Author Archives: bookgaga

The glow of our book-loving hearts

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Colourful, glowing neon hearts have been popping up in windows throughout the Greater Toronto area, including a burgeoning wave of them in the east end Toronto neighbourhood in which our silent book club has its roots. Not only are they beautiful and, dare I say, heartening, but they have a wonderful purpose, explained further here.

Here’s ours:

Our green glowing heart in the window

It would be beyond splendid to simply take a 10-minute walk through this neighbourhood – past many of the houses displaying these hearts – to the place where our silent book club used to meet in person to share our latest reading enthusiasms and then read together quietly and companionably. Till we can do that, though, the glow of our book-loving hearts in our online gatherings – which, delightfully, can welcome fellow readers much further away than this immediate neighbourhood – will more than sustain us.

Here is the latest, always generous, astonishingly rich combined reading list from our group. 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).

Vicki's books and the silent book club zoom meeting

Kath E's books

Sue and Kathy's books

Sue W's books

Some more book-related articles, recommendations and more came up during this meeting’s discussions and chat, including:

  • Designed during the pandemic by Moss LED, a company that offers high quality lighting products for film, cinema, television and other applications, the neon hearts popping up all over the Greater Toronto area are meant to show love and support to healthcare heroes and frontline workers and to pay tribute to live entertainment workers significantly displaced and downsized by the pandemic’s constraints. A portion of the sale of each heart goes to the Michael Garron Hospital Foundation in east end Toronto. Learn more at www.ourglowinghearts.ca.
  • These Precious Days by Ann Patchett (Harper’s Magazine, January 2021) – Many in our silent book club group are Ann Patchett fans. This captivating non-fiction piece by Patchett will warm the hearts of those fans, and is guaranteed to win her new ones.
  • Eleanor Catton has adapted for the screen her 2013 Booker Prize winning book The Luminaries. The resulting six-part series is an excellent complement to a hefty novel that is challenging, complex and rewarding.

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.

Hearts aglow, let’s continue to light our way and our spirits with reading and continued connections to our fellow readers.

A group knitted together by the wonder of words

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Warmest thanks to Toronto silent book club member Mary Schulz for the introduction to our latest sbc meeting report. Mary has also graced this blog with some excellent book reviews, here and here.

Comfort. It is something we all crave from time to time. Perhaps we appreciate comforting pleasures more than ever as we near the anniversary of the start of this pandemic. It is strangely comforting to know that the world keeps behaving as it should at this time of year, bringing us days of blinding sunlight followed by greyer days of snow upon snow. Comfort foods, libations and human connection continue to be vitally important as we return home from walking, walking and more walking.

So, too, our Silent Book Club remains a comforting oasis in the midst of so much uncertainty. Even meeting virtually has become “comfortable” – the new normal. Seeing the familiar faces of friends from across the street and across the globe feels almost as good as sitting around the coffee table at our neighbourhood cafe. Hearing about – and seeing!- one member’s latest canine addition to the family, swapping tidbits of neighbourhood gossip (and wondering how alien or familiar does this sound to our book club member who tunes in from Wales?!) and sharing a laugh at the absurdity of it all make us feel that perhaps everything hasn’t changed, after all.

Falling into the easy routine of going around the circle, listening to what has enthralled our group book-wise (or not!) over the past month, scribbling notes to “check this book out!”, we laugh at the predictability that one member will stretch us to read poetry while others will help us re-think what a “good read” really means. Perhaps we should give that author another try; after all, so many in the group seem to enjoy her books. Or maybe it’s ok just to listen this month, if reading has not been top of mind of late.

Silent book club is a gathering of friends. Sometimes those friends are like-minded, sometimes not so much. But the group is knitted together by the wonder of words. How DOES she do it? How beautifully written was that?! Even if we don’t always understand their full meaning, words move us and make us feel.

And after all, isn’t that what a really great gathering of friends is all about? Feeling. Talking, laughing, sharing. And did we mention, “feeling”? Feeling safe and amongst friends, many of whom are just down the street or around the corner. Who knew that books could do all that? Well, we did, I guess. And thank goodness for that.

 

Here is the latest, positively gorgeous combined reading list from our group. 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).

