Some of those twinkling lights were hanging in the trees of our beloved park in east end Toronto, where a few of us assembled for one last bookish go-round and exchange of good wishes for the end of this trying year. How appropriate to be in the place where we gathered when we could to share in person the companionship of reading together.

Some of those twinkling lights beam from our twice monthly regular zoom meetings to share our reading delights and challenges. Yes, we’re weary and even frustrated with those screens. Thank goodness books in all forms give us good reason to turn away from them when we can. And yet, we still show up for those virtual connections, don’t we?

Some of those twinkling lights spark off the pages of the books that divert us, comfort us, guide us, inspire us.

Our last combined reading list for 2021 is as bountiful and diverse as ever. 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).

• Home of the Floating Lily by Silmy Abdullah
• It’s What I Do – A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario
• Celebrations by Maya Angelou (audiobook)
• Snow by John Banville
• Biblioasis’ A Ghost Story for Christmas series

        – Mr. Jones by Edith Wharton
        – An Eddy on the Floor by Bernard Capes
        – The Doll’s Ghost by F. Marion Crawford

• The Historians by Eavan Boland
• Dante’s Indiana by Randy Boyagoda
• The Barbizon – The Hotel That Set Women Free by Paulina Bren
• Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown
• Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie
• Greenwood by Michael Christie
• The Long Call by Ann Cleaves
• On Chapel Sands by Laura Cumming
• How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed: A Journal for Grief by Megan Devine
• Untamed by Glennon Doyle (audiobook)
• The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
• A Little London Scandal by Miranda Emmerson
• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
• Voices Lost in Snow (short story) by Mavis Gallant
• You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson
• The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
• A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins, narrated by Rosamund Pike (audiobook)
• Venetia by Georgette Heyer, narrated by Phyllida Nash (audiobook)
• The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida
• Better Luck Next Time by Kate Hilton
• Permanent Astonishment by Tomson Highway
• The Sweetest Remedy by Jane Igharo
• Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama, translated by Kodansha
• 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph
• The Feast by Margaret Kennedy
• Eat or We Both Starve by Victoria Kennefick
• The Shining by Stephen King
• The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey by Julia Laite, narrated by Kristen Atherton (audiobook)
• The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson (audiobook)
• The Malahat Review, Indigenous Perspectives issue (#197)
• The Candymakers and the Great Chocolate Chase (The Candymakers #2) by Wendy Mass
• Flesh and Blood by Stephen McGann (audiobook)
• The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
• The Unseen World by Liz Moore, narrated by Lisa Flanagan (audiobook)
• A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa
• How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
• These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
• State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton
• The Madness of Crowds: A Novel by Louise Penny
• Miss Dior – A Story of Courage and Couture by Justine Picardie
• The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
• Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym
• Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid (audiobook)
• Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta, narrated by Ordena Stephens-Thompson (audiobook)
• Yearbook by Seth Rogen (audiobook)
• Normal People by Sally Rooney
• Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
• Homie by Danez Smith (audiobook)
• Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q Sutanto
• Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
• There’s no such thing as an easy job by Kikuko Tsumura, translated by Polly Barton, narrated by Cindy Kay (audiobook)
• Questions for Ada by Ijeoma Umebinyuo
• The Strangers by Katherena Vermette
• One by One by Ruth Ware
• City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and ’50s by William Weintraub
• Vancouver Noir, edited by Sam Wiebe
• Disorientation – Being Black in the World by Ian Williams
• Undersong by Kathleen Winter
• The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

More book-related articles, resources, news, recommendations and more are often inspired or offered by our members and/or come up during our discussions and chat, including:

• Listen to poet Maya Angelou speaking at the 1993 US Presidential Inauguration.
• Here are the New York Public Library suggestions for 2022 the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge, along with the library’s top checkouts for 2021.
• One of our group members discovered that a good way to read The Shining by Stephen King was with discussion questions … and a recipe!
• One of group members highly recommends the poetry of You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson. Here is the poet movingly performing “Instead of Depression” from the collection. (Facebook video)

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are always waiting for you to read and enjoy them right here.

