Whenever we send out the reminder for our next zoom meeting, our silent book club members respond swiftly and generously. Swiftly, because they’re keen to attend, share and catch up with the group and get some new bookish recommendations and insights (which, admittedly, is perhaps a euphemism for when a member is not able to make a recommendation, but can offer constructive and lively criticism). Generously, because even when members can’t attend on particular dates, they still provide their recent reading lists for inclusion in our blog posts – to share with each other and with the broader circle of readers who enjoy our posts and lists.

As we head into the autumn, we hope we can still augment our virtual book club meetings with some in-person joy. If the weather holds, we might still be able to layer up and head to Stephenson Park for some quality reading time under the trees. We still don’t know what the future holds in terms of indoor in-person meetings, at our not forgotten local, Press or other coffee/book shops. What we do know is that virtual meetings have afforded us the opportunity to enjoy elastic boundaries, where Toronto extends to Edmonton, Jersey City and Pontypridd … and we want fervently to keep up those bookish connections and friendships. We want to keep feeling the presence of our fellow readers.

Our latest combined reading list brims, once again, with variety and vibrancy. 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
• The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
• Pilgrim Bell by Kaveh Akbar
• The Startup Wife by Tahmima Anam
• Postbox Kashmir: Two Lives in Letters by Divya Arya
• The Women of Troy by Pat Barker, narrated by Kristin Atherton (audiobook)
• World Engine: Destroyer by Stephen Baxter
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, narrated by Shayna Small (audiobook)
• Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht and David Hare
• The Postman Always Rings Twice by James Cain
• Follow Me In by Katriona Chapman
• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
• The Skin We’re In by Desmond Cole
• The Madness of Grief by Richard Coles
• Bringing in the Sheaves: Wheat and Chaff from My Years as a Priest by Richard Coles
• Rain and Other Stories by Mia Couto, translated by Eric M.B. Becker
• Things Are Against Us by Lucy Ellmann
• Yes, I’m Hot in This: The Hilarious Truth About Life in a Hijab by Huda Fahmy
• On the Proper Use of Stars by Dominique Fortier, translated by Sheila Fischman
• Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
• I Was Their American Dream by Malaka Gharib
• The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
• Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
• The London Train by Tessa Hadley, narrated by Juanita McMahon (audiobook)
• Living Nations, Living Words poetry anthology, edited by Joy Harjo
• Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other by Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish (audiobook)
• Strangers in their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild
• The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs
• How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones
• Indians on Vacation by Thomas King
• The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King
• No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
• Papaya Salad by Elisa Macellari
• The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre
• The Winter Wives by Linden MacIntyre
• Edge of the Grave by Robbie Morrison
• The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary, narrated by Josh Dylan and Eleanor Tomlinson (audiobook)
• Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse
• Duck Feet by Ely Percy
• Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher
• Good Omens: The BBC Radio 4 dramatisation by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, narrated by Mark Heap and Peter Serafinowicz (audiobook)
• New Teeth by Simon Rich
• Love & Courage: My Story of Family, Resilience, and Overcoming the Unexpected by Jagmeet Singh
• White Teeth by Zadie Smith
• Wayward by Dana Spiotta
• The Secret History by Donna Tartt
• My Androgynous Boyfriend by Tamekou, translated from Japanese to English by Seven Seas
• Man Descending by Guy Vanderhaeghe
• Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese
• The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman, narrated by Emily Rankin (audiobook)
• Revival Season by Monica West

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:

• Bloody Scotland is Scotland’s international crime writing festival, and a great source of intriguing crime reads.
• The New York Public Library announces their Summer Writing Contest 2021 winners.
• From September 15 to October 15, the New York Public Library invites everyone to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month with Latinx book lists, programs and more.
• U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo offers her signature project, Living Nations, Living Words.

Fellow readers everywhere, boost your reading with fodder from our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists – find them all here. Perhaps you’ll come across new and unexpected bookish delights!

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, stay well, stay inspired, stay engaged with lots of books, glorious books!

Our latest silent book club meeting report is introduced by long-time member Kim Maxwell. Kim is a retired bookkeeper/income tax preparer, widowed with 2 children and 2 grandchildren. She is a long time Toronto East Ender and a fervent fan of audiobooks. Her many interests include life enhancement learning, the arts and travel. She inherited her love of reading from her mother who always said “If you have a book to read, then you will never be bored or lonely”.

I have always wanted to join a book club but felt inhibited by the required book selection and the fact that I am a slow reader. When I heard about the SBC in East Toronto, I was intrigued. Not only could I read a book of my choice but would have the opportunity to read silently for an hour without guilt. I rarely sat at home alone to read due to many chores that were beckoning. Hence my love for audiobooks. I could “read” while I worked, cooked, cleaned etc. – no time wasted and boredom at bay.

I have been an audiobook fan for many years. It started with being stuck in traffic on my way to work and discovering that listening to audiobooks helped me pass the time without frustration – the only downside was that sometimes I was so engrossed in the story that I missed my exit but that just gave me more time to listen. Audiobooks are becoming more mainstream now with an abundance of titles. Almost any book in print can be downloaded as either an e-book or an audiobook. At one time there was a snobbery with regards to reading versus listening; the former being supposedly superior. It was as if “listening” to a book did not count. Fortunately, that attitude has changed.

To me, the narrator is the most important feature of the book. If the story is dull but the narrator is excellent, then the experience is ok, a decent time waster. If the story is compelling but the narrator speaks in a monotone, then the book is only good for sleep inducing and you will wonder what all the fuss is about. But if the story is interesting and/or exciting with the addition of an outstanding narrator, then the experience is absolutely joyful. Currently, the trend is to use talented, versatile and often well-known performers to narrate these audiobooks. In my opinion, the voice makes all the difference to the audio experience.

