Young aspiring musician Louisa isn’t sure about the phrase “fair dinkum” when she visits from Canada and hears her Australian uncle use it in the early days of her visit with him at a camp in the wilds of Tasmania. The phrase signifies not only approval but a warm vote of confidence. It can be applied to many aspects of Governor General’s award nominated author Michelle Kadarusman’s third middle grade novel, Music For Tigers.
Kadarusman weaves beautifully themes and issues such as environmental fragility and protection, understanding and respecting neurodiversity differences, reverence for family and history and more into an engaging and at times suspenseful storyline. Louisa’s initial reluctance about being sent to the family’s remote settlement in Tasmania for the summer gives way to affection for her uncle and neighbours as she learns about their involvement in the preservation of a rare, presumed extinct species of marsupial. Louisa, Uncle Ruff, Mel, who runs a nearby Eco Lodge and her son Colin are all fully realized characters with frailties and charms. Louisa’s ancestors and offstage Canadian family members round out the story with additional insights and emotional underpinnings.
Michelle Kadarusman orchestrates it all with compassion and storytelling verve. Music For Tigers is uniquely good and genuine, truly “fair dinkum” …!
Thank you to Pajama Press and Michelle Kadarusman for providing a review copy of Music For Tigers.
This blog post originally appeared in Todd Tyrtle’s Go Outside Today blog by Todd Tyrtle blog on February 29, 2020. I’ve gratefully reproduced it here with Todd’s permission.
In the late 1970’s, a new item was added to our elementary school’s daily schedule. “Sustained Silent Reading” or simply “Silent Reading” as the teachers called it. Classes would pause mid-afternoon and the entire class would read silently together – whatever books we liked. The idea was to encourage a love of reading – something I already had a great deal of. So for me, being given 30-40 minutes of my school day several times a week was like a dream come true. The class would become silent save for the occasional sound of a page turning as we all dove in to separate worlds. Some of us would read books from the Weekly Reader Book Club, others books we’d found at the library in the classroom. After some time, our teacher would quietly inform us time was up. Slowly the students would come back. Stuart Little would drive Kathy back to our school in his little car, Mike would wave goodbye to Harriet and Sport and catch a New York subway that mysteriously had a stop in our classroom, and Sam Gamgee and I would finish our second lunch and I’d say goodbye. For the rest of the afternoon, my mood would be influenced by having spent time reading a book I loved.
Decades passed, and during that time my reading waxed and waned with how busy my life was, and lately, how compelling the Internet, my smart phone, and social media were.
Ironically, one day last October my smartphone gave me a notification about a news story. With all of the data Google had, it knew I was heading for India soon and told me that something called a Silent Book Club was now regularly happening in Delhi. The idea was intriguing. Participants meet in a cafe and then, just as I remember doing in 1978, they sit together and silently read. Unlike many book clubs, there is no expectation that everyone will read the same book and discuss it. There is time set aside for optional discussion of books that everyone is reading and of course before or after the event itself, participants can socialize freely.
I did not find time to visit the club in Delhi, however I was very excited to read more about it. The idea, described on their website as “Introvert Happy Hour”, started in San Francisco 2012 and has since spread to dozens of cities in thirty countries.
In January I meet up with the Toronto chapter which meets at a bookstore / cafe / record store called Press Books, Coffee, and Vinyl, a cozy spot smelling of a delicious combination of used books and coffee. Several tables are pushed together with space for about a dozen people. I’m warmly welcomed by Vicki, the organizer, and introduced to several of the other participants. I grab a coffee and a scone and take a seat.
Though I’d read some time ago about the Toronto chapter’s activities, I’d forgotten the agenda and was a bit taken off guard by the format. Every meeting starts by going around the table. Each participant introduces themselves and then has 2-3 minutes to talk about what they’ve read recently and what they are planning on reading today. I quickly make a few notes about what I had read earlier in the month and in December and then listen in to everyone else’s impressions of what they’d read recently. The diversity of books was so interesting and inspiring. (You can see a full list at the Silent Book Club’s entry for my first visit here). Up until now I haven’t had a chance to talk to many other people about what they’re reading and so I’ve relied on following my own whims as to what I generally enjoy. This has meant reading so many travel memoirs, a little self-improvement non-fiction, a tiny bit of history, and the occasional fiction piece. Hearing about the great reads everyone else was enjoying is doing an excellent job of getting me out of the literary echo chamber I’d put myself in.