You can also check out links to articles, interviews and more here – some with San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich, and some with us here in east end Toronto.

Learn more about silent book clubs via Guinevere and Laura’s Silent Book Club web site. You can find information on meetings happening around the world and close to where you live. Some clubs are currently on hiatus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats, and some are re-emerging carefully with in-person gatherings. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

To those who make books possible – writers, publishers, booksellers, reviewers, bloggers and more – and all those who adore books in all forms: wishing you a safe, peaceful new year filled with happiness, hope and all the reading you need to sustain and buoy your mind and spirit.

How we gather has changed profoundly over the course of the pandemic.

How gathering has been curtailed and modified has challenged us. We haven’t always executed it successfully or derived from it what we did before, in person and in beloved spaces.

But gather we have, and sometimes we’ve gained unique connections, insights and solace in these new forms of meeting.

Silent book clubs – long chronicled here – have always been about readers gathering to share each other’s company in the act of reading. The being-in-the-company-of-readers part is where the “silent” comes from, but interestingly, the gatherings were often book-ended (!) with considerably less than silent sharing of enthusiasms and challenges around one’s reading. While “club” echoes the concept of traditional book clubs, where there was something of the likeminded in choosing a single book for all participants to read and discuss, these gatherings were more like community, where any book in any form was warmly welcomed and not judged.

While we’ve missed sharing coffee and scones around a cafe table with our fellow readers, the conversation and community has continued online. In fact, we’ve been able to fling open those coffee shop doors to welcome people from around the world. It’s the comforting trade-off to not being able to meet with the people just around the corner.

When the Meet the Presses collective approached me about hosting a silent book club zoom meeting as part of the group’s second virtual small press book fair, I was delighted to be asked. I was equally delighted to realize that the silent book club model could work for other book-related communities.

Meet the Presses values small presses and the authors they publish. The organization supports the ongoing creation of new literary work in all formats and across all genres. Meet the Presses’ annual Indie Literary Market is an invitational event for independent literary publishers — presses, micropresses, zines, and journals — as selected by this volunteer collective. Since 1986, Meet the Presses has also awarded the annual bpNichol Chapbook Award. This year and last, the group replaced its the vibrant in-person market, readings and professional sessions with virtual events. The 2021 schedule featured:

• 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award readings and winner announcement – Congratulations, Matthew James Weigel for It Was Treaty / It Was Me, published by Vallum
• Press Clips, a screening of a collection of short videos from small presses across Canada – available for replay here (part 1) and here (part 2)
• Small Press Silent Reading Group

A cozy (for zoom) gathering of about 10 writers and publishers gathered for the Small Press Silent Reading Group. In the notably non-silent portion of the meeting, we celebrated the bounty of small press beauty, largely but not exclusively in chapbook form, that has been capturing our hearts and minds and helping us all get through challenging times. The following is part of that cascade of small press delights.

I was fortunate to enjoy two silent book club meetings the day of the Meet the Presses event. Here are all my silent book club book and chapbook selections, all lined up.

• Andata Express
• Jung Origami by Sacha Archer (Penteract Press)
• Foundry by Gregory Betts (Red Fox Press)
• Dear Birch, by Margaret Christakos (Palimpsest Press)
• Bridge and Burn by Jason Christie (above/ground press)
• Paper Poems by Brian Dedora (Red Fox Press)
• A field guide to fanciful bugs by Amanda Earl (above/ground press)
• Myself A Paperclip by Triny Finlay (Goose Lane Editions)
• Snowbound and Other Poems by John Greenleaf Whittier (Little Leather Books, 1921)
• goodbye, already by Ryanne Kap
• I Will Be More Myself In The Next World by Matsuki Masutani (Mother Tongue Press)
• Me Then You Then Me Then by Kathryn Mockler and Gary Barwin (knife fork book)
• Ask About Language As If It Forgets by Hoa Nguyen (knife fork book)
• Inside Ocean Größt’s Time Capsule by Astra Papachristodoulou (Penteract Press)
• Mouthfuls of Space by Tom Prime (Anvil Press)
• Moth Funerals by Gaia Rajan (Glass Poetry Press)
• from The Book of Bramah by Renee Sarojini Saklikar (above/ground Press)
• Bramah and the Beggar Boy by Renee Sarojini Saklikar (Nightwood Press)
• Numbers by Adam Seelig (Alphabet Press)
• In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale (New Directions)
• On the Menu by Jacqueline Valencia and Jennifer Chin (inPrint Collective)