My biggest surprise in joining the SBC was not the luxury of reading silently for an hour but rather being exposed to so many different authors and types of reading material. I listen intently to the reading choices of the other members, noting their reviews, both good and bad. I certainly have expanded my reading interests and have been introduced to quite an eclectic list of authors and titles. For me this has been one of the best benefits to my belonging to this book club.

Again this month, our silent book club meetings ranged from zoom gatherings from our homes and cottages to, thankfully, the great outdoors of our favourite local park.

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Our always generous reading list is especially extensive this month because it combines discussions from two meetings, a pop-up weeknight evening meeting and our regular Saturday morning meeting. 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).

• Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo
• Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar
• My Name is Jensen by Heidi Amsinck
• Nothing Ventured by Jeffrey Archer
• The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, translated by Philip Gabriel, narrated by George Blagden (audiobook)
• Postbox Kashmir: Two Lives in Letters by Divya Arya
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, narrated by Nadia May (audiobook)
• Windsor Knot by S.J. Bennett
• Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
• The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks
• The Tradition by Jericho Brown, narrated by JD Jackson (audiobook)
• Bearwalker by Joseph Bruchac
• This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection by Carol Burnett
• A Tiding of Magpies by Steve Burrows
• The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish
• The Longest Road, Overland in Search of America, from Key West to the Arctic Ocean by Philip Caputo
• Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter (audiobook)
• Heads or Tails by Lilli Carré
• Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi
• The Skin We’re In by Desmond Cole (audiobook)
• Chop Suey, USA by Yong Chen
• Nemesis by Agatha Christie
• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
• The Austen Years by Rachel Cohen
• The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
• Rain and Other Stories by Mia Couto, translated by Eric M.B. Becker
• The Golden Rule by Amanda Craig
• The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin
• The Bohemians by Jasmin Darznik
• Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline
• Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
• Miss Treadway and the Field of Stars by Miranda Emmerson
• V for Victory by Lissa Evans
• Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
• Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
• Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans
• Horten’s Miraculous Mechanisms by Lissa Evans
• The Searcher by Tana French, narrated by Roger Clark (audiobook)
• Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
• Just Let Me Look At You by Bill Gaston
• The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
• Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden
• Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
• Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory
• The Comfort Book by Matt Haig
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
• Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz
• Chop Suey Nation by Ann Hui (audiobook)
• Names of New York by Joshua Jelly-Shapiro
• Malibu Rising: A Novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, narrated by Julia Whelan (audiobook)
• Me by Elton John
• Indigenous Relations – Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality by Bob Joseph with Cynthia F. Joseph
• Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
• Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce, narrated by Juliet Stevenson (audiobook)
• Touring the Land of the Dead by Maki Kashimada translated from the Japanese by Haydn Trowell
• Grown Ups by Marian Keyes
• Intimations: Stories by Alexandra Kleeman
• Pie in the Sky by Remy Lai
• Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
• A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
• Papaya Salad by Elisa Macellari
• Duran Duran, Imelda Marcos & Me by Lorina Mapa
• When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain
• Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss, narrated by Christine Hewitt (audiobook)
• Outlawed by Anna North
• Hamnet & Judith by Maggie O’Farrell, narrated by Daisy Donovan (audiobook)
• The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
• A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry
• The Bees by Laline Paull
• An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears
• The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
• Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher
• The Sober Diaries by Clare Pooley
• Close Range by Annie Proulx, narrated by William Dufris (audiobook)
• The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
• The Duke and I by Julia Quinn, narrated by Rosalyn Landor (audiobook)
• Say Nothing: A true story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, narrated by Matthew Blaney (audiobook)
• Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
• Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
• Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
• New Teeth: Stories by Simon Rich
• Ant Farm and Other Desperate Situations by Simon Rich
• Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, narrated by Therese Plummer (audiobook)
• Not Dark Yet by Peter Robinson
• The Secret She Keeps by Michael Robotham, narrated by Lucy Price-Lewis (audiobook)
• Honey and Salt by Carl Sandburg
• A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg
• Love & Courage: My Story of Family, Resilience, and Overcoming the Unexpected by Jagmeet Singh
• Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford
• The Great Hotel Murder by Vincent Starrett
• We Should Hang Out Sometime by Josh Sundquist (audiobook)
• A Test of Wills by Charles Todd
• A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
• Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui (audiobook)
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams by Matthew P. Walker
• Stargazing by Jen Wang
• The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, BBC Radio version (audiobook)
• Still Life by Sarah Winman
• The Annotated Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, annotated by Merve Emre
• Version Zero by David Yoon, narrated by Kevin Free (audiobook)
• Some are Always Hungry by Jihyun Yun

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:

• The Sealey Challenge started in 2017, when American poet Nicole Sealey challenged herself and others to read a poetry work a day for every day in the month of August. I took up the challenge again this year and am in the homestretch, after also successfully completing it in 2020. Those taking part note their progress on social media using the hashtag #TheSealeyChallenge. Take a look and, maybe, dip into some poetry yourself.
• August is also Women in Translation Month (#WITMonth). It was initiated in 2014 by book blogger Meytal Radzinski. She grew up speaking English and Hebrew, and her multilingual family often encouraged her to read literature in translation.
• Book festivals around the world are looking at hybrid versions of their series, with online programs and carefully mounted, social distancing compliant live events. Some recommended by our members include the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Brooklyn Book Festival.
• As A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is much beloved by many of our book club members, it’s no wonder Towles’ latest, The Lincoln Highway, is highly anticipated.
• Lighten your heart with selections from the Comedy Women in Print 2021 longlist. This is the UK & Ireland’s first comedy literary prize.
• Who Said It: Pooh or Proust? Thanks to the New York Public Library for this diverting quiz.

Fellow readers, you are always welcome to boost your reading with fodder from our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists – find them all here. Perhaps you’ll come across new and unexpected bookish delights!

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, stay well, stay hopeful, stay immersed in wonderful, inspiring and rejuvenating books!