After everyone has had their chance to talk about the books they’d recently been spending time inside, it is time to read. We all go silent and I notice that Joni Mitchell has been playing on the cafe’s turntable. The atmosphere is lovely. It isn’t just reminding me of childhood Sustained Silent Reading time at school, I am noticing it is something that I rarely get to experience these days: the experience of sharing comfortable silence with others. Very often with friends and family there’s a sense that if we’re together there must be a conversation happening. This is most definitely not the case here. I’m happy to be in the room with others but I’m also happy to simply be able to read and share space with them.
Fifty-five minutes in to the reading, Vicki gently raps on the table signaling that we have five minutes left before our hour of reading together is up. I appreciate this little bit of notice as it allows me to gently return from my read. The five minutes pass quickly and we end the session with a series of photos of us with our books for sharing on the Toronto Silent Book Club blog – anonymized to preserve everyone’s privacy. I’m less concerned about my own privacy so I have a second photo taken that clearly shows me with my read.
For the curious – that book was hit and miss. There were some fantastic stories – and others that left me cold.
I have been to one more Silent Book Club meeting since then – this time with Sage who enjoyed it tremendously. The biggest thing I notice after this experience is how much I have enjoyed rediscovering reading. Over the past several weeks since the first meeting, I have read literally hundreds of pages more than I was regularly reading. And the more I spend reading, the more I notice others doing the same. A few mornings ago I had an impromptu “silent book club” experience at 6:00 AM on the bus as I joined a line of three other people all in a row reading our books together.
This experience, along with my visit back to 1987, has created ripples throughout my life well beyond this – watch for an entry on this subject in the very near future.
If you’re inspired to find a Silent Book Club chapter in your own area, check out the Silent Book Club map. And if there isn’t one, learn how to start your own here. To my friends in India: take note – there aren’t many chapters there yet, but I have readers in both Delhi and Bangalore (including HSR Layout and Whitefield) who may enjoy visiting those events. If you do, please share what it’s like – I’m very curious to hear how the chapters differ).
Last month, we presented our silent book club report and reading list with pictures of our meeting participants holding up the books they were reading and discussing. We rather liked that way of showing off our reading, so we’ve decided to do it again this month. As one participant emphasized, we wanted to show booklovers “cradling” their book treasures – holding them gently, delicately, protectively, like cradling an infant. Isn’t that a rather lovely, evocative and accurate way of capturing how we care for books and what they can mean to us?
No matter the composition of a particular silent book club gathering – there are unique alchemies in the different combinations of regular, occasional and new readers coming from different experiences and perspectives – each gathering seems to collectively speak to interesting recurring themes. In this month’s meetings, we touched time and again on how books allow us to immerse ourselves in the lives of others, ultimately allowing us to better understand both others and ourselves. (AbeBooks states it plainly and beautifully here.)
The following list encompasses books discussed with passion, read with joy and touted with enthusiasm over two meetings this Family Day long weekend. We present this list after every month’s gathering or gatherings, not only as a service to everyone who attends in person, but to extend what we share at each meeting to a virtual network of fellow readers. We invite you to explore the lists and pursue the books. Each title links to additional information about the book, either from the publisher, from articles about the book or author, or from generally positive and/or constructive reviews.
If you’ve so far enjoyed the silent book club experience virtually, are you tempted to experience it firsthand? 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. If you’re interested in starting your own silent book club or are in the Toronto area and perhaps interested in checking ours out, check out the resources on the Silent Book Club web site, or please feel free to contact me for more information.
Some snow swirling about did not deter us from making it to Press on the Danforth for two silent book club meetings this week. Really, we were quite cognizant that we had nothing to complain about weather-wise. We were grateful we could open our doors to get out to come to our meetings … unlike our fellow Canadians in St. John’s, Newfoundland, who were quite literally house-bound by the storms that hit their region.
Back in September, we hosted two meetings in one weekend to meet continued demand for the somewhat limited number of seats at our silent book club table. As we observed then, by doubling the number of meetings, we were able to welcome new attendees, still have room for our ongoing members, and not compromise the quality of our gatherings – or blow out Press’ walls – with too large a group. Then and now, we also encourage people to seek out the new silent book clubs starting to flourish in midtown Toronto and Mississauga. (Please contact me for more details.)
Another good reason to double up our meetings, when and if we can, is simply because we love them and they’re an excuse to help us through the winter. That’s why we’re doing just that this month and in February and March. So, enjoy this month and stay tuned for the next two months’ reports for especially bountiful book lists which will capture two days’ worth of great discussions and reading.
While we’re always looking to multiply our own bookish pleasures, we had another tremendous opportunity to extend the book manna our group enjoys with others. One of our members is involved in harvesting book donations for Canadian prison libraries, so our group, our generous venue and others gathered more than a carload of books for the cause. (In fact, the donation drive continues to February 14th if anyone reading this report is interested in contributing.) When we are not contributing to specific initiatives like this, we also contribute to the many Little Library boxes in this neighbourhood the books that have made the rounds in our group.