Interestingly, the discussion segued into observations about how many forms of reading can provide distraction, solace and more during trying times. Beautiful World, Where are You by Sally Rooney was just one example … but the best tribute was to – wait for it – Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, delivered in a captivating, rhapsodizing near-rap. Riding that wave of singular energy, we departed the zoom room to enjoy our respective allotments of silent reading bliss.

Thank you to Gary Barwin and Tali Voron to inviting me to host and take part in a special silent book club gathering that tells me yes, communities of those devoted to beautiful words beautifully assembled will always find a way to celebrate.

Our latest silent book club meeting report is introduced by longtime member Rick Plume.

Rick Plume is a retired photo editor who worked with The Canadian Press for almost 44 years. He’s now a wanna-be reader who loves spending time with his wife doing the things they love and laments there’s just not enough time in a day to fit everything in.

Books. Books for entertainment. Books for learning. Books for a different opinion.

I’ve had a life-long love affair with books. They’ve been my constant companions and friends through life’s adventures. Always there. Always offering up something new.

And then came Covid and my wife’s “Retirement.”

To say my reading has undergone a change is an understatement. Prior to these life-changing events, my wife worked, and I, being already retired, could read whenever I wanted. Long, glorious hours curled by with a good book, a cup of coffee and a couple of cats. Life was good.

That changed when my wife was forced to work from home. At first she worked away in the library or, when the weather was nice, in the garden. Life was still good. While she worked I could read.

And then she noticed. She noticed that retirement looked good – she might even be able to have some free time to read books.

And then things changed. She retired. And she had time. Lots of time. But, and here’s the big “But.” We didn’t sit down and read our books, as reading is a solitary pleasure. We started to do things together. We have a lifetime of “things” we wanted to do built up and we’re doing them. Life is still good, but in a different way.

Reading is taking a bit of a hit these days. I still get in an hour or two some days, but it’s usually in the overnight hours, when my wife and the cats are asleep. I miss the in-person meetings of the Silent Book Club. When they resume, I think I’ll invite someone new …

Our latest combined reading list is a veritable Jólabókaflóðið (’tis the season!) of bookish delights. 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).