Emily's bookshelves

Lyla's books

Sue R's books

Vicki's books

Beth's books and bookshelves

Kath's book and Squizz watching rugby

The wrap-up discussion and the chat window of today’s zoom meeting also brimmed with book and book-related articles, recommendations and more, including:

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.

Let’s continue to light our way and our spirits with reading and continued connections to our fellow readers.

How to Read Books in a Pandemic in the Digital Age

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Guest contributor Liza Achilles

Guest contributor Liza Achilles

by Liza Achilles

I keep hearing the same lament, over and over.

I host a Silent Book Club, which means that I meet weekly with people who love to read. We talk about the books we are reading … and not reading, as the case may be.

During club meetings, I keep hearing people bemoan their lack of concentration. Everyone’s brain is going haywire. Everyone’s worried about COVID-19. Everyone’s worried about politics. Everyone’s stressed about social distancing and the shuttering of schools and workplaces. On top of all this, everyone’s being bombarded with phone notifications, social media messages, and news alerts.
It’s not surprising that sitting down and calmly reading a book is starting to seem like a quaint luxury, something that old-fashioned people did in previous centuries.

But reading full books — and not just snippets of news or gossip — brings massive rewards. Many of us want to read more books. We just need to figure out how to hack our personal systems, how to reconfigure our brains, to allow it to happen. Following are solutions that work for me.

How to Have a Shot at Reaching Your Reading Goals

You aren’t going to reach your reading goals if you don’t have any in the first place! So that’s a good place to start.

All of the most avid readers I know track their reading. Some people track their reading on Goodreads. Other people use digital spreadsheets. I, personally, am analog: I use a notepad in which I write down, by hand, the date I finished a book and its title and author. Simple.

Tracking your reading is great for motivation. You can learn how many books you typically read in a month or a year. And you can set goals to increase those numbers. On days when you don’t feel like reading, you can think about your goals, which may prompt you to sit down with a book.

A friend of mine doesn’t track number of books read per year, but rather number of pages read per year. She uses the page count supplied by her e-reader, so it’s a consistent measure. This, she feels, and I’m sure she’s right, is a more accurate gauge of how much she is reading.

I like to have daily page count goals in addition to my monthly and yearly goals. I try to read at least 40 pages a day. This doesn’t always happen, but having the goal helps.

How to Start Reading

There are always a hundred things I could be doing. Dishes, laundry, cooking, cleaning, exercising, texting, going on social media … the list goes on and on. I have noticed that there are points in my day when I think, “I should read a book,” but instead I end up clicking on each of my phone apps, in turn, to see what’s new there.

I have discovered that, nowadays, I need a motivator to inspire me to sit down with a book. Once I start reading, I’m often swept away by the joy of reading. But I need something to get me there in the first place.

For me, the best incentive is something to put in my mouth. (I’m like a baby!) My beverage of choice is tea, either caffeinated or herbal, depending on the time of day. My food of choice is a piece of hard candy.

I say to myself, “If you sit down to read, you can have this savory drink or sweet candy!” I don’t allow myself to eat an entire jar of candy, mind you — only one or two pieces per day. It’s just a brain boost to get me started.

Once I get started, I often forget about the tea or candy as I get engrossed in the book. Sometimes I look up an hour later and notice a full mug of cold tea, tea bag still dangling over the edge—how silly is that?!

How to Keep Reading

While reading, I often feel the urge to check my phone. I have tried turning it off or putting it in another room; but inevitably, I will need it, wanting to look up a word or a reference in the book I’m reading.

Instead of banishing my phone from my presence, I tell myself, “This is your reading time. Try not to check your phone. But if it rings or beeps, or if you can’t resist and pick it up to check it, put it down as soon as possible.”

Sometimes I give myself permission to click around on my phone only after I have read a certain number of pages, or gotten to the end of a chapter.

Also: I silence almost all notifications on my phone. There are literally only three types of functionalities or people that I allow to make a noise that might disturb me. Some people might say even three is too many. You might try putting your phone in Total Silence / Do Not Disturb mode if being interrupted while reading is a problem.

How to Combat Reading Fatigue

I find that it’s helpful to space reading throughout the day. Read a few pages in the morning, a few pages at lunchtime, and a few pages before bed.

