronto authors, and young adult fiction. Not to mention the car operation manual!

In addition to meeting at Press, we have enjoyed refreshing summer meetings under the trees in the park.

When the lockdown began, we moved our regular meetings to Zoom* with some trepidation but unwillingness to let the connections go. In addition, we created pop-up weeknight special meetings mid-month on Zoom. The connection and support of these meetings has sustained us through the uncertainty of the pandemic.

And we have discovered joy in the new friends we have made, both the fictional ones and the other readers.

So here’s to the joy of the last 3 years, and to the next 3 years and more!

* I had to jump into Jo’s article here to point out that she administers and chairs the Zoom meetings with aplomb and a steady hand!

We all know what can happen with the best laid plans, don’t we? What we pondered at length last month with respect to resuming some semblance of in-person silent book club meetings was done so seasoned with the generous grains of salt we’ve learned to wield with all plans made during a pandemic.

Fortunately, not all best laid plans automatically go awry, either. We didn’t get to meet as we’d anticipated, but we did get to meet in ways we’ve come to expect and enjoy … and in ways we didn’t quite expect that we enjoyed immensely. This picture says it all.

Yes, we did get to gather in the park again – bundled up and expecting it might be brisk, and being blessed with a moderate, sunny, downright lovely afternoon. And no, we didn’t get to gather at our local venue, Press, but several of us stopped there before the park meeting for takeout hot beverages. While we sat in the park with the sun beaming down – which was splendid to share with neighbours walking dogs, exercising and playing ultimate frisbee, tennis and ping pong, and more – I imagined that same sunshine streaming through the windows of the rest of our group’s homes, where those not joining us in the park were observing their respective hours of silent reading.

Any chance Mother Nature could gift us one more such golden day in November …? We came away hoping and planning our bookish plans for next month.

Between our zoom and park meetings, we’ve amassed another gorgeously overflowing list of books. The titles featured in each report combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately).

• The Outlander by Gil Adamson
• Ridgerunner by Gil Adamson
• Amnesty by Aravind Adiga (audiobook)
• Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
• One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
• Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
• The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress by Beryl Bainbridge (audiobook)
• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (audiobook)
• Toby’s Room by Pat Barker, narrated by Juliet Prague, Kieran Bew, Finlay Robertson (audiobook)
• Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile (audiobook)
• The Red Lotus by Chris Bohjalian, narrated by Rebecca Lowman (audiobook)
• The Unlocking Season by Gail Bowen
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
• Milkman by Anna Burns, narrated by Brid Brennan (audiobook)
• Sin Eater by Megan Campisi
• Small Pleasures by Claire Chambers
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Skin We’re In by Desmond Cole (audiobook)
• Still Foolin’ Em by Billy Crystal (audiobook)
• This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga (audiobook)
• The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
• Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
• V for Victory by Lissa Evans
• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
• 52 Times Britain was a Bellend: The History You Didn’t Get Taught at School by James Felton
• Sorry for your Trouble by Richard Ford, narrated by Stephen Mendel (audiobook)
• A Good Neighbourhood by Therese Anne Fowler, narrated by Ella Turenne (audiobook)
• Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina Gappah
• Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick
• Late Edition: A Love Story by Bob Greene
• How to Survive a Pandemic by Dr. Michael Greger
• Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (audiobook)
• We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib, narrated by Parmida Vand (audiobook)
• New Hercule Poirot Mystery Series by Sophie Hannah
• The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf
• A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
• Ghost Stories by M.R. James
• Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James
• Millennium Rising by Jane Jensen
• Indians on Vacation by Thomas King
• The Village by Marghanita Laski
• The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett by Annie Lyons
• Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him by Roy MacGregor
• A Girl is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride (audiobook)
• John Adams by David McCullough
• Beneath the Bleeding by Val McDermid
• Truth Be Told: My Journey Through Life and the Law by Beverley McLachlin
• Full Disclosure by Beverley McLachlin
• Dinosaurs on Other Planets by Danielle McLaughlin
• Read Me, A Poem a Day for the National Year of Reading, chosen by Gaby Morgan
• The Love Story of Missy Carmichael by Beth Morrey
• The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
• Barn 8 by Deb Olin Unferth
• How Happy to Be by Katrina Onstad
• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
• Remnants of Mid-Century Toronto by Vic Pahwa and edited by Matt Blackett
• Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, narrated by Hope Davis (audiobook)
• The Joyful Vegan by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
• The Secret Wife by Gill Paul
• The Cruellest Month by Louise Penny
• The Murder Stone by Louise Penny
• The Street by Ann Petry (audiobook)
• True Grit by Charles Portis, narrated by Donna Tartt (audiobook)
• No Grave For This Place by Judy Quinn, translated by Donald Winkler
• Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe (audiobook)
• Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
• Innocent Graves by Peter Robinson
• Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
• Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz, narrated by Lin-Manuel Miranda (audiobook)
• Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag, translated by Srinath Perur
• Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
• Modern Times by Cathy Sweeney
• From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle
• Ru by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman
• A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews
• Irma Voth by Miriam Toews
• The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin, narrated by Meryl Streep (audiobook)
• Pine by Francine Toon
• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
• New Deal Photography USA 1935-1943 by Peter Walthe
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• Army and Nation – The Military and Indian Democracy since Independence by Steven I. Wilkinson
• Road To Seeing by Dan Winters
• Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best LIfe by Ali Wong