Our latest silent book club meeting report is introduced by long-time member Lyla MacAulay, parent and teacher in Toronto, avid and eclectic reader, and fosterer of many kittens.

This week during Silent Book Club, I thought about journeys and how far we have come.

When I was invited to join Silent Book Club, it seemed no small thing to haul myself from west to east Toronto. To read. Silently. Which I could do in my own cozy space. But I did it, and was richly rewarded by meeting wonderful readers and the amazing variety and depth of the books they introduced me to.

Fast forward to pandemic times. Vicki and Jo were heroic in welcoming us to Zoom, and while our physical spaces got more and more restricted, our book space grew and grew! Paradoxically, shrinking to a screen opened SBC to readers from southwestern Ontario to Wales. And we shared worlds in other ways; we had glimpses of shelves and kitchens, gardens and mugs, partners and pets, tantalizing views of each others’ lives that we would not have seen with our meet-ups at Press Vinyl (still on our radar!), or in the park.

It seems to me that in expanding our places and our members, we have expanded our hearts and imaginations. Our group is so supportive of the struggles we’ve had, and grateful for the time we have together, and I don’t think that would have happened as easily and inclusively if SBC was bounded by physical presence.

At SBC we all have a reading journey, and they aren’t linear! From meeting to meeting we wander through subjects and genres, we are fluid in our choices, and we are nudged into other paths by each other. Who knows where we are going? Inspired by The Sealey Challenge (a book of poetry a day in August), I started The Complete Poems of Cavafy. In “Ithaca”, Cavafy reminds us of the value in the journey itself.

When you start on your journey to Ithaca,
Then pray that the road is long,
Full of adventure, full of knowledge

This week’s journey, as Lyla has captured so beautifully, took us from our respective homes and cottages to zoom to sunny Stephenson Park.

Once again, this meeting has culminated in a positively overflowing reading list that will take you in many directions, on many wide-ranging journeys. 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).

• After the Spring: A Story of Tunisian Youth by Hélène Aldeguer
• This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart by Madhur Anand
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
• The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
• Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden
• Wenjack by Joseph Boyden
• A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
• The Toronto Book of Love by Adam Bunch
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
• CP Cavafy: The Complete Poems
• Greenwood by Michael Christie
• Don’t Look Down by Hilary Davidson
• The Mission House by Carys Davies
• Pandora’s Boy by Lindsey Davis
• The White Album by Joan Didion
• Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
• The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
• Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison
• Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan
• Troubles by J.G. Farrell
• Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald
• I’ll Fly Away by Rudy Francisco
• Yes to Life, in Spite of Everything by Viktor Frankl
• Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller
• Before the Ruins by Victoria Gosling
• Before the Ruins by Victoria Gosling, narrated by Kristin Atherton (audiobook)
• The Comfort Book by Matt Haig
• The Flying Carpet by Richard Halliburton
• The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
• Force of Nature by Jane Harper, narrated by Stephen Shanahan (audiobook)
• One Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
• Me by Elton John
• 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph
• Indigenous Relations – Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality by Bob Joseph with Cynthia F. Joseph
• Boy Wonders by Cathal Kelly
• Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marian Keyes
• DreadfulWater by Thomas King
• Planting: A New Perspective by Noel Kingsbury and Piet Oudolf
• The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, narrated by Matilda Novak (audiobook)
• Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri, narrated by Susan Vinciotti Bonito (audiobook)
• Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
• Fatboy Fall Down by Rabindranath Maharaj, narrated by Errol Sitahal (audiobook)
• The Tenants by Bernard Malamud
• The Natural by Bernard Malamud
• The Color of Water: A Black man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride, narrated by Andre Braugher, Lainie Kazan (audiobook)
• Deacon King Kong by James McBride
• Apeirogon by Colum McCann
• A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean by Tori Murden McClure
• Rick Mercer Final Report by Rick Mercer
• Righteous Victims by Benny Morris
• Summerwater by Sarah Moss, narrated by Morven Christie (audiobook)
• A Promised Land by Barack Obama (audiobook)
• Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
• The Switch by Beth O’Leary, narrated by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Alison Steadman (audiobook)
• The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
• Dad Up by Steve Patterson
• The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
• That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx, narrated by Arliss Howard (audiobook)
• Spaceship to the Universe: The Story of Libraries by Shruthi Rao and Anuradha Jagalur
• New Teeth: Stories by Simon Rich
• The Shardlake Series by C.J. Sansom
• The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald
• The Thing About Life is That One Day You’ll be Dead by David Shields
• Meet Me in Another Life by Catriona Silvey
• The Train by Georges Simenon
• The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin by Georges Simenon
• Love & Courage by Jagmeet Singh
• The Life of the Mind by Christine Smallwood
• The Book of David by David Steinberg
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, narrated by Beata Pozniak (audiobook)
• A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead
• Love After The End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead
• Personals by Ian Williams
• The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, narrated by Pippa Bennett-Warner (audiobook)
• A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman
• Tin Man by Sarah Winman
• The Plague Year: America in the Time of COVID by Lawrence Wright
• Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
• Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots, narrated by Alex McKenna (audiobook)

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:

• The Sealey Challenge started in 2017, when American poet Nicole Sealey challenged herself and others to read a poetry work a day for every day in the month of August. All who take part (I’m taking up the challenge again this year, after successfully completing it in 2020) note their progress on social media using the hashtag #TheSealeyChallenge. Follow along … and, maybe, dip into some poetry yourself this upcoming month.
• Books admired and beloved by this silent book club group have surfaced on the Booker Prize longlist – take a look!
• The Kitchener Public Library was an important and formative part of one silent book club member’s early years as a reader … and is an important resource today for another member we were fortunate to have join us online since the start of the pandemic.
• East end Toronto booklovers rejoice! The Scribe is a new bookstore addition (antiquarian) to the Danforth, near Chester.