Making it through a massive chunk of reading all in one sitting can work if the book is a real page-turner. But there are lots of great books out there that need to be digested, so to speak. Spacing out the book’s consumption helps your brain process what was read and recoup before the next session.

Additionally, one of my favorite times to read is in the middle of the night. Sometimes I wake up late at night and read for an hour. It’s a time of day when I don’t feel at all distracted. There’s no breaking news; little is happening on social media; all my friends are asleep. I always get a lot of reading done when I read at 1 in the morning. Waking early and reading at 5am is also productive for me.

How to Get Through Reading Slumps

Sometimes it’s hard to get reading done because you just finished a good book, and no other book seems interesting.

Or maybe you are in a slump because you tried reading one book, but it was boring, so you picked up a second book, but it was boring, too, and you feel guilty about not reading either of them, and you wonder whether you should try a third book, or plug away at one of the other two, and you can’t make a decision, so you give up and take a nap.

In my experience, the best remedy for this problem is to have lots of books at hand. Always have at least 20 unread books lying around. These can be books you own or books from the library, real books or e-books.

Book reading is extremely personal and circumstantial. If you don’t feel like reading a particular book, it could be simply the wrong book for you, at this point in your life. I recently tried to read a book multiple times, but failed each time … until the political climate changed. Suddenly, I was able to read about that topic again. Before that, the topic felt too painful and raw. Afterward, I devoured the book.

However, in the thick of things, I did not realize that that was the problem. I just thought I was having a problem with reading in general. In reality, I was having a problem with a particular emotional trigger.

The lesson is, have a bunch of books around, and keep trying to read one, and then another one, and then another one, until you find one that resonates with you, right now. That’s the book that you should be reading.

And I wish you the best of luck in reading it!

Liza Achilles is a writer, editor, poet, and coach based in the Washington, D.C., area. She blogs about seeking wisdom through books and elsewhere at lizaachilles.com.

It was such an honour to collaborate with Liza, developing reciprocal pieces on the challenges of reading during these unsettled and unsettling times. It was fun, too! We wrote our pieces independently, exchanged them and then opened and read each other’s pieces at the same time. It was thrilling to see how what we observed and how we were dealing with it had common threads and complementary strategies, creating a really interesting balance that we hope all our bookish friends will appreciate. Liza beautifully presents my piece on her blog here: Clutching Our Books While Riding a Rollercoaster: the Solace and Challenges of Reading During a Pandemic.

Days might get blurry, but silent book club meetings still bring it all back into focus

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Have you lost track of the hours and days? Does the demarcation of weekday versus weekend perhaps have less meaning than it used to …?

Over these seemingly endless pandemic months, our silent book club group co-founder Jo and I have worked to schedule two zoom meetings a month for our members. We strive to balance keeping in much-needed contact with our bookish friends with not straining everyone’s already increased screen time. One meeting is on Saturday mornings, at the time every month when we used to meet in person at our local coffee/book shop Press. The other meeting is what we call a “pop-up”. We surprise members with a second date just a few days in advance, and it is usually scheduled for a weekday evening.

Weekday? What is that? Evening? The days are getting longer, but the day still gets darker early on … and some wintry days, it’s dark all day. But as disorienting and fatiguing as it might be, mixed in with all the other work and family and community reasons for being online, I know I snap to attention going in and emerge refreshed coming out of every silent book club zoom gathering.

Here is the latest, delectable combined reading list from our group. 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).

Vicki's books and zoom screen

Jess' books

Kathryn's books

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.

Even if things get darker for a time, we can light our way and our spirits for now with reading and continued connections to our fellow readers.

Started early, took my dog … enjoyed the company of booklovers, online and in the snow

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Me in the snowy park holding a book, while Tilly the Airedale looks elsewhere

… although the dog was more interested in other dogs than in the books and booklovers … 🙂

Our latest online silent book club meeting did indeed runneth over …

Silent book club members in zoom screen

… but no one seemed to mind, so there clearly continues to be an appetite for regularly sharing our bookish delights and challenges, in whatever way we can meet. As you’ll see from our always generous and varied combined book list, our Toronto group (where the eastern boundary of the city extends to Wales, don’t you know …) is keeping its collective reading groove going with a wide range of contemporary and classic works in many genres and formats, from established and emerging authors.