• Home of the Floating Lily by Silmy Abdullah
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, narrated by Stephen Fry (audiobook)
• Even Greater Mistakes: Stories by Charlie Jane Anders
• Eating India: An Odyssey into the Food and Culture of the Land of Spices by Chitrita Banerji
• Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney
• Jayber Crow: The Life Story of Jayber Crow, Barber, of the Port William Membership, as Written by Himself by Wendell Berry
• Triple Cross by Tom Bradby
• Dirt to Soil: One Family’s Journey into Regenerative Agriculture by Gabe Brown
• Magnetic North by Jenna Butler, narrated by Marysia Bucholc (audiobook)
• Open House: A Life in Thirty-Two Moves by Jane Christmas, narrated by Dawn Harvey (audiobook)
• The Grandmother Plot by Caroline Cooney
• Try Walking Your Niagara by S. Cooper, J. Howard and T. Sewell
• Second Place by Rachel Cusk, narrated by Kate Fleetwood (audiobook)
• Murder Between the Worlds by Morgan Daimler
• The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
• Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee
• Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb
• Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden
• Revelator by Daryl Gregory, narrated by Reagan Boggs (audiobook)
• White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad
• The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
• The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth
• The Sweetest Remedy by Jane Igharo
• Sail Away by Celia Imrie
• The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
• The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell
• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
• The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes, narrated by Aoife McMahon (audiobook)
• Palaces for the People – How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• A People’s Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers by Victor Lavalle
• The Fox by D.H. Lawrence
• Bad Advice: The Most Unreliable Counsel Available on Grammar, Usage, and Writing by John McIntyre
• Denial by Beverley McLachlin
• Rizzio by Denise Mina
• Books of Liane Moriarty
• Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh
• A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa
• To Star the Dark by Doireann Ni Ghriofa
• How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
• These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
• The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner
• Duck Feet by Ely Percy
• 149 Paintings You Really Need to See in North America by Julian Porter and Stephen Grant
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym, narrated by Mary Sarah (audiobook)
• Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• Normal People by Sally Rooney
• In Five Years by Rebecca Serle
• A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve
• Rescue by Anita Shreve
• The Unwrapping of Theodora Quirke by Caroline Smailes
• A Beginner’s Guide to Murder by Rosaline Stopps
• Books of Elizabeth Strout
• Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor
• Best Canadian Poetry 2021, edited by Souvankham Thammavongsa
• Fight Night by Miriam Toews
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, narrated by Beata Pozniak (audiobook)
• The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, Marin Ireland, Dion Graham
• Lily by Rose Tremain
• Quiet Girl in a Noisy World: An Introvert’s Story by Debbie Tung
• The Strangers by Katherena Vermette
• City Unique: Montreal Days and Nights in the 1940s and ’50s by William Weintraub
• The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, narrated by Pippa Bennett-Warner (audiobook)
• Indian in the Cabinet – Speaking Truth to Power by Jody Wilson-Raybould
• The Newcomer by Laura Elizabeth Woollett
• Sorry, Please, Thank You by Charles Yu
• Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
• Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria

More book-related articles, resources, news, recommendations and more are often inspired or offered by our members and/or come up during our discussions and chat, including:

• Iceland started marking “the Christmas book flood” in 1944, when it gained its independence from Denmark. The Jólabókaflóðið tradition culminates each year in an evening of reading and celebrating book gifts on December 24th.
• If you don’t have a real one, a virtual fireplace will help you to create a cozy reading atmosphere wherever you are.
• The New York Public Library (NYPL) online shop offers the perfect mug for the beverage you’ll be enjoying with your flood of books next to your real or virtual fireplace.
• And continuing with the fireplace theme … Poetry of Resilience recently presented Hearth & Fire with Danusha Laméris and James Crews, along with guest poets Jane Hirshfield, Michael Kleber-Diggs and Kim Rosen. Enjoy a replay of this moving poetry event here.

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are always available right here for your enjoyment and edification, not to mention gift-giving ideas – even gifts for yourself, of course! New discoveries, old favourites and more – we guarantee there’s something in our generous reading lists that will keep your bookish appetite fueled.

You can also check out links to articles, interviews and more here – some with San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich, and some with us here in east end Toronto.

Learn more about silent book clubs via Guinevere and Laura’s Silent Book Club web site. You can find information on meetings happening around the world and close to where you live. Some clubs are currently on hiatus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats, and some are re-emerging carefully with in-person gatherings. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

Stay safe, stay well … and immerse yourself in a flood of books this holiday season!

Our latest silent book club meeting report is introduced by one of our long-standing members, Catherine Dorton.

Catherine Dorton is a Toronto-based editor and aspiring writer who is behind on her reading but ahead in her walking. Learn more about Catherine here.

“I’m 200 years behind in my reading.”
— Aleksandar Lemon, author, in conversation with Eleanor Wachtel

My sister visited me last weekend and calculated that, based on my pre-pandemic reading pace, I would need three years to get through my TBR piles, the three precarious towers that lurk in the corners of my living room. And these are only my “downstairs books.”

