Heavy spring rain did not prevent some valiant silent book club members from meeting this past weekend. No readers or books were worse (or soggier) for wear, and even though it was a smaller group, the list of books discussed and read was still rich and robust. As usual, each reader offered capsule reviews of what they had finished or were in the midst of reading – positive or negative, always constructive. The list presented here 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 was discussed. Mind you, each meeting’s list is a pretty good list of recommendations, as it continues to reflect a diverse and vibrant range of subjects and genres that might spark the interest of anyone keeping up with the club. And if you start a club yourself, I’m betting you’ll find the very same things!

(Photo by Jo Nelson)

• Protest Kitchen: Fight Injustice, Save the Planet, and Fuel Your Resistance One Meal at a Time by Carol J. Adams and Virginia Messina
• The Very Bloody History of Britain by John Farman
• The Neapolitan Novels (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child) by Elena Ferrante
• Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee
• The Mare by Mary Gaitskill
• Every Note Played by Lisa Genova
• My name’s not George: The story of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters by Stanley G. Grizzle
• Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells by Pico Iyer
• Chasing Light ~ Telling Stories by Valerie Jardin
• Single Exposures: Random Observations on Photography, Art & Creativity by Brooks Jensen
• The Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series by Val McDermid
• Teardown: Rebuilding Democracy from the Ground Up by Dave Meslin
• Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
• The Long Way Home by Louise Penny
• Glass Houses by Louise Penny
• The Jane Whitefield novels by Thomas Perry
• Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
• Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
• Gene Smith’s Sink by Sam Stephenson
• Forge by Jan Zwicky

(Photo by Jo Nelson)

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

We’ve enjoyed some recent coverage by the CBC, on the CBC Toronto web site and via a series of interviews across Canada with CBC Radio.

In addition to the CBC, our silent book club was included in a late 2018 feature about silent book clubs in the international news publication The Christian Science Monitor. Enjoy the article here. San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich are featured in the February 2019 issue of O, the Oprah Magazine, describing the club’s genesis and extolling its virtues as the concept and clubs spread worldwide.

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.

(Photo by Maggie Macintosh, CBC Toronto)

On Wednesday, May 22nd, I had the absolute pleasure to sing the praises of silent book clubs to CBC Radio hosts in St. John’s, Toronto, Fredericton, Calgary, Yellowknife, Victoria, Kelowna, Whitehorse and Edmonton. At the same time, San Francisco silent book club originator and founder Guinevere de la Mare (she and Laura Gluhanich started the first club in 2012 – check www.silentbook.club for the latest on the more than 75 chapters worldwide that are spreading the sbc love!) spoke to CBC Radio in London ON, Cape Breton, Winnipeg, Halifax, Vancouver, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Saskatoon.

So, I hope that means that friends across the country will soon have the chance to enjoy what I go on and on about every month – right in their own towns!

Enjoy my (dead nervous) interview with Reshmi Nair on CBC Toronto’s Here and Now.

Thanks again to Maggie Macintosh of CBC Toronto for making all this possible (and for taking one of my all-time favourite pictures of our group, above). Many thanks to our friends at PRESS Books Coffee Vinyl, and to all the avid readers who have supported our very special book club and have been such great inspirations.

Although it was still cool, the sun was shining and trees were blossoming as I made my way to silent book club this morning. Part of its many pleasures is that our meetings are held at an establishment in the neighbourhood (PRESS Books Coffee Vinyl on the Danforth in east end Toronto), a mere 10-minute walk from home. So much is so good about silent book club.

I’ll save this news for my next silent book club post because there is an off chance it won’t happen, but I might have the opportunity very soon to share the joys of silent book clubbing before a rather prominent audience. Our club is working to manage the wonderful attention it’s received recently, balancing welcoming new members while keeping each meeting to a size that is still comfortable for all attending. If I get the chance with this potential speaking opportunity, I want to use it to emphasize how easy it is to set one of one’s own up, in one’s own neighbourhood. Silent book clubs are about books and readers, but as we have learned, it’s also about community, fellowship and even sanctuary. Whether this thing happens or not, I’ll expand a bit on the topic in my next post.