After the zoom meeting, as most were settling in to their favourite reading chairs for the silent reading portion of the festivities, a handful of us (within local group guidelines, appropriate distanced – rest assured) ventured out to the local park for a quick meetup in the snow. (As I walked over, I thought of one of our book club members waxing wise and poetic about Wintering by Katherine May – in which we are encouraged to embrace literal and more metaphorical winters – and mused about how appropriate this was …)

Three silent book club members standing in the snowy park with their books

Catherine in the park

Jo in the park

Sue in the park

When the sun is shining just as brilliantly, but it’s maybe a touch warmer and greener, we look forward to gathering there again for some silent reading under the trees. Till then, we’ll gather round our screens and in the cozy spots where we curl up at home, grateful we’ve found ways to continue to connect with our fellow booklovers.

Beth's silent book club reading

Dawn's silent book club reading

Kath's silent book club reading

Lyla's silent book club reading

Philippa's silent book club reading

Vicki's silent book club reading

Here is the latest and always gorgeous combined reading list from our group. 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).

The chat window of today’s zoom meeting was also brimming with book and book-related articles, recommendations and more, including:

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.

Even if things get darker for a time, we can light our way and our spirits for now with reading and continued connections to our fellow readers.

The chance to fling our virtual doors wide open

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We miss our in-person silent book club meetings, at Press and in the park …

Silent book club in the park ... with a new friend

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist …)

but as I observed in our last report, gathering around a zoom screen can sometimes be just like gathering around a warm fire in good company. It felt exactly like that again, as we enjoyed a mid-week, evening “pop-up” silent book club meeting this week.

Although it was an evening gathering for most of the attendees, from our local east end Toronto neighbourhood and from other locations around the greater Toronto area, it was a very late evening for one of our newest members, who was joining us from Wales. It was particularly lovely to hear her voice, see her smile and view her cozy, book-lined office … and to realize that an actually very wonderful aspect of how our group has adapted and moved online is that it has given us the opportunity to fling our virtual doors open in this fashion.

Live meetings and the warmth of literally reading together are not in the immediate future, but they’re in all our dreams. At the same time, I hope this extended book club format will still be part of our meeting mix. We’ve made new friends, we’ve expanded our discussions and reading lists … and we’ve used the online realm (and, notably this week, it feels like we’ve reclaimed and redeemed it) to do it.

Books from Rosanne

Toronto library entrance, covid style, from Todd

Lyla's reading

Lyla's reading

Lyla's reading

Philippa's reading

Vicki's reading

Without further ado, here is another generous combined reading list from our group. As always, the titles featured in each of our reports combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately)

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.

It’s possible things are going to get darker for a time. We can light our way and our spirits for now with reading and continued connections to our fellow readers.

How our reading saved us and how we saved the joys of reading in 2020

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As I reflected just last year (it feels like a very strange eternity ago), early January is my usual time to contemplate my year past in reading and to absorb and appreciate the musings of fellow readers as they share their own reflections. I’m doing that again, of course, but admittedly with more pondering (some of it bewildered), some trepidation and even some weariness, even as there is much to celebrate. This particular exercise of looking back is through a lens uniquely fogged and scratched and battered, about which enough has been said. This exercise also tussles with the conundrum of how reading can comfort, can distract, can bolster our spirits – but even that very practice was affected by the perils of this trying year.

As did so many events and gatherings this past year, the silent book club groups in which I take part all moved online during the first wave of pandemic closures and lockdowns. Again and still, the attendees of our silent book club gatherings collectively helped each other through struggles with our reading – intermittent concentration, flagging attention span, lessened energy, emotions triggered and so on – and I chronicled some of that in our reports, which I was determined to keep up throughout.

(Glenn Sumi of Now Magazine also offered excellent insights into the science behind why it’s been so hard to read a book during this rollercoaster ride of a year. I was happy to commiserate with Glenn about this reading affliction as he was researching the article.)

Respecting local guidelines and restrictions, our silent book club still managed to meet for brief, physically distanced, but still heart lifting gatherings in the park … even as the weather grew colder again.