I know I’m not alone in this sweet hoarding of books. I’m drawn to other book lovers, and the east Toronto Silent Book Club is the perfect place to find kindred spirits. I’ve been a member for about three years — an old-timer! — and I used to love waking up on a Saturday morning, gathering my small pile together, and meeting at the local coffee shop to talk books. But what followed — the silent reading hour, where we committed to stay put on uncomfortable chairs amid the noise and distractions of the café — was a kind of transcendental discipline that I really miss.

We meet on zoom now, and I find I’m a little shy (read anxious). It’s a testament to the community that Vicki and Jo have built that I still come, though I often choose not to speak (putting “silent” back in the group’s name). Our wonderful facilitators have really upped their already superlative game by adding popups and even park meetups when the weather is fine.

This morning, a Silent Book Club Saturday, my husband asked me to go buy a Christmas tree, anticipating this year’s shortage. I explained my predicament. “But you have 12 months a year for book club,” he said, and I wondered for a minute if he was being reasonable. I decided not. I looked around my living room, at those piles again. If we lose out on the Christmas tree lottery, I have more than enough books to make a really majestic, eclectic, enticing DIY book tree and string it with some twinkly lights. A win-win!

Here, in all its usual glory, is our latest combined reading list. 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).

• It’s What I Do – A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario
• Science fiction selections by Stephen Baxter
• Shiner by Amy Jo Burns
• The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington, narrated by Sian Phillips (audiobook)
• Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
• Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers (audiobook)
• Open City by Teju Cole
• Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias In A World Designed For Men by Caroline Criada Perez
• The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave, narrated by Rebecca Lowman (audiobook)
• Things Are Against Us by Lucy Ellmann
• Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
• David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell (audiobook)
• Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden
• Benediction by Kent Haruf
• The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes, narrated by Aoife McMahon (audiobook)
• The Moor by Laurie R. King
• Palaces for the People – How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg
• The Red One, a short story by Jack London
• Denial by Beverley McLachlin
• Know My Name by Chanel Miller
• The Mesmerist by Wendy Moore
• No Man’s Land by Wendy Moore
• 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
• A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa
• To Star the Dark by Doireann Ni Ghriofa
• How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
• Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan (audiobook)
• The Son of the House by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
• Still Life by Louise Penny
• State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton
• Duck Feet by Ely Percy
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
• Body Surfing by Anita Shreve
• The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex, narrated by Tom Burke and Indira Varma (audiobook)
• My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
• Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor
• Fight Night by Miriam Toews
• The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
• Indian in the Cabinet – Speaking Truth to Power by Jody Wilson-Raybould

More book-related articles, resources, news, recommendations and more are often inspired or offered by our members and/or come up during our discussions and chat, including:

• Thank you to Paula Prober and her blog Your Rainforest Mind. Her praise of silent book clubs sent several new book club attendees our way this past month.
• Several of our members are eagerly anticipating the latest from Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob. Her new work is part of the 15 best historical fiction books 2021 list from The Times UK.

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are always available right here for your enjoyment and edification, not to mention gift-giving ideas – even gifts for yourself, of course! New discoveries, old favourites and more – we guarantee there’s something in our generous reading lists that will keep your bookish appetite fueled.

You can also check out links to articles, interviews and more here – some with San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich, and some with us here in east end Toronto.

Learn more about silent book clubs via Guinevere and Laura’s Silent Book Club web site. You can find information on meetings happening around the world and close to where you live. Some clubs are currently on hiatus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats, and some are re-emerging carefully with in-person gatherings. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

Stay safe and stay well, and as we exhorted all of you at the end of our last report: keep your reading supply chain flowing!

Our latest silent book club meeting report is introduced by one of our founding members, Kathy McCormick. Not only does she have great bookish thoughts to share, but she’s right in keeping with seasonal themes!