We continue to share our group’s successes and delights with readers around the world.

Silent book clubs are showing that reading alone, together, is good for us
by Kasia Delgado, iNews UK
September 29, 2020

We’re entering month 7 of the global pandemic and reflecting on how it has changed us. #silentbookclub looks different now. In Torino and Toronto (pictured) readers gather in person, outside, safely distanced, with masks.
from Silent Book Club on Instagram
September 28, 2020

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are here.

You can also check out links to articles, CBC Radio 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 haitus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

A silent book club meeting with friends and neighbours, held at and in support of a local business exemplifies exactly the kinds of freedoms we are foregoing now to get through these unsettled and unsettling times … and is where we’re all going to want to be when we get through this. Read well where you are now, gather in the ways that are safe and make most sense, including virtually. Be well and let books buoy your spirits, make our ever changing and challenging circumstances more tolerable, and make the time pass swiftly.

As I mentioned in our last silent book club report (just a week ago when a modest contingent of us had a physically distanced but still vitally connected park meeting) we’re making tentative plans to return to our original silent book club venue. We’ve discussed with the venue what an optimal group size would be, the venue is attentively figuring out how to accommodate our request for a location for our table that will put us out of the way of other customers, we’re planning to visit again to test the wifi and work out the logistics of a hybrid in-person and zoom meeting …

It’s all being done collaboratively with thought and care, but who knows if we’ll actually be able to do it? Daily coronavirus case numbers are worryingly on the rise again in our area, and restrictions are being reapplied to private gathering numbers. Will that change for other types of gatherings? Dare we hope otherwise? However we hope and however the numbers look week after week, how are we simply going to feel? What feels reasonable and safe? That is constantly changing, and we’re all dealing with that change as best we can, but with differing results from day to day, week to week and month to month.

On one hand, how our book club will meet next is perhaps among the least of our worries. On the other hand, how our book club will continue in the weeks and months to come might help us to cope with the worst of our worries. Our beloved books, the themes and ideas and worlds and comforts and diversions they offer us, and the discussion, fellowship and encouragement of other booklovers might be what sustains us. That is what I was reminded of – profoundly – during today’s meeting, which returned to the online formula that has worked well for us in recent months. And that’s it, fundamentally – that’s the message. Our silent book club group, however we’ve managed to assemble, has remained comfortingly constant and is committed to constantly adapting. I sensed and heard real commitment to maintaining that constancy, in whatever form makes sense and feels right.

What we discussed during this gathering is a vibrant and varied cornucopia of reading and related treasures. The titles featured in each report combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately). Not only that, but this collection includes magazines, podcasts, documentaries and web resources, all with literary connections.

I took part in the zoom meeting from the porch of our cottage bunkie. The temperature by the lake this morning was 6 degrees Celsius at the start of the meeting, rising to a balmy 9 degrees by the end of the meeting. I dressed warmly, put on gloves briefly at one point and had a blanket on stand-by. The point of the exercise was to test if I could last through a whole meeting in cool autumn conditions, with the possibility I could encourage others to enjoy me for one more meeting in the park in October. I’m game if some of my fellow booklovers are!

• Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
• Calling Bullshit: The Art of Scepticism in a Data-Driven World by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West
• I’d Rather Be Reading – The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel (audio book)
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, read by Marilyn Lightstone
• Blaze Island by Catherine Bush
• Hellgoing by Lynn Coady (audiobook)
• The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis
• My Passion for Trees: Judi Dench (documentary)
• Dickens’ London by Charles Dickens
• Actress by Anne Enright (audiobook)
• Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans
• Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
• Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
• The Swan Suit by Katherine Fawcett
• Flannery – The Storied Life of the Writer from Georgia (documentary)
• The Folio Society
• We Don’t Need Roads – The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy by Caseen Gaines (audiobook)
• Granta, the magazine of new writing – issue 141, Autumn 2017 “Canada”
• We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib
• Dead Lions by Mick Herron
• Comforts of Home by Susan Hill
• Molly of the Mall: Literary Lass and Purveyor of Fine Footwear by Heidi L.M. Jacobs
• Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James
• Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones
• Stretch Facilitation by Adam Kahane
• The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
• Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him by Roy MacGregor
• Bella Figura by Kamin Mohammadi
• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
• Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver
• The Library Book by Susan Orlean
• Dear Mrs Bird by A.J. Pearce
• A Velocity of Being: Letters to A Young Reader edited by Maria Popova
• Brainpickings web site, edited by Maria Popova
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling, illustrated by Jim Kay
• Voltaire’s Bastards by John Ralston Saul
• Summer by Ali Smith
• Modern Times by Cathy Sweeney
• Ru by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman
• Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
• Educated by Tara Westover
• Road To Seeing by Dan Winters
• Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100 by Marta Zaraska

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are here.

You can also check out links to articles, CBC Radio 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 haitus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

A silent book club meeting with friends and neighbours, held at and in support of a local business exemplifies exactly the kinds of freedoms we are foregoing now to get through these unsettled and unsettling times … and is where we’re all going to want to be when we get through this. Read well where you are now, gather in the ways that are safe and make most sense, including virtually. Be well and let books buoy your spirits, make our ever changing and challenging circumstances more tolerable, and make the time pass swiftly.

Ours was a small but mighty gathering of members of the east end Toronto silent book club. We’ve been fortunate this summer to escape some of the pervasive pandemic isolation with some modestly sized and physically distanced book club meetings under the trees at the south end of Stephenson Park, a neighbourhood oasis. We’ve managed well-attended zoom sessions once or twice a month since the March lockdown – and those have been lively and ameliorating and gratifying – but the park gatherings have felt particularly vital and connecting. Sharing our books and reading together is what fundamentally drew us all together to begin with, didn’t it?

With hints of autumn in the air and tickling the leaves, it felt like this might be our last chance to meet in the park. Not only does it feel like we’re at a seasonal turning point, but who knows what turns and twists are ahead in the situation we’re all facing right now? It was some solace to see friends, and to share not only our recent reading but our recent and upcoming home and work and family challenges ahead, all tinged with the unknown.

We’re making tentative plans to return to our original silent book club venue, with a smaller and physically distanced in-person component complemented with an extended online component. It’s all being done with thought and care, but who knows if we’ll actually be able to do it? Is it possible we’ll be reverting and retreating as the days grow shorter? Dare we hope otherwise?

On one hand, how our book club will meet next is perhaps among the least of our worries. On the other hand, how our book club will continue in the weeks and months to come might help us – even just a bit – to cope with the worst of our worries. The world of our books and the fellowship and encouragement of other booklovers might be what sustains us.

Is this T-shirt not simply perfect? Thanks to silent book club member Emilia for attending an earlier meeting sporting this wonderful garment, and sharing the key link that means we can all purchase our own here.

Because the group was smaller this time, our combined reading list is somewhat more modest than usual, but still filled with wonder and gorgeousness and diversity. The list will blossom further in just a week, when a larger group of us meets again online.

• Blaze Island by Catherine Bush
• Antigonick (Sophokles), translated by Anne Carson, illustrated by Bianca Stone
• The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans
• V is for Victory by Lissa Evans
• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
• The Inspector Green Mysteries by Barbara Fradkin
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf
• Comforts of Home by Susan Hill
• Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James
• The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson
• Orrery by Donna Kane
• The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
• Bella Figura by Kamin Mohammadi
• Dear Mrs Bird by A.J. Pearce
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• #thesealeychallenge to read 31 works of poetry (one per day) in the month of August
• Ru by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are here.

You can also check out links to articles, CBC Radio 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 haitus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

A silent book club meeting with friends and neighbours, held at and in support of a local business exemplifies exactly the kinds of freedoms we are foregoing now to get through these unsettled and unsettling times … and is where we’re all going to want to be when we get through this. Read well where you are now, gather in the ways that are safe and make most sense, including virtually. Be well and let books buoy your spirits, make our ever changing and challenging circumstances more tolerable, and make the time pass swiftly.