Silent book club in the park in October

Silent book club in the park in December

This year, I decided to take up the daunting but wonderful Sealey Challenge for reading yet more poetry. Started in 2017 by American poet and educator Nicole Sealey, and steered through social media with the hashtag #thesealeychallenge, the idea is to commit and do your best to read 31 works of poetry over the course of 31 days in August. Before this challenge, I always have had a poetry collection on the go, but reading at this pace turned it into a whole new, mind-expanding experience – at times overwhelming but always exhilarating. What a boost, in many, many ways … ironically, I can’t seem to express my gratitude very poetically.

I continued my commitment in 2020 to a daily devotion to at least one poem … and usually more, as friends on Twitter continued to generously share their poem choices and reflections via the #todayspoem hashtag. I’m now heading into my 10th uninterrupted year of poetry tweets.

Another practice that continues to heighten my weekly reading joy as I navigate through books is that of #sundaysentence, championed and curated by author David Abrams. As I’ve observed before, seeking a beautifully or uniqued crafted sentence each week sharpens my attention when I’m reading, and I love discovering new works through the #sundaysentence choices of other readers.

In years past when I’ve looked back on my reading, I’ve reminisced about where I was when I was reading this or that, or I’ve linked to longer notes and reviews here on this blog, on Goodreads, etc. I’m not going to do that this year. In all honesty, I wandered around online a lot this year, trying to keep or regain my readerly grounding. That might sound counter-intuitive, since where but online were we being significantly enraged, upset and distracted? But in fact, I found lots of conversations on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, as well as vital zoom gatherings and events (many authors and literary festivals did an inspiring and commendable job of moving readings online, for example) that kept me going as a reader.

Here are the books I read, reread and read aloud in 2020.

January, 2020

1. Grand Union by Zadie Smith
2. I’ll Take You There – Mavis Staples, the Staple Singers and the March Up Freedom’s Highway by Greg Kot (read aloud)
3. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman
4. The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
5. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
6. Field Notes for the Self by Randy Lundy

February, 2020

7. behind the scenes at the museum by Kate Atkinson
8. Dominoes at the Crossroads by Kaie Kellough
9. Our Dogs, Ourselves by Alexandra Horowitz (read aloud)

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

March, 2020

10. Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
11. Arias by Sharon Olds
12. Music For Tigers by Michelle Kadarusman
13. Actress by Anne Enright
14. The Only Story by Julian Barnes

April, 2020

15. My Antonia by Willa Cather (reread)
16. Unlock by Bei Dao, translated by Eliot Weinberger and Iona Man-Cheong
17. For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: new and selected poems by Gary Barwin, edited by Alessandro Porco
18. Swamp Angel by Ethel Wilson (reread)
19. The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald (reread)

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

May, 2020

20. The Progress of Love by Alice Munro (reread)
21. The Baudelaire Fractal by Lisa Robertson

June, 2020

22. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
23. The Swan Suit by Katherine Fawcett
24. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
25. Early Stages by John Gielgud (read aloud)
26. In Another Place, Not Here by Dionne Brand

July, 2020

27. Good Citizens Need Not Fear by Maria Reva
28. Motherhood by Sheila Heti
29. Circe by Madeline Miller
30. Nanaimo Girl by Prudence Emery
31. Mr Salary by Sally Rooney

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

August, 2020

start of #thesealeychallenge (reading 31 works of poetry in 31 days)

32. The Outer Wards by Sadiqa de Meijer
33. Quantum Typography by Gary Barwin (reread)
34. Time by Etel Adnan, translated by Sarah Riggs
35. Rat Jelly by Michael Ondaatje
36. Evidence by Andrea Thompson, illustrations by Catherine Tammaro
37. The Witch of the Inner Wood by M. Travis Lane, edited by Shane Neilson
38. How She Read by Chantal Gibson
39. Silverchest by Carl Phillips
40. Vice Versa by Elyse Friedman, illustrated by Shannon Moynagh

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

41. Dart by Alice Oswald
42. Murmurations by Annick MacAskill
43. England by Nia Davies (reread)
44. Grain by John Glenday (reread)
45. Forge by Jan Zwicky
46. On the Menu by Jacqueline Valencia, illustrated by Jennifer Chin
47. The Mobius Strip Club of Grief by Bianca Stone (reread)
48. Crow by Amy Spurway
49. Cloud Physics by Karen Enns
50. Fields of Light and Stone by Angeline Schellenberg
51. Stranger by Nyla Matuk
52. Ornament by Anna Lena Phillips Bell