“I guess there are never enough books”
– John Steinbeck

I have been a lifelong introvert who also happens to be shy and suffers from fairly acute social anxiety. Not a great combination for living a large life out in the big wide world. Books have been a comfort to me since early childhood as I learned to navigate life in a world that expected much more from me socially than I would ever be able to give.

I freely admit to riding the social coattails of my much more outgoing and gregarious spouse for the past three decades. When she first came home and mentioned that one of our neighbours (the lovely @bookgaga) had invited us to join a local chapter of the Silent Book Club I have to admit my first thought was “no, of course not”. But once I found out that the meetings would be held at a local establishment and we could read whatever we wanted, well, I was finally willing to take the plunge. And readers, it has become a highly valued thing to me, with many new friendships resulting. I have been inspired to try books I would never have considered before and have appreciated insights and perspectives of the group. They are kind and considerate of every type of written word.

At this time of year, as the days grow shorter and we approach the winter months, my reading always turns toward the spooky, creepy and macabre. I love the Hallowe’en season. I have always been intrigued by the concept of things that exist outside of material reality. I have never understood the peculiarly western obsession with a materialistic worldview which dismissed anything that could not be measured, tested, documented and experimented on. I feel deeply my ancestral roots from island nations steeped in the lore of faeries and banshees, pagans and witches. Give me a good ghost story and I am happy any time of day (though will confess to having slept with the lights on more than once in my life). I am not too fussy about genre but there must be an otherworldly aspect to the stories. No slasher flicks or serial killers: human monsters do not interest me. Give me vampires, zombies, unknown creatures, chain rattling ghosts or books sent flying from shelves by unseen hands. The shadow seen out of the corner of your eye; that strange light in the sky; those footsteps heard overhead when you are home alone … yikes, I’m getting scared now, let me turn on all the lights …

Wait, did you hear that? … WHAT IS THAT!

May your reading and friendships light your way through the coming dark months …

Don’t be afraid to dive into our latest combined reading list! 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).

• His Very Best – Jimmy Carter, A Life by Jonathan Alter
• Willodeen by Katherine Applegate
• The Startup Wife by Tahmima Anam
• Eating India: An Odyssey into the Food and Culture of the Land of Spices by Chitrita Banerji
• World Engines: Creator by Stephen Baxter
• Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian (audiobook)
• An Image in the Lake by Gail Bowen
• Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht and David Hare
• Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
• How to Be Happy Though Human by Kate Camp
• When I Grow Up I Want to be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen
• Mary B by Katherine J. Chen
• Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng
• The Body in Question by Jill Ciment
• Don’t Look Down by Hilary Davidson
• Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
• What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad
• Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal
• On the Proper Use of Stars by Dominique Fortier, translated by Sheila Fischman
• Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
• Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
• The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, narrated by Dominic Hoffman (audiobook)
• The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield
• Present Moment, Wonderful Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh
• The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah, narrated by Julia Whelan (audiobook)
• The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (audiobook)
• Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild
• Field Study: Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium by Helen Humphreys
• Sisters by Daisy Johnson
• You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
• goodbye, already by Ryanne Kap
• The Shining by Stephen King
• Indians on Vacation by Thomas King
• Finna by Nate Marshall
• The Geometry of Holding Hands by Alexander McCall Smith, narrated by Davina Porter (audiobook)
• Flesh and Blood by Stephen McGann
• The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie
• Shaheen Bagh: A Graphic Recollection by Ita Mehrotra
• The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed
• Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro, narrated by Beth Fowler (audiobook)
• The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (audiobook)
• A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, edited by Ellen Oh
• The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
• There Are More Beautiful Things than Beyonce by Morgan Parker
• State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton
• Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto
• Do the Work by Steven Pressfield
• Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
• As For Me and My House by Sinclair Ross
• The Kindness by Polly Samson, narrated by Sandra Duncan (audiobook)
• A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson (audiobook)
• Flower Net by Lisa See, narrated by Elaina Erika Davis (audiobook)
• Grave’s End by William Shaw
• Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket
• Fight Night by Miriam Toews, narrated by Miriam & Georgia Toews (audiobook)
• Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
• Winter into August by Guy Vanderhaeghe (audiobook)
• Unreconciled by Jesse Wente
• Free by Lea Ypi
• Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, narrated by Joel de la Fuente (audiobook)
• Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria

More book-related articles, resources, news, recommendations and more are often inspired or offered by our members and/or come up during our discussions and chat, including:

• No debate. As this group proves meeting after meeting, audiobooks are part of a well-balanced reading diet.
• Some of us silent book club friends went on a poetry adventure recently, when poetry purveyor extraordinaire knife fork book held an amazing open house for its new east end Toronto retail presence at Great Escape bookstore, and launched some new poetry collections and chapbooks with readings in a lovely space.



• Present Moment Wonderful Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh offers mindfulness verses for daily living.
• Enjoy a podcast episode from the Poetry Foundation with poet Chen Chen (including interview and selected poetry reading).
• Check out these selected highlights and audio guide online features for the New York Public Library exhibition treasures.
• Need some last-minute literary costume inspirations?
• This replay of Jaspreet Singh’s moving reading from his memoir My Mother, My Translator is definitely worth a listen.
• Author Hallie Rubenfold offers insights into the connections between the drama series Harlots, The Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies and her book
• The Covent Garden Ladies.

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are always available for your enjoyment and edification – find them all here. New discoveries, old favourites and more – we guarantee there’s something amongst our reports that will keep your reading appetite fueled.

You can also check out links to articles, interviews and more here – some with San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich, and some with us here in east end Toronto.

Learn more about silent book clubs via Guinevere and Laura’s Silent Book Club web site. You can find information on meetings happening around the world and close to where you live. Some clubs are currently on hiatus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats, and some are re-emerging carefully with in-person gatherings. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

Stay safe and stay well, and let treasured books continue to light your way!

Our latest silent book club meeting report is introduced by reading powerhouse and double duty silent book club member Sue Wright. Sue comes from a long matrilineal line of bookworms and has also spawned one. She was a proud secondary school teacher of English, history, and special education with the TDSB, but for the past year has inexplicably been studying for an MSc. in geneaology.  Along the way she discovered that she is descended from Irish Travellers, chimney sweeps, fishmongers and at least one bigamist. When she’s not reading or discovering fascinating facts about her ancestors, she’s probably swimming or trying to persuade her dog, Ruby, to have a cuddle.

Being a bit of a loner, I’ve never been one for clubs. I don’t play sports, so I’ve not had to be bothered by racquets, golf or even lawn bowling clubs, but when my children were very small, I discovered the joy of sharing my hard to come by reading in a book club that lasted more than twenty-five years – longer than a lot of marriages. It was for hard-core readers – no wine or nibblies and rotating between members’ houses for us – over the years, observing our code of meeting in neutral spots, we met in some odd spaces including a whole year in a pre-school where we sat on nursery chairs. I knew very little about members’ lives beyond their opinion on books and authors; we came together because we loved sharing our opinions about what we read. When that book club ended, I resigned myself to a book club-less life (a book club widow?) because I am not attracted to nor would fit in to the average book club (although I am not eager to repeat the nursery chair experience).

Just before I gave up on any opportunity to spend time with other bookworms, Beth (Midtown and East End Toronto) started the Midtown SBC and oh what a joy that has been! I look forward to all our meetings (I also attend East End as often as I can) and have learned so much about books and readers in these kind, supportive meetings. I’ve been introduced to many new writers; my love of poetry has been rekindled by Vicki’s enthusiasm and support; my new bookworm friends with whom I found I share other interests have enriched my life beyond the page. An added bonus is that several of the old book club members have also migrated to SBC, including one of my erstwhile small children. Is there any better friendship than a bookworm friendship?