In addition to, as usual, extolling the virtues of the books we’re all enjoying, silent book club members touted this year’s Toronto Public Library Reading Challenge and an under-the-radar online book source, Book Outlet. Oh, and I modeled my recently acquired SBC hoodie (so utterly perfect for cozy reading) from the newly refreshed selection of Silent Book Club merchandise.
And then, after all that, we got down to some companionable silent reading together!
The following list encapsulates two meetings’ worth of books discussed thoughtfully, read voraciously and honoured with love and respect by truly avid readers (also captured in this month’s pictures of bookish affection). This list, presented after every month’s gathering or gatherings, is not only a service to everyone who attends in person, but it’s meant to extend what we share at each meeting to a virtual network of fellow readers – so enjoy! Each title links to additional information about the book, either from the publisher, from articles about the book or author, or from generally positive and/or constructive reviews.
During each silent book club meeting, we usually spread our books out on the meeting tables, and I take a few pictures (occasionally a video) to give a visual summary of what we read and discussed. For a change of pace, I took some pictures at this weekend’s meetings of our readers proudly and lovingly presenting their books.
As always, you can catch up on our previous silent book club meeting reports and book lists here.
We’re pleased and honoured to have been interviewed about the silent book club concept and how to start a club of one’s own.
If you’ve so far enjoyed the silent book club experience virtually, might you resolve in the new year to experience it firsthand? 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. If you’re interested in starting your own silent book club or are in the Toronto area and perhaps interested in checking ours out, check out the resources on the Silent Book Club web site, or please feel free to contact me for more information.
Early January, in that sweet cushion of time between post-holiday festivities and pre-back to work, has become a time I relish for contemplating my year past in reading and for absorbing and appreciating the musings of fellow readers as they share their own reflections. Interestingly, I find myself leaping/flipping/scrolling past the “best of” lists and instead gravitating more and more to the reflections about reading as exploration, revelation, often deliciously meandering journey, shared experience, opportunity to bust out of staid categories and forge new ones … and more.
Those who read steadily and think about reading inspire me, including Shawna Lemay, Kerry Clare, Tanis MacDonald (who, if you’re fortunate to be connected to her on Facebook, has done some mighty category-busting this year). Those who gather to share with delight and fervor their varied reading experiences, such as the generous attendees at two different silent book club gatherings I attended regularly this year, bring my reading enthusiasm and devotion to new levels every month.
Reading is not a competitive sport, but that doesn’t stop me from challenging myself (and, I hope not intimidatingly, others at times) … and this turned out to be a banner year, particularly after the struggles with which I contended in 2018. I read the most books ever in a year since I’ve been keeping track – 65 – and I came this close to considering posting a “10 best” list this year because some of the reading was that good. But I reminded myself that sometimes the setting and circumstances and company and more around each particular read often elevated what I was reading, and it’s those experiences I want to celebrate and strive to have more of in future.
In addition to my year’s reading list, I continued my commitment in 2019 to a daily devotion to at least one poem … and usually more, as friends on Twitter continued to generously share their poem choices and reflections via the #todayspoem hashtag. I’m now heading into my ninth uninterrupted year (that’s right, I have not missed a single day) of poetry tweets.
Another practice that heightens my weekly reading joy as I navigate through books is that of #sundaysentence, tirelessly championed and curated by author David Abrams. As I observed last year, seeking a weekly gem seems to sharpen my attention when I’m reading, and I love discovering new works through the #sundaysentence choices of other readers.
Last year, my husband arranged for my then 35-year-old book of books (in which I’ve recorded my reading since I graduated from university in 1983) to be beautifully rebound, by bookbinder Don Taylor. Now 36 years old, it is still the place I go to first to record my continued adventures in reading.
Here are the books I read and read aloud in 2019, with a few recollections of where I was when I was reading them.
“Knowledge didn’t guarantee power, safety and relief and often for some it meant the opposite of power, safety and relief – leaving no outlet for dispersal either, of all the heightened stimuli that had been built by being up on in the first place. Purposely not wanting to know therefore, was exactly what my reading-while-walking was about.”
I so enjoyed getting lost in the feisty and singular voice of reading-while-walking maybe-girlfriend middle sister in Anna Burns’ Milkman. This book was a steady companion for the first couple of weeks of the year, at home, on transit and at silent book club.