Our fellow readers – don’t forget, you’re all part of a vast underground network for goodness at work in the world – are invited to boost their reading with fodder from our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists – find them all here. Perhaps you’ll come across the unexpected!

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 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.

Stay safe, stay well, stay hopeful, stay utterly engrossed in great and rejuvenating books!

Our latest silent book club meeting report is introduced by the easternmost member of our east end Toronto group – Kathryn Eastman of Pontypridd, Wales. Moving “in real life” gatherings online has been challenging and fraught, whether for business, personal or pleasure – but it has not been without its wonderful opportunities. We’ve discovered that we can fling the doors of our gatherings wide open to welcome guests from, well, anywhere. That’s how we and many silent book club groups have enjoyed the connections with and insights from readers far outside our physical neighbourhoods.

Because we connected first with dear Kath via her vibrant and book voracious presence online, it’s perhaps apropos to riff off her Twitter bio to present her here. She’s a … Writer. Book Squirrel. Bookblogger. Tea drinker. Chocoholic. Rugby fan. Collects Pontypool RFC supporters’ stories. Nuts about squirrels h/t @squizzey. You can learn more about Kath and Squizzey, her bookish partner in crime, and relish her book previews and reviews via Nut Press.

When Bookgaga (as I then knew her) invited me to join a silent book club meeting back in November 2020, I confess I had little idea what one was. I mean, I knew what a book club was, and I’d seen photos from the socially-distanced meetings held in Toronto’s Stephenson Park but the silent aspect of it? Not so much. How did that work, I wondered, and why silent?

Was Silent Book Club founded by librarians (frustrated or real, aspirational or retired) who delight in shushing its members, while spending time reorganising their book stacks? Did members play suitably muted games of charades for everyone to guess what they were reading each month? Or was this a cover, no doubt gloriously embossed with gold foil and beautiful endpapers, for some strange bookish cult? And, even if it was, how odd could that be, given it involved books?! “Count me in,” I told her. “I’d love to come along.” And shortly afterwards, I received my invitation complete with secret codes and unique password. (If you read more non-fiction than I do, you might call this a Zoom meeting invite.)

Five minutes before the meeting started, I had a fleeting moment of panic, thinking, ‘What are you doing? You’re about to go into an online meeting with complete and utter strangers, apart from Bookgaga, who you ONLY know through Twitter, by the way. What if she’s late or doesn’t show up? How awkward is this going to be?’ But before I had time to gather any momentum from chanting “They’re book people, book people are good people,” I was in. I’d zoomed across the Atlantic Ocean to the East End of Toronto from my hillside home here in South Wales and landed in my first silent book club. All while being in lockdown with a global pandemic raging around us.

I’m not sure if the first rule of silent book club is not to talk about what goes on in silent book club but, given covid travel restrictions and the miles between us, what the heck, I’ll share this little nugget with you: silent book club meetings are not as silent as I initially thought. Gently nudged by Jo, who expertly facilitates the meetings together with Vicki (aka Bookgaga on Twitter), everyone shares what they’ve been reading since the last time they met. We have about 3 or 4 minutes each, and are on mute until we’re up. And here’s your little moment of zen … There’s no pressure to do that. You can simply log on and listen while everyone else shares, if that’s what you want to do.

Silent book club is as calm and relaxed as anything because you don’t have a set book to read before each meeting (as with other book groups), so you choose what to read and report back on. Canny members refer to a book list, while others have notes jotted down about their reading choices. I really need to start doing this because I get about as excited as a new puppy when I see everyone and (enthusiastically but probably pretty incoherently) babble on about the books I’ve read when it’s my turn. Speaking of pups, pets are warmly welcomed whenever they join meetings, whether they’re on time and there from the start, drop in or out, or crash them part-way through.

Once the meeting’s over – and here’s what makes it a silent book club – everyone’s invited to spend an hour reading. And I love this: the idea that I’m curled up on my sofa, reading the book I was just talking about, while the others are all settling down with theirs and doing the same over in Toronto warms my bookish heart. Reading is usually such a solitary occupation, how wonderful to know that you’re in good company instead? In pre-Covid times, I think the club met up in a coffee shop and would stay on to read there, or head over to Stephenson Park for an open-air session. As the Canadian Autumn (or do you say Fall?) turned into Winter, it was photos of those hardy souls meeting up OUTSIDE to share their love of books and reading that first captured my admiration.

Happily, the Saturday meetings niftily side-stepped any clashes with Wales rugby matches (crucial to securing my attendance at anything during International seasons) and being a night owl means that I am (usually – sorry about missing the last one, folks!) wide awake for the mid-week meetings scheduled for 7pm Toronto time which is midnight here in Wales.

Since that first meeting back in November, I’ve joined as many of the group’s meetings as I can while they continue to be held online. And, for the first time since the pandemic began, I’ve found myself wishing for lockdown restrictions to last a little longer, so that we can have the next meeting. And maybe the one after that …?

I have loved every single minute of my initiation into silent book clubs. It’s been fascinating to meet an entirely new group of people and get to know them through their books: the way they talk about the ones they’re reading; what they choose to start, finish, abandon or avoid; as well as how they find their way to this author or why they’re interested in reading about that particular subject matter, geographical area or time period. They’ve introduced me to new authors and fiction, particularly Indigenous authors and their work, and made me even more aware of what a wealth of reading there is out there, riches simply waiting for us to discover and mine.

Bookgaga and I joke that the East end Toronto silent book club extended beyond its borders to incorporate Wales, and have even dubbed it the Far Eastern Reaches in our emails. Thanks to the internet, a global pandemic forcing events and meetings online (one of the few positives to come out of this), as well as the wonderful woman who sent that first serendipitous invite, it really feels as if it has. I’m so grateful for the warmth, wit and enthusiasm with which I’ve been welcomed and to be a part of this friendly and relaxed book club means so much to me, in what’s been a tough year for all of us.

