We returned to our comfortable coffee/book shop Press for the latest edition of our silent book club. Our usual table near the back of the top was full, including new members and another guest, this time from Red Deer, Alberta.

Everyone was clearly eager to share their recent and current reading – both the delights and the challenges – with the group. Another interesting evolution in the group since we started it almost a year ago is that we now share not only what we’ll be reading at the meeting, but what we’ve read since the last meeting. (One member who couldn’t attend this month sent along a list of her recent reading and I presented it to the group.) In fact, most of us bring a stack of books and happily distribute recommendations to fellow book club members.

A delicious dilemma arises from this enthusiasm. Our silent book club meetings are regularly scheduled on Saturday for two hours, from 10 am to 12 noon. The first hour is devoted to discussing what we are and have been reading and to exchange books, and then the second hour is for focused, silent reading. The idea is that by finishing by noon, people still have a chunk of Saturday to do regular Saturday errands and activities. We discovered at this latest meeting that we got into such a lively discussion in the “what we’re reading” portion of the meeting that we abbreviated the actual silent reading portion. I do think we want to ensure we have an hour for reading in future readings, but what do we do to still accommodate people’s Saturdays and finish by noon. Start earlier? Somehow limit the discussion before the silent reading portion? I don’t think we want to discourage that. Like I said, it’s a nice problem to have. I’ll report back on how we decide to resolve it.

We had a brief but very interesting side discussion this meeting about authors who seem more noticeably performative in terms of how they present their work. The thought was not that this was a necessarily bad thing, as many authors who seem to be this way can be very entertaining. One book club member made the distinction in thought provoking fashion: “people who write for an audience and people who just write.” Bookish food for thought, eh?

Here is this month’s list of books read and discussed. Each title is presented and discussed within the group with readers’ capsule positive, negative or mixed evaluations, and we do have cases of quite differing opinions amongst members. Note, though, that the list I capture from each meeting has no rating system, just a link to either publisher information or generally positive reviews or informational pieces. The list is not inherently a list of recommendations, just a record of what we discussed, for good, bad or indifferent. Does that make sense?

• Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright
• A God in the Ruins by Kate Atkinson
• The Little Black Book of Stories by A.S. Byatt
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
• Wise Children by Angela Carter
• Brother by David Chariandy
• Resilience: Two Sisters and a Story of Mental Illness by Jessie Close
• Chicken by Lynn Crosbie
• God of Shadows by Lorna Crozier
• Transit by Rachel Cusk
• Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
• Tread and Other Stories by Barry Dempster
• Heartbreaker by Claudia Dey
• A Long Time Coming by Aaron Elkins
• The Mitford Murders: A Mystery by Jessica Fellowes
• The Punishment She Deserves by Elizabeth George
• Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez
• The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
• Where’s Bob? by Ann Ireland
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Yamakarra! by Liza Kennedy and the Keewong Mob
• Dear Current Occupant by Chelene Knight
• That Time I Loved You by Carrianne Leung
• Nirliit by Juliana Léveillé-Trudel, translated by Anita Anand
• Fruit of the Lemon by Andrea Levy
• Small Island by Andrea Levy
• Birdie by Tracey Lindberg
• The Deserters by Pamela Mulloy
• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
• Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez
• The Girl Who Was Saturday Night by Heather O’Neill
• The Murder Stone by Louise Penny
• The Cruellest Month by Louise Penny
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
• Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
• Far to Go by Alison Pick
• The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
• Big Lonely Doug: The Story of One of Canada’s Last Great Trees by Harley Rustad
• Everything Rustles by Jane Silcott
• The Agony of Bun O’Keefe by Heather T. Smith
• The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell
• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

As always, you can enjoy our previous silent book club meeting reports and book lists here.

If you’re interested in starting your own silent book club or are in the Toronto area and maybe interested in checking ours out, please feel free to contact me for more information.