We aimed, as we’ve done for the last couple of months, to have a two-part silent book club meeting today, first on zoom, then a bit later with a smaller group in person in our local park. Capricious weather cues and conflicting forecasts forced us to call off the much anticipated park visit. As disappointing as that was, the vitality of our zoom meeting – brimming with great reading and listening recommendations and stimulating discussion – was palpable and clearly savoured by all.

While the connections this month were largely online, our trusted recommendation network of book club friends keeps buzzing offline. That network extends to physically distanced discussions and book exchanges. We’re meeting and dropping books off at each other’s homes, and we’re spurring each other to head to library branches and bookstores, and to borrow and purchase online. In bookish terms, our “new normal” is a hybrid of online and offline opportunities to continue to boost and share our collective love of reading … something that has helped, in no small part, to navigate the many “new normals” with which we’re all contending.

Here is our brimming, buzzing, lively combined reading list for this month. The titles featured each month combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately).

• This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart by Madhur Anand
• Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Annappara
• The Arabian Nights (aka The Thousand and One Nights)
• The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
• Homes: A Refugee Story by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung
• Behindlings by Nicola Barker
• Life Class by Pat Barker (audiobook)
• Toby’s Room by Pat Barker (audiobook)
• The Expat Files by Ken Becker
• Immigrant City by David Bezmozgis
• The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
• Radical Acts of Love by Janie Brown
• The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
• Brother by David Chariandy
• Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
• The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
• Had it Coming by Robyn Doolittle, narrated by Alison J Palmer (audiobook)
• American War by Omar El Akkad
• No Authority by Anne Enright
• The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens, narrated by Zach Villa (audiobook)
• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, narrated by Anna Maria Nabirye (audiobook)
• The Swan Suit by Katherine Fawcett
• 52 Times Britain was a Bellend: The History You Didn’t Get Taught at School by James Felton
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, narrated by Amando Duran (audiobook)
• The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
• We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib
• The Second Sleep by Robert Harris
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf
• Eventide by Kent Haruf
• Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
• The End We Start From by Megan Hunter
• Original Sin by P.D. James
• Need You Dead by Peter James
• The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff
• 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph
• The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi, narrated by Sneha Mathan (audiobook)
• A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost
• Last Impressions by Joseph Kertes
• Last Night in Nuuk by Niviaq Korneliussen
• Road Ends by Mary Lawson
• Blood from a Stone by Donna Leon
• Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him by Roy MacGregor
• I’ll Be Gone In the Dark by Michelle McNamara
• Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston
• Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
• Weather by Jenny Offill (audiobook)
• The Library Book by Susan Orlean (audiobook)
• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
• A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny
• All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny
• My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• A Short Guide to a Happy Life by Anna Quindlen
• Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson
• Traplines by Eden Robinson
• Blood Sports by Eden Robinson
• Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney, narrated by Xe Sands (audiobook)
• #thesealeychallenge to read 31 works of poetry (one per day) in the month of August
• A Boy in Winter by Rachel Seiffert (audiobook)
• Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
• Summer by Ali Smith
• Crow by Amy Spurway
• The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel
• Olive Again by Elizabeth Strout
• Keep It Moving by Twyla Tharp (audiobook)
• From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle
• The Break by Katherena Vermette
• The Fat Woman’s Joke by Fay Weldon
• Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
• Pride by Ibi Zoboi

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are here.

We’re pleased and honoured to have been interviewed about the silent book club concept and how to start a club of one’s own. You can check out links to articles, CBC Radio 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 haitus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

A silent book club meeting with friends and neighbours, held at and in support of a local business exemplifies exactly the kinds of freedoms we are foregoing now to get through these unsettled and unsettling times … and is where we’re all going to want to be when we get through this. Read well where you are now, gather in the ways that are safe and make most sense, including virtually. Be well and let books buoy your spirits, make our ever changing and challenging circumstances more tolerable, and make the time pass swiftly.

Many have likened their isolated pandemic days to the movie Groundhog Day, where every day repeats of the last and it all becomes a seemingly endless, blurry loop. But just as the protagonist of that movie works to break out of that loop and emerges a better person, the repetition of our current days is not without its benefits as we iterate and improve upon what turns out to be important. In its modest way, how we’ve modified our silent book club gatherings has broken many of us out of the distracted loops that have affected our beloved reading practices, and have helped to sustain us through the day after day of the current situation.

We repeated again this month what we did last month, a two-part silent book club meeting. We started online with a zoom meeting …

… and then some carried on offline with their silent reading at home, and some of us gathered for a physically distanced gathering in a tree-lined neighbourhood park.