I remember reading this at home in a fairly swift and gorgeous swoosh. Helen Humphreys is consistently masterful at creating lush prose around sometimes unlikely subjects, this time the imagined life and thoughts of real life salmon-fly dresser, Megan Boyd, a craftswoman who worked for sixty years out of a bare-bones cottage in a small village in the north of Scotland. That remote cottage was visited by Prince Charles, an avid user of her uniquely crafted flies who made the trip there to present her with the British Empire Medal.
“He walks. That is his name and nature. / Rows of buildings, all alike, / doors and windows, people going in, looking out; / inside – halls and stairs, halls and stairs, / and more doors, opening and closing.”
Robin Robertson’s The Long Take is a singular and hypnotic blend of poetry and prose, sometimes starting as one and ending as the other in one paragraph, sentence or phrase.
From the very, very cold January night when Ian Williams launched his debut novel to a very cold night in November at the end of the Canadian literature awards season, it was a pleasure to cheer on Reproduction. The book is challenging in its experimental approach to how language on the page can evolve – clearly drawing on the poetry foundation of Williams’ oeuvre – and its cast of characters is thorny, but diligent readers are rewarded for giving this book full and concentrated attention.
Yes, dear readers, we read Wuthering Heights aloud … and its tempestuous plot and characters and often exquisitely overwrought prose made it a surprisingly entertaining experience from beginning to end. As the likes of Meghan Cox Gurdon contend – and my husband and I have known and appreciated for years – “Storytime isn’t just for young children”.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? Memoirs of a Literary Forger
Lee Israel
2008
In rapid succession, I read the book and then we saw the movie, where Lee Israel is portrayed unforgettably by Melissa McCarthy. Book and movie are an unusually well-matched pair of interpretations of an intriguing bookish tale and singular character.
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Kathleen Rooney
2017
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk made the rounds as a popular choice of our silent book club.
Nirliit
Juliana Leveille-Trudel, translated by Anita Anand
2018
Human Hours
Catherine Barnett
2018
This collection of sometimes rueful but always very grounded poems about everyday human frailties and foibles was one of my favourite poetry reads of the past year.
Living Up To a Legend
Diana Bishop
2017
(read aloud)
These are not the potatoes of my youth
Matthew Walsh
2019
“I get so worried when I see space news. I heard astronauts
incinerate their underwear and the ash falls to Earth.”
Couch potato by Matthew Walsh from These are not the potatoes of my youth
Indisputably my favourite title of the year, this was also one of my favourite poetry reads of 2019.
Belonging – A German Reckons with History and Home
Nora Krug
2018
This book presents an intriguing approach to a non-fiction/memoir piece tackling troubling subject matter. Nora Krug uses a beautifully realized illustrated / graphic novel format to confront her family’s wartime past in Nazi Germany. I came to this book by way of a trusted recommendation from a silent book club friend.
No Bones
Anna Burns
2001
This early Anna Burns novel was also recommended to me by the silent book club friend from whom I learned about Nora Krug’s Belonging – A German Reckons with History and Home. It was interesting to see Anna Burns building her craft to what culminates so exquisitely in Milkman.
The Perseverance
Raymond Antrobus
2018
The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus – moving, fierce, unforgettable – garnered awards and attention galore in 2019, particularly astonishing and gratifying for a debut collection. How wonderful that the work was shortlisted for the 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize, which means we got to see and capture a powerful presentation of his poems:
“You’ll know when the Queen of the Sea is here because she calms the waters and the clouds gather overhead.”
I enjoyed Michelle Kadarusman’s gorgeous middle grade novel Girl of the Southern Sea myself before giving it to a young friend. The book was a highly deserving finalist for the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Awards in the category of Young People’s Literature.
This book is astoundingly well-crafted, a perfect balance of contemporary family drama, intriguing and cautionary character study and flat-out pageturner suspense thriller. Lynn Coady has created something singular, giving us food for thought about how we care for each other and how life evolves and sometimes changes abruptly and demands that we cope – all while mining our deepest fears yet never losing sight of the value of human compassion and resilience.
There Are Not Enough Sad Songs
Marita Dachsel
2019
“Tell me, as we take in this splendour,
have we run out of firsts – the ones that glow,
that bring joy? Old friend, please say no.”
now is the season of open windows by Marita Dachsel from There Are Not Enough Sad Songs
"Tell me, as we take in this splendour, have we run out of firsts – the ones that glow, that bring joy? Old friend, please say no."#todayspoem now is the season of open windows by @MaritaDachsel from There Are Not Enough Sad Songs (2019 @UAlbertaPress) pic.twitter.com/lEOzybjRuX
Having just read Heave (again, another spot-on recommendation from a silent book club friend), it was a particular treat to then get an advance copy of Christy Ann Conlin’s riveting short story collection Watermark, in which one of the stories is a variation on the startling opening sequence of Heave (which, by the way, was written 17 years earlier).