When I tell my racquets-and-hockey-type-clubs husband that it is Silent Book Club evening, he likes to perform a little skit in which he mimes opening a book, and points to its imaginary pages whilst simultaneously enthusiastically mouthing comments about the contents. It was quite funny the first time.

Over the past 18 months our lives have had to be lived in very different ways, and there has been much loss. I am very grateful that our warm, shared love of books and my SBC pals have not been a casualty, and I look forward to when we can read together again.

Our meetings today – on zoom and in the park – were not just celebrations of books and reading, but also of a community that supports its readers when individuals find their reading interest and tempo flagging. We’ve discussed previously how the pandemic has affected our reading (with suggested cures) … and sometimes the best remedy is just being with other readers, even when you’re not reading.

Our latest combined reading list is an early fall harvest of delights and sustenance. 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).

• I Remember Beirut by Zeina Abirached, translated by Edward Gauvin
• Postbox Kashmir: Two Lives in Letters by Divya Arya
• Sofie & Cecilia by Katherine Ashenburg
• Her Turn by Katherine Ashenburg
• The Women of Troy by Pat Barker, narrated by Kristin Atherton (audiobook)
• Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin, narrated by Keith Dinicol (audiobook)
• Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht and David Hare
• The Tradition by Jericho Brown
• Hard To Be Human by Ted Cadsby
• Follow Me In by Katriona Chapman
• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
• Decartes’ Error by Antonio Damásio
• Self Comes to Mind by Antonio Damásio
• What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad, narrated by Dion Graham (audiobook)
• Things Are Against Us by Lucy Ellmann
• Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
• Yes, I’m Hot in This: The Hilarious Truth About Life in a Hijab by Huda Fahmy
• I Was Their American Dream by Malaka Gharib
• The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
• Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
• The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
• Early Morning Riser by Kathryn Heiny
• Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild
• The Graves are Walking: the Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People by John Kelly
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• Papaya Salad by Elisa Macellari
• The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre
• Wintering
• A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa, narrated by Siobhán McSweeney (audiobook)
• A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
• Duck Feet by Ely Percy
• The Dog of the South by Charles Portis
• New Teeth by Simon Rich
• If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio, narrated by Robert Petkoff (audiobook)
• Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
• Let the Record Show – A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 by Sarah Schulman
• The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald
• Love & Courage: My Story of Family, Resilience, and Overcoming the Unexpected by Jagmeet Singh
• Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket
• Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui (audiobook)
• Unreconciled by Jesse Wente
• Revival Season by Monica West
• The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
• Crying in H Mart: a memoir

More book-related articles, resources, news, recommendations and more were offered by our members and/or came up during this meeting’s discussions and chat, including:

• On Monday, September 27th, make time for World in Verse, a virtual poetry reading celebrating Words Without Borders’ 2021 Poems in Translation Contest winners, in partnership with the Academy of American Poets. Here is the event registration information.
• The Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) happens online from October 21-31, 2021. They’ve just released the festival schedule, and it’s chock full of writerly goodness for every readerly taste.
• “The benefit is connection — connecting with fellow readers and introverts without needing to be an expert on any given book or genre.” So says Silent Book Club founder Laura Gluhanich. We agree, and can rhyme off lots of other benefits … can’t we?
• During our latest meeting, we had an interesting discussion about erasure poetry, inspired in part by this striking example by Twila Newey, erasing a section of The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson.

Boost your reading or gently reinvigorate your reading mojo with fodder from our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists – find them all here. We guarantee you’ll find something new or unusual, or maybe something old and familiar, that will spark your enthusiasm!

You can also check out links to articles, interviews and more here – some with San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich, and some with us here in east end Toronto.

Learn more about silent book clubs via Guinevere and Laura’s Silent Book Club web site. You can find information on meetings happening around the world and close to where you live. Some clubs are currently on hiatus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

Stay safe and stay well, in this world and the worlds that books open to us.