(It was, by the way, utterly glorious under those trees. It was a 30 degrees C + day in Toronto, but it was noticeably several degrees cooler under the trees. The park grass right up to the trees was parched, but was still green right under the trees. In addition to the breeze swirling in the treetops, an occasional GO train passing on the tracks just south of the park also stirred up the air pleasantly and, surprisingly, did not distract from our reading. And oh, did I mention the beautiful hawk swooping overhead …?)

During both parts of today’s meeting, many members remarked that their usual reading tempos were returning. The rich and bountiful collected reading list which follows is clear testament to our rejuvenated concentration and enthusiasm.

The titles featured each month combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately). Interestingly, our members who particularly enjoy audiobooks (one member distinguishes when she has read a book “audio’ly”) regularly read and compare the print to the audio editions of a book, often with different reviews.

• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Behindlings by Nicola Barker
• The Opium Clerk by Kunal Basu
• The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
• In Another Place, Not Here by Dionne Brand
• Empty Planet – The Shock of Global Population Decline by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson
• People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (audiobook)
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
• The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
• The Cat Inside by William S. Burroughs
• Molly: the true story of the amazing dog who rescues cats by Colin Butcher
• Chicken Soup for the Volunteer’s Soul by Jack Canfield
• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
• Brother by David Chariandy
• Self-Portrait in Black and White: unlearning race by Thomas Chatterton Williams
• City of Djinns – A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple
• A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• American War by Omar El Akkad
• Nanaimo Girl by Prudence Emery
• Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
• Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
• The Butchering Art, Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris
• Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by BJ Fogg
• Out of Darkness Shining Light by Petina Gappah
• Early Stages by John Gielgud
• Loving Large: A Mother’s Rare Disease Memoir b
• A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
• The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf
• Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf (audiobook)
• The Chai Factor by Farah Heron
• Motherhood by Sheila Heti
• The Benefit of Hindsight by Susan Hill
• The Fallen Man by Tony Hillerman
• The Ghost Orchard: The Hidden History of the Apple in North America by Helen Humphreys
• Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones
• A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost
• The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly
• When They Call You a Terrorist – A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele
• Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
• Road Ends by Mary Lawson
• French Kids Eat Everything : {And Yours Can Too} by Karen Le Billon
• Severance by Ling Ma
• Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him by Roy MacGregor
• The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre
• Dead Mom Walking by Rachel Matlow
• In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen
• John Adams by David McCullough
• The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
• Circe by Madeline Miller
• Dishonesty is the Second Best Policy and Other Rules to Live by by David Mitchell
• Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
• The Red Sweet Wine of Youth (The Brave and Brief Lives of the War Poets) by Nicholas Murray
• Shut Up You’re Pretty by Tea Mutonji
• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (audiobook, read by Cassandra Campbell)
• Becoming by Michelle Obama (audiobook)
• Broken Places & Outer Spaces: finding creativity in the unexpected by Nnedi Okorafor
• Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (audiobook, read by Tom Hanks)
• Good Citizens Need Not Fear by Maria Reva
• Ladies of Liberty by Cokie Roberts
• Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
• Mr Salary by Sally Rooney
• Normal People by Sally Rooney
• The Five: The Untold Stories of the Women Killed By Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
• The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
• The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter
• M Train by Patti Smith
• Crow by Amy Spurway
• Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J Ryan Stradal
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• The Door by Magda Szabo (audiobook)
• Everything You Love Will Burn by Vegas Tenold
• The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
• The Witch of the Inner Wood by M. Travis Lane
• Away by Jane Urquhart
• Forbidden Hollywood – When Sin Ruled the Movies (1930-1934 Pre-Code Era) by Mark A. Vieira
• Square Haunting by Francesca Wade
• Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh
• Educated by Tara Westover
• What Ho! The Best of P.G. Wodehouse

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are here.

We’re pleased and honoured to have been interviewed about the silent book club concept and how to start a club of one’s own. You can check out links to articles, CBC Radio 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 haitus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

We’re starting to meet again in person, modestly and very cautiously, but not without justifiable trepidation that warrants alternative ways of gathering. A silent book club meeting with friends and neighbours, held at and in support of a local business exemplifies exactly the kinds of freedoms we are foregoing now to get through these unsettled and unsettling times … and is where we’re all going to want to be when we get through this. Read well where you are now, gather in the ways that are safe and make most sense, including virtually. Be well and let books buoy your spirits, make our ever changing and challenging circumstances more tolerable, and make the time pass swiftly.