Our annual cottage weekend with friends includes an evening of readings, for which I selected the Flannery O’Connor-esque story “Full Bleed” – whoa.
“For healing, esp asthma in a child: core out a hole in trunk, put lock of asthmatic’s hair in hole. Plug hole. When child has reached height of hole, asthma will be all gone.”
from Casting Deep Shade by C.D. Wright
At its very simplest a meditation on the power and presence of trees, C.D. Wright’s posthumously published Casting Deep Shade is a treasure with which to spend concentrated and devoted time as it runs the emotional and intellectual gamut and takes you through poetry, prose, folklore, technical and scientific discourse, history and much more.
“it’s no crime to resemble discarded inventory
not a crime to regard others
with what appears to be only basic species recognition”
An Unexpected Encounter with He Who Has Been Left Alone to His Perils by Karen Solie from The Caiplie Caves
"it's no crime to resemble discarded inventory not a crime to regard others with what appears to be only basic species recognition"#todayspoem An Unexpected Encounter with He Who Has Been Left Alone to His Perils by Karen Solie from The Caiplie Caves (2019 @HouseofAnansi) pic.twitter.com/FLKDRoxWPL
Spirited Janina is one of my favourite characters tromping determinedly out of the pages of another one of this year’s reading highlights. And again, it seems it was a great year for titles, too … this one stirs my blood!
“Air empties, but for the squeak of strings and the tap tap of wooden fists against the walls.”
And Yet, on Some Nights by Ilya Kaminsky from Deaf Republic
Unnerving, astounding, incredibly moving …
In My Own Moccasins – A Memoir of Resilience
Helen Knott
2019
Say Nothing – A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Patrick Radden Keefe
2019
(read aloud)
Patrick Radden Keefe has crafted an absorbing and compelling combination detective story and oral history out of one of the most heartrending of the unsolved murders during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. This was absolutely amazing to read aloud, too.
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann was not only the reading experience of the year for me, but it will remain as one of the most indelible of my life as a reader, I predict. The 1,000-page one-sentence tome capturing the rambling thoughts of a nervous pie-making mother and homemaker in contemporary Ohio could be dismissed and avoided on so many grounds, perhaps, but it is not to be missed. As she runs the gamut from recipes and grocery lists to concerns for her four children, love for her second husband, memories of her mother and other family members, anger and fear at the state of her home and nation under the odious shadow of Trump … and more … and more … and more … her voice doesn’t just remain in your head, it sinks into you at a cellular level. How her life seemingly inexplicably intertwines with that of a mountain lion tirelessly seeking the children that have been taken away from her turns the last pages of the book into a suspenseful ride that is almost unbearable … but by then, you simultaneously do not want it to end.
Even with its heft and awkwardness, I couldn’t help taking it everywhere with me … which means I’ll associate it with reading on the subway, in bed, at the cottage, at the blood donor clinic … and being utterly absorbed and entranced, no matter where I was.
“By the Don, beneath the bridge, gargoyles brought to earth, scale-model dragons and angels of revisionist history, beasts of Bay Street brought low and eye to eye with ideology and staghorn sumac …” Jane and the Monsters for Beauty, Permanence, and Individuality by Tanis MacDonald from Mobile
Who better than a poet to orchestrate uncommon magic on a gray Saturday morning in the heart of noisy #Toronto? Read the whole story here.
I Am Sovereign
Nicola Barker
2019
A new Nicola Barker is always cause for celebration, at least by this reader. This novella is signature Barker brilliance, and another step in her experimentation with breaking down the walls between characters, reader and writer. Utterly fascinating!
This captures, by the way, one of my favourite places and times of the day to read – breakfast on a working weekday, after I’ve done my initial check-in for email and work-related social media updates and have my working day mapped out.
Deborah Levy’s interview with Eleanor Wachtel in November at Revival Bar was peculiar and strangely recalcitrant, but Wachtel’s team ably edited it for broadcast. I love Levy’s work, so I tried to block out the odd interview behaviour as I read The Man Who Saw Everything and enjoyed it immensely. It’s the sort of book that I suspect I will go back to and glean different gems of insight with each reread.
Renaissance Normcore
Adele Barclay
2019
My Father, Fortune-tellers & Me
Eufemia Fantetti
2019
Night Boat to Tangier
Kevin Barry
2019
Kevin Barry offered a lively reading and generous insights to interviewer Charles Foran at the Toronto Public Library in September, still fresh in my mind when I read and was utterly enthralled with the book in November.