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

53. Everyone at This Party by Tanja Bartel
54. The Dzygraphxst by Canisia Lubrin
55. Juliet (I) by Sarah Certa
56. What We Carry by Susan Glickman
57. Belated Bris of the Brainsick by Lucas Crawford
58. behindlings by Nicola Barker
59. I Am on a River and Cannot Answer by Amy Miller
60. Riven by Catherine Owen
61. Magnetic Equator by Kaie Kellough
62. Short Talks by Anne Carson (reread)
63. Body Count by Kyla Jamieson
64. go-go dancing for Elvis by Leslie Greentree (reread)

end of #thesealeychallenge (reading 31 works of poetry in 31 days)

65. No Authority by Anne Enright

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

September, 2020

66. Plainsong by Kent Haruf
67. Antigonick (Sophokles) translated by Anne Carson, illustrated by Bianca Stone
68. Blaze Island by Catherine Bush
69. Modern Times by Cathy Sweeney

October, 2020

70. No Grave for This Place by Judy Quinn, translated by Donald Winkler
71. Dinosaurs on Other Planets by Danielle McLaughlin
72. Northern Light by Roy MacGregor (read aloud)
73. Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
74. Jack by Marilynne Robinson

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

November, 2020

75. Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
76. the fool by Jessie Jones
77. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

December, 2020

78. Waiting for a Star to Fall by Kerry Clare
79. Intimations: Six Essays by Zadie Smith
80. The End of Me by John Gould
81. Sister Language by Christina Baillie and Martha Baillie
82. Lost Family – A Memoir by John Barton
83. Up Jumped the Devil – The Real Life of Robert Johnson by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow (read aloud)
84. The Night Piece by Andre Alexis
85. How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

86. The Gifts of Reading by Robert MacFarlane

My 2020 reading - book journal and selected books

In 2020, I read a total of 86 works, not only a giant leap from previous years and a new personal record … but rather astonishing, in light of, well, everything. That broke out as:

  • 37 works of fiction (novels and short story collections) – the exact same as my 2018 total
  • 39 poetry collections and
  • 10 works of non-fiction.

I reread 10 books, more than usual and another way that I got through some stretches where my reading mojo was decidedly fading. I read 5 works in translation, read one graphic work and read 46 works by Canadian authors. My husband and I read 5 books aloud to each other this year and have another one in progress as we greet the new year.

I also kept track again this year of the publication dates of the books I read. In 2020, the oldest book I read was published in 1918 (My Antonia by Willa Cather, which was a vital and comforting reread), and I also read nine books published between 1954 through the 1990s, further fulfilling my now yearly intention to read or reread some more older books. More than half of the books I read this year were published in 2019 or 2020.

So far in 2021, I’ve read or have in progress:

  • Rachel to the Rescue by Elinor Lipman
  • One Year at Ellsmere by Faith Erin Hicks
  • Dearly by Margaret Atwood
  • Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
  • Shuggie Bain Douglas Stuart
  • Swivelmount by Ken Babstock
  • A Promised Land by Barack Obama (read aloud)

For yet another year, I’m looking back with quiet satisfaction (and with gratitude to the practices and people who helped and inspired) on my reading during an extraordinarily difficult year, and looking forward with quiet optimism to where my reading this new year will take me. I’m grateful to the writers, publishers, reviewers and fellow readers who have spurred on and broadened my reading. I’m thankful as always for the bounty of beautiful words that came to me via so many conduits, evoking such an array of ideas, trains of thought, memories and associations, providing so much off the page, too.

I’ll simply conclude …

It’s not how many you read that counts. It’s that you read that counts – and it counts so very much.

Booklovers gathering in the glow … of one last, cozy zoom campfire for the year

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Sometimes, gathering around a zoom screen can be just like gathering around a warm fire in good company. We managed one last pop-up meeting of our silent book club last night, and that’s exactly how it felt. As always, my tbr list expanded, as did my heart!