At some point, Bookgaga (the Twitter handle by which I knew her) became Vicki, and we went from being Twitter follows to bookish friends. This phenomenon is also manifesting itself among other silent book club members and I couldn’t be happier about that. I love the way in which books bring us together, whether we’re thousands of miles apart, separated by oceans, or living just a couple of city blocks away. They help us to travel, experience lives different from our own, meet new people and make friends, even with all the limitations imposed by a global pandemic. It’s where the true magic lies in joining a book club, silent or otherwise. Call it bookish alchemy, if you will.

Thank you to Vicki, Jo, and everyone at East end Toronto silent book club for sharing that with me.

As always, the books we share comprise a veritable cornucopia of subjects, formats, genres, styles and so much more. 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).

• A Long Petal of the Seas by Isabel Allende, narrated by Edoardo Ballerini (audiobook)
• The Push by Ashley Audrain
• Snow by John Banville
• Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work by Jason Brown
• Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
• The Toronto Book of Love by Adam Bunch
• The Toronto Book of the Dead by Adam Bunch
• Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
• A Life’s Work by Rachel Cusk
• The Bohemians by Jasmin Darznik
• D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths by Ingri D’Aulaire and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire, narrated by Paul Newman, Sydney Poitier, Kathleen Turner, Matthew Broderick (audiobook)
• The Family Way by Christopher DiRaddo
• Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
• The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras
• “Unearth” in The Best American Short Stories, 2018 by Alicia Elliott
• Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
• Poisonous If Eaten Raw by Alyda Faber
• Bossypants by Tina Fey
• The Beguiling by Zsuzsi Gartner
• Five Little Indians by Michelle Good, narrated by Kyla Garcia (audiobook)
• The Shape of Family by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
• One Ordinary Day at a Time by Sarah J Harris
• Sleepless by Romy Hausmann
• Crow by Ted Hughes
• Cover Her Face by PD James
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
• Boy Wonders by Cathal Kelly (audiobook)
• A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson, narrated by Maggie Huculek, Tajja Isen, Ian Lake (audiobook)
• Hum If You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais
• The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay
• Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, narrated by Frazer Douglas (audiobook)
• Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani
• Breath by James Nestor
• Letters from Johnny by Wayne Ng
• Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
• Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor
• Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
• If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi by Neel Patel
• That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx, narrated by Arliss Howard (audiobook)
• Salt Lane by William Shaw
• The Late Monsieur Gallet by Georges Simenon
• Grand Union by Zadie Smith, narrated by Zadie Smith and Doc Brown (audiobook)
• A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark, narrated by Pamela Garelick (audiobook)
• Memento Mori by Muriel Spark, narrated by (audiobook)
• Blindfold Game by Dana Stabenow
• Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann
• Ru by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman
• Reproduction by Ian Williams
• The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
• Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

During a recent silent book club virtual gathering, our group moderator Jo, who was zooming in from her backyard, was paid a visit by a curious possum. (They aren’t as ubiquitous as raccoons in this east end Toronto neighbourhood, but there have been more and more sightings of these somewhat scary-looking but very gentle creatures in recent years.) That visit has inspired our first list, courtesy of Awesome Possum, of non-human reading recommendations. Humans and non-humans alike are invited to explore and enjoy …

• Ticks and What You Can do About Them by Roger O Drummond
• Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot
• Appleblossom the Possum by Holly Goldberg Sloan, illustrated by Gary Rosen
• The Possum Always Rings Twice by Bruce Hale
• The Case of the Puzzling Possum by Cynthia Rylant
• Dead Possums are Fair Game by Taryn Souders *

* Awesome Possum refused to recommend, must less even read this title.

As always, we invite our fellow readers to boost their reading with fodder from our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists – find them all here. Perhaps you’ll come across the unexpected!

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 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.

Stay safe, stay well, stay hopeful … and, of course, immerse yourself in good reading as we all stay the course.

Todd Tyrtle is both a steadfast Toronto silent book club member and organizer of his own international book and tea chat online gathering, as you will quickly learn from his lively introduction to the latest Toronto meeting report. Todd is a wise and observant soul whose interests and activities are so varied, eclectic and vibrant that they almost defy categorization, so I’m going to borrow from one of his social media profiles to describe them further: blogging (at Go Outside Today), cooking, eating, cycling, traveling and doing a new thing every week for a year #52adventures.

I learned about the Toronto Silent Book Club back in 2019 from about as far away as one could: a Times of India article about one that had started in Delhi. Surely, Toronto, a city of readers must have something similar. A quick search proved me right. And so it was that in January 2020, I went to my first meeting having little idea of what to expect.

Some people imagine reading in front of a fireplace with a cup of tea while it snows outside. But from now on my view of cozy reading experience will forever be sitting in a room with other book lovers, the smell of coffee in the air, a scone in front of me with us all reading together. I love how my reading habits were shaken and refreshed. People were reading things I wouldn’t normally read and speaking about them so enthusiastically that I was moved to also try them. I owe my discovery of authors like Ali Smith, and Matt Haig to our group. Likewise, I owe my discovery of flash fiction and rediscovery of poetry to them.

And then, after two in-person meetings, the pandemic hit, and we were all banished to our little Zoom boxes. Even I, a big believer in the power of technology was unsure it would work but the meetings kept going strong, often meeting twice as often as pre-pandemic. Seeing how well it worked gave me an idea. If our attendees are no longer limited by our ability to converge on the same café at the same time, what could a silent book club look like?

And so, about a year ago, the International Book Talk meetings started. This group, consisting of people I’ve met in person, through blogs, or social media meets about once a month to talk about the books we love and our lives. Friends in Canada have talked about English and French books they’ve enjoyed. Others in India have talked about reading books in English, Hindi, and Kannada. A friend in Norway, born in India talks about reading a Marathi book about a famous musician.