One of three rereads this year, Marina Endicott’s Good to a Fault has been calling to me for a while, and I’m so glad I heeded the call. This was a wonderful, affecting revisit.
Crow Gulch
Douglas Walbourne-Gough
2019
“All this hard living just to stay alive.
Nice to escape, though. This feather bed.
Dream up whatever life you want.”
Escape by Douglas Walbourne-Gough from Crow Gulch
"All this hard living just to stay alive. Nice to escape, though. This feather bed. Dream up whatever life you want."#todayspoem Escape by Douglas Walbourne-Gough from Crow Gulch (2019 @goose_lane) pic.twitter.com/6PyXVNwiN7
Spent some lovely time this afternoon reading the Something to Write Home About script in conjunction with this screening and talk (including info on the Seamus Heaney HomePlace @SHHomePlace) @JaipurLitFest in 2018: https://t.co/AZ1tGoBpGj
Another of three rereads this year, a final silent book club meeting during the holiday season helped me to finish this hefty but absorbing read. I was inspired to reread it after binge watching the superbly realized mini-series of the book. The first time I read this book (the book was published in 1996 and I first read it in 2003), Margaret Atwood’s voice was the narrator in my head. This time, Sarah Gadon as Grace was the voice.
Worry
Jessica Westhead
2019
In 2019, I read a total of 65 works, a considerable leap from my challenging 2018 reading year:
33 works of fiction (novels and short story collections) – the exact same as my 2018 total
21 poetry collections and
11 works of non-fiction.
I reread 3 books, read 3 works in translation, read one graphic work (interestingly, not a novel but non-fiction) and read 36 works by Canadian authors (again, surprisingly, the exact same as my 2018 total). My husband and I read 3 books aloud to each other this year and have another one in progress as we greet the new year.
I also kept track again this year of the publication dates of the books I read. In 2019, the oldest book I read was published in 1847 (Wuthering Heights, which was also a read-aloud book and, oh my, quite the rereading experience), and I also read a number of books published in the 1990s, further fulfilling last year’s intention to read or reread some more older books (a yearly practice I intend to keep up). More than half of the books I read this year were published in 2018 or 2019.
Currently in progress, heading into 2020:
Grand Union
by Zadie Smith
Arias
by Sharon Olds
I’ll Take You There: Mavis Staples, the Staple Singers, and the March up Freedom’s Highway
by Greg Kot (reading aloud, with gusto!)
For yet another year, I’m looking back fondly and with great satisfaction on my 2019 reading and looking forward eagerly to where my 2020 reading will take me. I’m grateful to the writers, publishers, reviewers and fellow readers who have spurred on and broadened my reading. I’m thankful for the bounty of beautiful words that came to me via so many conduits, evoking such an array of ideas, trains of thought, memories and associations, providing so much off the page, too, from solace and companionship to challenges and even healthy discontent.
I’ll simply conclude (as I always do) …
It’s not how many you read that counts. It’s that you read that counts.
The holiday season is meant to bring us peace and joy. Here’s hoping that been largely fulfilled so far, but of course the season can be fraught, too. I hope this bonus silent book club in the midst of the season brought some peace where other aspects of the holidays perhaps demanded too much or did not meet expectations. The warm conversation and the relaxed faces bent over books and reading devices suggest this extra gathering was most beneficial.
With pending new year’s resolutions on some minds, some titles discussed and read today are perhaps inspirational fodder, everything from 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food and Zero Waste to My Year of Living Spiritually and The Art of Living.
One silent book club member finished her year having completed a long term goal to read all of the CBC Canada Reads winning books. Well done!
Our silent book club members regularly inspire and challenge each other every month, in a variety of ways. Last month, I mentioned that I was rereading a favourite novel, which encouraged other members to revisit old favourites this month.
So devoted are our regular silent book club members that one of them emailed in a report of what she was reading while she was in the midst of her holiday travels. It was great to have her virtually at the table and to be able to picture her reading her book on a train travelling through mountains on the U.S. west coast as we gathered in our beloved coffee shop/bookstore in east end Toronto.
The following is this gathering’s gorgeous cascade of bookish delights. This list, presented after every gathering, is not only a service to everyone who attends in person, but it’s meant to extend what we share at each meeting to a virtual network of fellow readers – so enjoy! Each title links to additional information about the book, either from the publisher, from articles about the book or author, or from generally positive and/or constructive reviews.
Our dear friends at Press books. coffee. vinyl. thanked us with holiday greetings (and chocolate!) for continuing to make them our bookish and comfy home away from home for all our silent book club meetings.