We’re all briskly ushering the year that was out the door, aren’t we? What I won’t usher out or sweep under the rug is that we all managed to forge new ways to connect through this year’s challenges. Our silent book club went from in-person meetings in a local book/record/coffee shop and a few gatherings in a nearby park to regular zoom meetings and some physically distanced gatherings in that same park – and it all remained vital and sustaining, if not more so. While in some ways our worlds grew dramatically smaller, books and book friends helped us to continue to explore and travel through it all. Our virtual meetings allowed us to fling open new doors, such that Toronto city limits now encompass Wales – imagine that!

Our past meeting / book reports chronicle not just our reading, but our reading challenges. Those challenges, of course, are just a reflection of the broader challenges we and our communities grappled with throughout the year. At the same time, I’m grateful and imagine many of my fellow booklovers are that our reading, our meetings and our connections were some respite from the frustrations and despair.

Book picks from Squizzey and Kath

Book picks from Vicki

Book picks from Rosanne

Even though we fit this meeting in a mere two weeks after our last one, many of our members got in solid and extensive reading, thanks to extra quiet time, thoughtful gifts and newly minted Jólabókaflóð traditions. So, we have yet another generous combined reading list to share. As always, the titles featured in each of our reports combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately).

One of our members revealed that she found some of her recent reading from the NPR Book Concierge and she recommended checking it out.

Our silent book club chapter celebrated its third anniversary this past autumn. Our group co-founder Jo paid lovely tribute.

As always, 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.

It’s possible things are going to get darker for a time. We can light our way and our spirits for now with reading and continued connections to our fellow readers. One of my very thoughtful silent book club friends put this in the envelope with her holiday greetings …

The Gifts of Reading

… and I’m going to carefully pass it along, like a torch, to another friend in books. Let’s encourage each other to keep those candles and torches and campfires ablaze.

We owe it to the beauty of the words … and our steadfast silent book club friends

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Every silent book club meeting this singular year has been uniquely vital. The double-edged sword of so much of our lives moving online so swiftly is that we’ve been able to keep up all kinds of connections – work, personal, entertainment and more – while simultaneously being isolated and feeling disconnected. Maintaining those connections online has led to, not surprisingly, intermittent and at times utterly enervating fatigue. The activities that usually bring us comfort and relaxation – such as our beloved books and reading – were, ironically, often difficult to sustain, even though we in theory had much more of the time we often bemoaned we didn’t have for these very activities. But somehow, through it all, our silent book club zoom meetings (and occasional physically distanced meet-ups in our local park here in east end Toronto) were the unmissable, inspiring entries on our now strangely configured calendars. And somehow, the glow from our laptops and tablets and phones during these meetings was truly warming.

Our last silent book club meeting of this year (this year we all wish to put behind us …) was filled with heartening laughter and generosity and insights. We exchanged recommendations and reviews, as usual, and comisserated about overcoming this year’s particular reading challenges. One of our readers put it, most wonderfully, that she was determined to revisit reading that she had to set aside because it was too troubling during this year’s emotional rollercoaster ride, because “I owe it to the beauty of the words” to return. The beauty of the words and the steadfast presence of our friends has seen us through a lot and will continue to do so as we continue and get through the challenges still ahead.

To top off this very fine meeting (so fine that we might not be able to resist fitting in one more pop-up zoom meeting during the holidays …!), some of us hardy (foolhardy?) bookish souls assembled at our local park in east end Toronto for a brief, distanced sharing of books … and cookies, thanks to a thoughtful book club member. There was a chill in the air and snow on the ground, but hey … nothing has stymied this unstoppable silent book club this year!

Rosanne's stack of books

Sue W's stack of books

Vicki's stack of books

Silent book club members in the park

Silent book club members in the park

Sue R in the park

Jo in the park

Beth in the park

Anita in the park

Ruth in the park

Vicki in the park

Anita offering Jo cookies in the park

Enjoy another bountiful list of our recent reading. We know everyone is getting books this season, but if, say, you run out during the holidays, well, this list and ones from our past reports are here to help you … 🙂 The titles featured in each of our reports combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately).

Our silent book club chapter recently celebrated its third anniversary. Our group co-founder Jo paid lovely tribute.

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. Read well and be well!

An avalanche of bookish delights from our sometimes not-so-silent book club

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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 …!

Silent book club zoom meeting

Kath's books

Rosanne's books

4 silent book club members in the park

Anita in the park

Jo in the park

Ruth in the park

Sue in the park

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.

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.

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.