It wasn’t long, though, before we realized that for us, books were merely a means of connection. Even with a smaller group than our Toronto contingent, meetings sometimes go up to two hours. Of course, we talk about books, but we also talk about our families, how we’re navigating the pandemic. We’re sharing stories of our childhood experiences in the US or how one person’s father in Pakistan started writing some of the first Urdu science fiction books after he retired. And sometimes it is the simplest of side discussions – what the weather is like where we all are – that it’s raining a little early in parts of Karnataka even as Toronto is getting snow in April.

Our small regular group has enjoyed this connection so much that we started inviting people to just join us. No book talk required. Just show up and enjoy the social connection. A couple of months after starting the book club, a second monthly meeting was started. This group has no agenda at all. Just show up and relax in a virtual living room. Bring a snack or tea and connect with other humans.

There has been so much suffering and sadness during this pandemic, but this group, that started with the idea of a “silent book club” was a blessing that will surely continue well beyond the end of the pandemic.

If we do say so ourselves, our combined reading lists never fail to amaze. As always, the books we shared run the gamut of subjects, formats, genres, styles and much more. 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).

• A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib
• Dangerous Women by Hope Adams (aka Adele Geras)
• The Iron Ring by Lloyd Alexander
• The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham
• Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Annappara
• Big Sky by Kate Atkinson
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
• The Secret World of Og by Pierre Berton
• Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
• Constant Nobody by Michelle Butler Hallett
• Value(s) – Building a Better World for All by Mark Carney
• Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
• The Queen’s Agent by John Cooper
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Blueshift by Joshua Dalzelle
• South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion
• Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
• Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck
• The Conjure-Man Dies: A Harlem Mystery by Rudolph Fisher
• Helium by Rudy Francisco
• My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi by Mahatma Gandhi
• The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World by Robert Garland, Colgate University
• Three Junes by Julia Glass (audiobook)
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
• The Humans by Matt Haig
• Mind Hacking – How to Change Your Mind for Good in 21 Days by John Hargrave
• A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
• Standard Deviation by Kathrine Heiny
• Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny (audiobook)
• Elizabeth’s Spymaster – Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England by Robert Hutchinson
• Fishnet by Kirstin Innes
• Mirrorland by Carol Johnstone
• Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
• Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur
• How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi
• Off the Road: Explorers, Vans, and Life Off the Beaten Track, edited by Robert Klanten, Maximilian Funk, and Sven Ehmann
• The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence
• Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie, narrated by Robin Eller et al (audiobook)
• The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy (audiobook)
• The Last Stargazers by Emily Levesque (audiobook)
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson
• Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
• The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
• Wintering by Katherine May
• Swim Home – Searching for the Wild Girl of Champagne by Kathleen McDonnell
• When We Were Young, edited by Stuart McLean
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, narrated by Frankie Corzo (audiobook)
• Elmet by Fiona Mozley (audiobook)
• Shouting at the Rain by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
• The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
• The Twilight series by Stephenie Myer
• The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri
• Us by David Nicholls
• A Promised Land by Barack Obama
• Hamnet and Judith by Maggie O’Farrell
• Camper Rehab by Chris Peterson
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• Little Housewolf by Medrie Purdham
• Excellent Women by Barbara Pym, narrated by Jayne Entwistle (audiobook)
• Ant Farm and Other Desperate Situations by Simon Rich
• Free-Range Chickens by Simon Rich
• Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
• The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell
• Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
• Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage by Dani Shapiro
• Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
• Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus by Lydia Sherrer
• You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero
• Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
• A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Sparks
• Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas, narrated by Dion Graham (audiobook)
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
• Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Death of Mrs Westaway by Ruth Ware
• A Match Made for Murder by Iona Whishaw
• Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang
• Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
• Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots, narrated by Alex McKenna (audiobook)

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

• Several of this silent book club’s members read with awe and enthusiasm Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe. His newest book is Empire of Pain traces three generations of the Sackler family, who pursued the American dream fueled by philanthropy and funded by the development of the painkillers that are now at the core of today’s opioid crisis. Keefe joins Toronto Star journalist Katie Daubs to discuss his book on Monday, May 31st in an online event presented by the Toronto Public Library.
• A recommended companion to The Overstory by Richard Powers is the documentary My Passion for Trees with actor Dame Judi Dench.
• The compelling adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad is now streaming on Amazon Prime – highly recommended.
• The TV series based on Us by David Nicholls is now streaming on CBC Gem – also highly recommended.
• Silent book club member Todd, who wrote this report’s introduction, also recommends the poetry of Rudy Francisco: “This poem by Rudy Francisco is excellent and got me started reading him.”

We invite our fellow readers to boost their reading with fodder from our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists – find them all 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 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.

Stay safe, stay well, keep your spirits up … and, of course, do your best to keep reading!

They always deserve it because they make us feel so good. However, I am going to minimize my usual rhapsodizing and fanfare about our recent silent book club meetings and great straight to the bookish deliciousness we shared in two warm, wonderful, witty online meetings this past week.