There is no place we’d rather be, Press! (We suspect our perfect silent book club setting is the envy of other groups …) Thank you!
If you’ve so far enjoyed the silent book club experience virtually, might you resolve in the new year to experience it firsthand? 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. If you’re interested in starting your own silent book club or are in the Toronto area and perhaps interested in checking ours out, check out the resources on the Silent Book Club web site, or please feel free to contact me for more information.
With brimming book bags and hearts – not to mention dripping umbrellas – we assembled today for a pre-holiday season silent book club meeting. Respite perhaps from the pre-holiday season rushing and demands, let’s hope the tendrils of peace each silent book club meeting trails behind it might get us all through the holiday season. Certainly, there will be books in stockings and under trees with which we can individually recreate the delicious silent book club experience if we can’t get together in person.
Some meetings, interesting threads wend their way through our discussions and recommendations. This meeting, punctuation emerged as a recurring theme, ranging from Nicola Barker’s impeccable but sometimes jarring uses of punctuation (and capitalization) in Burley Cross Postbox Theft, to Ali Smith’s lack of quotation marks in Autumn to Gary Barwin’s unique veneration of punctuation in print and imagery in For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: New and Selected Poems.
How text and imagery intersect and complement each other came up in several readers’ highlights this month. In addition to the aforementioned For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe, one reader praised the beautiful melding of images with poetry and flash fiction in Popshot Quarterly. Another reader pointed out the power of the message in YA graphic novel Take It as a Compliment by Maria Stoian. Yet another reader remarked on the memorable collaboration of writer Michael Crummey and photographer Greg Locke in Newfoundland: Journey into a Lost Nation. And not to give too much away, but this holiday season some lucky recipients will be unwrapping Richard Wagamese’s One Drum, his posthumous volume of stories and ceremonies, because the wise giver was inspired after seeing the beautiful book, complete with colour photographs, at a previous silent book club meeting.
Strong women are at the forefront of many of the books highlighted and discussed this month, too many (how wonderful!) to encapsulate in one paragraph. Take a look at the list below, click on the links (which are always provided with additional book details and/or informative summaries and reviews) … and prepare to be warmed and inspired by the incredible feminine presence, fictional, spiritual, historical, contemporary and more, glowing through with such intensity in what we were able to cover in just a little over an hour’s discussion, thank you very much.
After more than two years of gathering for our monthly meetings, our silent book club group has grown very generous and trusting with sharing books. Volumes cross the table and make the rounds regularly. We’re now at a point where, after a book has passed through several pairs of hands, we often lose track of how the book originally came to the group. Because we’re in a neighbourhood well populated with lovingly curated Little Free Library boxes, it’s easy to drop off books from our group on the way home from meetings, so they continue to find new readers. This month, one of our readers took time to pay tribute to the Little Free Library concept and movement.
That same reader also took time to applaud another local treasure, Firefly Creative Writing, which is just a few blocks west of where we meet at Press books. coffee. vinyl. for our silent book club meetings. In addition to their warm and encouraging creative writing workshops, Firefly offers a periodic email newsletter with poems, thoughts on writing and more. This neighbourhood has some magical undercurrent of books and words and readers and writers happening, it seems …
On that cheery note, here is today’s diverse list of books presented with enthusiasm and delight during the discussion portion of the meeting, and read with equal pleasure and absorption during the cozy silent portion (yes, we do eventually stop talking …!) of the meeting.
If you’ve so far enjoyed the silent book club experience virtually, might you resolve in the new year to experience it firsthand? 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. If you’re interested in starting your own silent book club or are in the Toronto area and perhaps interested in checking ours out, check out the resources on the Silent Book Club web site, or please feel free to contact me for more information.
Again, like the blog post title says … Even though winter seems to have arrived early and fiercely hereabouts, that did not stop a healthy contingent of dedicated silent book clubbers from coming out on Saturday. Between Press’ delicious hot beverages and pastries, and the waves of enthusiasm as we went round the table, I’m convinced that all booklovers in attendance were thoroughly warmed up before the meeting adjourned.
It’s just such meetings – where we not only touted our good reads, shared with respect our not-so-good reads, and recounted adventures and encounters associated with our reading and book acquisitions – that I know are going to get us through the cold and snow ahead. How wonderful, then, that we’ve been able to double our scheduled meetings – two a month – from December to March. This winter is going to whiz by like a fast-moving skater or toboggan, methinks.