As I mentioned in my previous post, when CBC Toronto turned the spotlight on our group, another great benefit of the coverage was that it helped shed light on other silent book clubs in the Greater Toronto area and others that are re-inspired to give it a try. I took time since our last silent book club meeting to check out one at Famous Last Words, a literary-themed bar in the west end Junction neighbourhood of Toronto. (Check out their silent book club and other event listings here.)

At Famous Last Words’ evening silent book club gathering (ours at Press run on Saturdays from 10 am to noon-ish), I enjoyed a Negroni instead of a chai latte, for starters. FLW is a pleasantly appointed bar that provides a couple of corner tables – almost like cozy booths – at the back for their silent book club meeting. The one I attended had five participants in total, including owner Marlene. One participant, an amiable 30ish fellow named George, was visiting Toronto on business for the first time, coming in from Boston. He was clearly taking every moment of his visit to explore Toronto – including acquiring a Presto card and actually making his way from his hotel in Yorkville to an event in Don Mills, bless him – and finding a book club gathering was actually on his list – bless him again. Did I mention that silent book clubs bring together very special people?

The book chat portion of the meeting was brief but collegial, and the book reading portion was warm, comfortable and undistracted. Between FLW and my subway rides there and back, I got a ton of reading done that evening. I’d go back, and I recommend it to others seeking other silent book club offerings in the Toronto area.

And now, this meeting’s book list, summing up all the titles presented and discussed within the group this month. (Per last report’s comments, I’m definitely cooking up an idea for consolidating all our booklists into one searchable format – stay tuned!)

When we go round the table before the silent reading portion of the gathering, each reader offers capsule reviews of what they have finished or are in the midst of reading – positive or negative, always constructive. Our list as I present it here 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. Mind you, I think it is a pretty good list of recommendations, as it continues to reflect a diverse and vibrant range of subjects and genres that might spark the interest of anyone keeping up with our club.

• The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom
• Sofie & Cecilia by Katherine Ashenburg
• Homes by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung (2019 Canada Reads runner-up)
• Welcome Home by Lucia Berlin
• The Wife by Alafair Burke (audiobook)
• No Bones by Anna Burns
• Canada Reads winners
• Watching You Without Me by Lynn Coady
• Black Apple by Joan Crate
• Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
• American War by Omar El Akkad (audiobook)
• Next Episode by B.D. Ferguson
• Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Writing by Don George
• The Assault on Reason by Al Gore
• 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist
• The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf (audiobook)
• Girl of the Southern Sea by Michelle Kadarusman
• Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
• Belonging by Nora Krug
• The Wheel of Life – A Memoir of Living and Dying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
• Deep River Night by Patrick Lane (audiobook)
• No Time to Spare – Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Spiderweb by Penelope Lively (audiobook)
• The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Girls by Mary S. Lovell
• Randy Craig Mysteries by Janice MacDonald
• Cast Iron by Peter May
• Three Silent Things by Margaret Mayhew
• The Path Between the Seas – The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914 by David McCullough
• Refuse: CanLit in Ruins edited by Hannah McGregor, Julie Rak, and Erin Wunker
• I Called Him Necktie by Milena Michiko Flašar, translated by Sheila Dickie
• February by Lisa Moore
• Roadmap to Hell: Sex, Drugs and Guns on the Mafia Coast by Barbie Latza Nadeau (audiobook)
• In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje
• The Library Book by Susan Orlean
• Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (audiobook)
• Women Talking by Miriam Toews
• The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe
• This Life or the Next by Demian Vitanza, translated by Tanya Thresher
• A Brief History of the Amazons : Women Warriors in Myth and History by Lyn Webster Wilde
• Night by Elie Weisel
• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

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

In addition to the recent coverage by CBC Toronto, our silent book club was included in a late 2018 feature about silent book clubs in the international news publication The Christian Science Monitor. Enjoy the article here. San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich are featured in the February 2019 issue of O, the Oprah Magazine, describing the club’s genesis and extolling its virtues as the concept and clubs spread worldwide.

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.