Our latest combined reading list blossoms, as always, with a diverse assortment of subjects, genres, styles and more. 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 Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (audiobook)
• We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (audiobook)
• Magnetic Field – The Marsden Poems by Simon Armitage
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• Beartown by Fredrik Backman
• The Cauliflower by Nicola Barker (audiobook)
• The Tradition by Jericho Brown (audiobook)
• Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
• More than Halfway to Somewhere, Collected Gems of a World Traveler by John Burbidge
• Constant Nobody by Michelle Butler Hallett
• Walking with Ghosts by Gabriel Byrne (audiobook)
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
• The Speed of Mercy by Christy Ann Conlin
• Vampire Never Get Old, edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker
• South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion
• Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi, narrated by Vineeta Rishi (audiobook)
• The Graves of Whitechapel
  by Claire Evans
• Helium by Rudy Francisco
• Heroes: Mortals and Monsters, Quests and Adventures by Stephen Fry (audiobook)
• Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
• Master of the Revels by Nicole Galland
• My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi by Mahatma Gandhi
• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, narrated by Carey Mulligan (audiobook)
• Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
• Mind Hacking – How to Change Your Mind for Good in 21 Days by John Hargrave
• The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls by Ursula Hegi (audiobook)
• A Net for Small Fishes by Lucy Jago
• The Summer Book by Tove Janssen
• This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do the Work by Tiffany Jewel
• Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
• Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
• By Its Cover by Donna Leon
• The Topeka School by Ben Lerner (audiobook)
• Monstress Vol 1 by Majorie M. Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda
• The Lost Words by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris (audiobook)
• With the End in Mind: Dying, Death, and Wisdom in an Age of Denial by Kathryn Mannix
• From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks
• How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
• Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan, narrated by Juliet Stevenson (audiobook)
• Paradise Regained by John Milton
• Voice of the Fire by Alan Moore
• Autobiography by Morrissey
• First Person Singular: Stories by Haruki Murakami
• The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri
• Hamnet and Judith by Maggie O’Farrell
• Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir by Kwame Onwuachi and Joshua David Stein
• A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (audiobook)
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
• The Mind has Cliffs of Fall: Poems at the Extremes of Feeling, edited by Robert Pinsky
• Ant Farm and Other Desperate Situations by Simon Rich
• Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
• Love, Lies and Hocus Pocus Beginnings by Lydia Sherrer
• Inspector Maigret Omnibus by Georges Simenon
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
• Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, narrated by Angus King (audiobook)
• Introducing Sartre: A Graphic Guide by Philip Thody, illustrated by Howard Read
• Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward (audiobook)
• In Tune: Music as the Bridge to Mindfulness by Richard Wolf
• Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

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

• The Philadelphia Library has a number of virtual book club meetings and related programming associated with their One Book choices for this year: The Tradition by Jericho Brown and The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. Learn more here.
• BBC Sounds is offering readings of Muriel Sparks’ works, by the author herself. Hurry here to enjoy A Far Cry from Kensington (abridged version) – it’s only available for a few more days.
• On May 20th, you don’t want to miss Nobel Prize winning author Olga Tokarczuk and author and translator Jennifer Croft in conversation, part of the Pittsburgh International LitFest Found in Translation events.
• To boost our young adult reading, silent book club member Sundus Butt has very kindly put together some great round-ups of mini reviews of recommended works. Take a look at her April and May selections.
• A fellow silent book club enthusiast from Seattle points out to us that Seattle Arts & Lectures (SAL) has created a Summer Book Bingo card for adults. Check it out here.

Boost your reading with fodder from our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists – you’ll find them 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 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.

Stay safe, stay well, keep your spirits up … and seek out a sunny spot and keep reading!

Toronto silent book club member (times two!) Beth Gordon offers this wonderful introduction to our latest silent book club meeting report. Lifelong reader, long-time book club aficionado, it is no surprise that she indefatigably attends and organizes multiple sbc meetings, for which we are all very grateful!

I’ve always been a big reader and dedicated member of book clubs. With other demands on my time, I gradually became less enamoured of reading “what everybody else wanted to read”, so when Vicki invited me to a Silent Book Club meeting, I was intrigued enough to make the 45-minute trip to her neighbourhood on a Saturday morning. What I found at Press Books was a friendly and welcoming group of random people, some previously known to Vicki and Jo, and some who had discovered it in other ways.

At about the same time, another book club which I had joined about 20 years ago was ending, largely for logistical reasons. Inspired by my experiences at the East End SBC, I suggested to some of the members that we start a Silent Book Club in Midtown Toronto. Because it was being held in a private space, my condo dining room, I didn’t really publicize it, but there’s been good cross-pollination with the East End group and we have a healthy membership. I have noticed that it doesn’t matter how many people show up – we always manage to talk for at least an hour.

One of the benefits of having to switch to online meetings, of course, has been that geography has not been as much of a factor. A friend from Vancouver now joins us when she can, and one of the chief players in the previous book group can now join us as well, since she doesn’t have to travel. What hasn’t changed is the sense of community present in each meeting, and since there are fewer opportunities to meet in person, I think we’re all a bit more flexible about social chat as opposed to “sticking to business”.

There are many articles online about Silent Book Club which describe it as “a book club for introverts” because of the communal silent reading aspect. You’d have to ask an introvert if that rings true for them, but I respectfully disagree with that limiting description. The discussions at the beginning of each meeting are lively and opinionated, and have introduced me to a variety of books that I would likely never have found if left to my own devices. And speaking of devices, there is very much a live and let live atmosphere as to how we all consume our reading material. I am an ebook devotee, because I don’t like to leave home without a book and it’s much more convenient to have one on my phone. Others are fiercely loyal to their paper books, and several are audiobook devotees. Although I prefer to read with my eyes, I’ve swung towards audiobooks as walking companions during COVID lockdowns. I probably wouldn’t have gotten there as fast without the recommendations of my fellow SBC members. The debate rages about whether one is obligated to actually finish a book once started, but opinions may be changing as we all cope with “lockdown brain”.

So I’m grateful to Vicki for telling me about Silent Book Clubs and inviting me to join her SBC community. It has definitely enriched my life over the past couple of years, and has been a big part of my social life lately. Now that the weather is warming up, I’m hoping that safe meetings in the park will soon be an option again.

Once again, our latest combined reading list brims over with variety, diversity and range. 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).

• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
• Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry (audiobook)
• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
• 50 Toronto Hidden Gems & Curiosities edited by Matthew Blackett and Dylan Reid
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
• Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
• the debt by Andreae Callanan
• If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
• If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino (audiobook)
• Against Amazon – Seven Arguments / One Manifesto by Jorge Carrion, translated by Peter Bush
• The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder Carroll
• The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
• Sweet Potato Soul by Jenné Clairborne
• How To Fake A Moon Landing: Exposing the Myths of Science Denial by Darryl Cunningham
• South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion
• Around the World in 80 Trees by Jonathan Drori
• A Bite of the Apple – A Life with Books, Writers and Virago by Lennie Goodings
• The End of Me by John Gould
• Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
• The Humans by Matt Haig
• Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks (audiobook)
• Thomas Hardy Selected Stories, chosen and introduced by John Wain
• Mind Hacking – How to Change Your Mind for Good in 21 Days by John Hargrave
• Miss Austen by Gill Hornby
• Rabbit Foot Bill by Helen Humphreys
• Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston, narrated by Aunjanue Ellis (audiobook)
• John Crow’s Devil by Marlon James
• The Summer Book by Tove Janssen
• Things in Jars by Jess Kidd
• Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
• The Last Stargazers by Emily Levesque (audiobook)
• Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation by Judith Mackrell
• The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt
• How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
• Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey (audiobook)
• Highway of Tears by Jessica McDiarmid
• Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan, narrated by Juliet Stevenson (audiobook)
• Shouting at the Rain by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
• The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri
• The Country Of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman
• Hamnet and Judith by Maggie O’Farrell
• The Switch by Beth O’Leary (audiobook)
• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
• The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
• Toronto’s Ravines and Urban Forests: Their Natural Heritage and Local History by Jason Ramsay-Brown
• When Everything Feels Like the Movies by Raziel Reid, narrated by Tom Picasso (audiobook)
• Free Range Chickens by Simon Rich
• Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
• The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan (audiobook)
• Bina by Anakana Schofield (audiobook)
• Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
• Inspector Maigret Omnibus by Georges Simenon
• Ethics in the Real World by Peter Singer
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
• Aristocrats and Archaeologists, An Edwardian Journey on the Nile by Toby Wilkinson and Julian Platt

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

• One member’s reading this past month included The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder Carroll. This led to an enthusiastic side discussion in the meeting chat about the joys and benefits of the Bullet Journal system, described in more detail here.
• Some of our members are reading and praising Nomadland by Jessica Bruder. The Oscar-nominated movie of the same name is an excellent companion to the book. Real-life nomad Bob Wells, who appears as himself in the movie, was interviewed recently on CBC Radio’s The Current.

Boost your reading with fodder from our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists – you’ll find them 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 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.

Stay safe, stay well, keep your spirits up … and keep reading!

That’s an awkward paraphrase of a lovely tweet from one of the attendees of our most recent pop-up silent book club zoom meetings. (We call them “pop-up” because we somewhat spontaneously announce these mid-week even meetings with just a few days’ notice, in addition to our regular monthly Saturday morning meetings … which used to be in person at our local coffee/book/vinyl shop, Press.)

Not only did the meeting runneth over with great book reviews and recommendations, discussion and laughter, but again, one advantage of our online gatherings is that our local neighbourhood/city borders are allowed to runneth over, too. This meeting, in addition to attendees from Toronto, we welcomed fellow readers from Edmonton, Alberta, Jersey City, New Jersey and our dear nighthawk with her squirrel sidekick in Pontypridd, Wales.

And oh, does the latest combined reading list from our group runneth over, too! 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).

• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, narrated by Lisette Lecat (audiobook)
• The Push by Ashley Audrain
• Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
• The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating: A True Story by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
• Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
• The Speed of Mercy by Christy Ann Conlin
• Scent by Isabel Costello
• Actress by Anne Enright (audiobook)
• Cary Grant, A Brilliant Disguise by Scott Eyman
• Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan
• Fierce Fairy Tale by Nikita Gill (audiobook)
• The End of Me by John Gould
• The Heiress: The Revelations of Anne de Bourgh by Molly Greeley
• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
• Rabbit Foot Bill by Helen Humphreys
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol by Anne Dowsett Johnston
• The Custodian of Paradise by Wayne Johnston
• Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal
• Grown Ups by Marian Keyes (audiobook)
• The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan
• Things in Jars by Jess Kidd
• Writers & Lovers by Lily King, narrated by Stacey Glemboski (audiobook)
• The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune, narrated by Daniel Henning (audiobook)
• A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
• The Drowned City by K.J. Maitland
• The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt
• A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
• Chainmail Bikini – The Anthology of Women Gamers, edited by Hazel Newlevant
• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
• Eight Detectives by Alex Pavesi
• The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
• Gutter Child by Jael Richardson
• The Apothecary Rose by Candace Robb
• Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson
• Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
• Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers
• Is This Anything? by Jerry Seinfeld (audiobook)
• A Short History of the Blockade by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
• The Assumption of Rogues and Rascals by Elizabeth Smart
• American Vampire Vol. 5 by Scott Snyder
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (audiobook)
• Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore, narrated by Cassandra Campbell and Jenna Lamia (audiobook)
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead
• Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead (audiobook)
• Field Notes for an Unintentional Birder by Julia Zarankin, narrated by Nan McNamara (audiobook)
• Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

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

• Gamify Your Reading With This Readathon Board Game!
• New York Public Library national poetry month (April) events – These are all virtual events for which no library card required, although registration caps may vary by event.
• “Poem in Your Pocket Day” (April 29th) celebration resources
• The silent book club member who is tolerated by all the other members for an enthusiasm for poetry that runneth over (er, that’s me) posts a poetry excerpt on Twitter and Instagram every day with the hashtag #todayspoem. For National Poetry Month, I’m also transcribing the poems I read each morning and am sharing pictures of the transcriptions (via @bookgaga on Twitter and @vzbookgaga on Instagram).

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, 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.

Stay safe, stay well, try to stay sane (especially if you live in Ontario), keep your spirits up … and keep reading!