We come away from every meeting not only having shared good books and welcoming, generous company and enjoyed peaceful reading, but having learned a lot or been a bit surprised. As I jotted down book titles and author names during today’s conversations, I found myself also noting interesting terms and quotations. Just for fun, I’m going to weave into the book list some of those intriguing excerpts and snippets.
The silent book club member reading this book offered as food for thought the phrase “going for your 10” as part of the possible motivation for the protagonist in this memoir.
The silent book club member reading this book shared the startling opening line: “Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.”
One of the two silent book club members talking about this book during today’s meeting mentioned Haig’s bolstering words: “When depression slugs over me I close my eyes and enter the bank of good days and think of sunshine and laughter and turtles. I try to remember how possible the impossible can sometimes be”.
The silent book club member reading this book mentioned the term “burned over district” with respect to what led to this first woman’s rights convention. This refers to the western and central regions of New York State in the early 19th century, where religious revivals and the formation of new religious movements of the Second Great Awakening took place, to such a great extent that spiritual fervor seemed to set the area on fire.
If you’re interested in starting your own silent book club or are in the Toronto area and perhaps interested in checking ours out, please feel free to contact me for more information.
The title of this blog post kind of says it all. We’ve been meeting with friends, neighbours and fellow booklovers who have quickly become friends once or twice a month to share our reading enthusiasms and challenges, in the cozy confines of a favourite local coffee/vinyl/book haven … for two years! Here is to many more – friends, books, chai lattes, scones and more.
(Photo by Jo Nelson)
Without further ado, here is today’s eclectic list of books presented with passion and verve during the discussion portion of the meeting, and read with equal passion and commitment during the delicious silent portion of the meeting.
If you’re interested in starting your own silent book club or are in the Toronto area and perhaps interested in checking ours out, please feel free to contact me for more information.
“By the Don, beneath the bridge, gargoyles brought to earth, scale-model dragons and angels of revisionist history, beasts of Bay Street brought low and eye to eye with ideology and staghorn sumac …”
Jane and the Monsters for Beauty, Permanence, and Individuality by Tanis MacDonald from Mobile (2019)
Who better than a poet to orchestrate uncommon magic on a gray Saturday morning in the heart of the noisy city?
Poet Tanis MacDonald took a handful of us lucky souls on a journey on just such a morning in Toronto. Dressed for soggy, brisk conditions with the possibility of more rain, we walked from Broadview subway station south to Riverdale Park, across the park to a footbridge over the busy Don Valley Parkway. On the other side of the bridge, we slipped onto the Lower Don River Valley Trail … and into another world.
Even with the traffic roaring nearby, we were on a sylvan path, surrounded by trees and bushes in burgeoning autumn regalia, with birds of many feathers wheeling overhead. A kilometer or so along the trail and we almost literally stumbled on the mysterious site we were seeking: Omaskeko Cree artist Duane Linklater’s “Monsters for Beauty, Permanence and Individuality”, an installation of haunting cast concrete gargoyles. (Learn more about them here and here.)
The site and sculptures are some of the inspirations for poet MacDonald’s new collection Mobile, described so intriguingly and, to my mind, invitingly as “an uncivil feminist reboot of Dennis Lee’s Civil Elegies and Other Poems; an urban lament about female citizenship and settler culpability; an homage to working and walking women in a love/hate relationship with Toronto, its rivers and creeks, its sidewalks and parks, its history, misogyny and violence.”
There, in that moment of discovery, the perfect thing was for the poet to read the poem, amidst sculptures that mimic the gargoyles and grotesques that adorn municipal buildings, academic institutions and churches … and are arranged as if they dropped from the heavens and just lay scattered and toppled in the unmanicured grass and sumac.
We listened to the poem below the Bloor Viaduct, which vibrates with its own iconic significances. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds for the first time that morning, eventually exposing enough blue sky to make a sailor a pair of pants. (Hey, Tanis!) What surprising and potent alchemy in this collision of past and present, urban and natural, hidden and revealed, words, birdsong, traffic …
Young aspiring musician Louisa isn’t sure about the phrase “fair dinkum” when she visits from Canada and hears her Australian uncle use it in the early days of her visit with him at a camp in the wilds of Tasmania. The phrase signifies not only approval but a warm vote of confidence. It can be applied to many aspects of Governor General’s award nominated author Michelle Kadarusman’s third middle grade novel, Music For Tigers.
Again, like the blog post title says … Even though winter seems to have arrived early and fiercely hereabouts, that did not stop a healthy contingent of dedicated silent book clubbers from coming out on Saturday. Between Press’ delicious hot beverages and pastries, and the waves of enthusiasm as we went round the table, I’m convinced that all booklovers in attendance were thoroughly warmed up before the meeting adjourned.
