San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich were most recently featured in a wonderful piece on the NPR web site. Thanks to that fantastic coverage, lots of curious readers are googling “silent book club [city]” … and many more readers in the Greater Toronto Area are finding us. As a result, we arranged to do a doubleheader this month, with meetings on Saturday and Sunday at our favourite spot, Press …

By doubling the number of meetings, at least for this month, we were able to welcome some 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. We might be able to double up our meetings on occasion, but another way we can accommodate the enthusiasm for the silent book club experience is by helping others to start their own groups … and in that regard, we have some great news! A recent attendee at one of our meetings earlier this summer has started a group in the Mississauga area. Another regular attendee of our meetings is guiding a traditional book club of which she is a member to transition to a silent book club, and hers will be meeting in midtown Toronto. These groups are just getting off the ground, but if you’re interested in finding out more, please contact me for more details. Needless to say, we’re thrilled to see our group’s energy and enthusiasm spinning off into new groups benefiting more readers, local businesses and communities.

As always, before the silent reading portion of the meeting, we went around the table so everyone could offer highlights on their recent reading discoveries, delights and challenges. One fellow reader revealed that chancing upon Judith Kerr’s obituary in The Economist has opened some new reading pleasures that she and her children are sharing together. When I described part of the inspiration for Karen Solie’s latest poetry collection, The Caiplie Caves, another fellow reader nearly jumped out of her chair to insist she needed to read those poems, because she’s been to that part of the rugged coast of Scotland. Another fellow reader spoke with brief and moving eloquence about the joys of revisiting Alistair MacLeod’s short stories in Island. These moments and more are why the “non-silent” portion of our meetings seems to be as cherished as the silent portion.

The range and variety of books we highlighted, recommended, occasionally expressed dismay or disappointment about and devoted a concentrated an hour to … once again, the list is lush, delicious, lively, intriguing.

(Note: The list that follows now reflects books discussed in both sessions of our two-meeting weekend.)

• Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker
• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
• Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
• Something Fierce by Carmen Aguirre
• Daring to Drive by Manal al-Sharif
• MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood (audiobook)
• The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
• Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard
• How to be Sick by Toni Bernhard
• The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
• Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson by Mark Bourrie
• Original Prin by Randy Boyagoda
• My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
• Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon
• Changes that Heal by Henry Cloud
• Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
• The Innocents by Michael Crummey
• Flow – The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• A Mind Spread Out on the Ground
• Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
• Exile Quarterly
• The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
• 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
• In Pieces by Sally Field (audiobook)
• The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (audiobook)
• Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
• Early Riser by Jasper Fforde
• The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
• A Maggot by John Fowles
• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
• Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
• The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
• The Torn Skirt by Rebecca Godfrey
• Mister Sandman by Barbara Gowdy
• Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
• The Water Rat of Wanchai by Ian Hamilton
• 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
• Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Breaking Free – How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and My Father, Warren Jeffs by Rachel Jeffs
• The Son of a Certain Woman by Wayne Johnston
• The Clue in the Diary (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories) by Carolyn Keene
• When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr
• Bombs on Aunt Dainty by Judith Kerr
• The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
• That Time I Loved You by Carrianne Leung
• I Know my Own Heart: The Diary of Anne Lister
• Island by Alistair MacLeod
• Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
• The Path Between the Seas – The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914 by David McCullough
• Late Breaking by K.D. Miller
• February by Lisa Moore
• Alice Munro short story compilation
• The Whisper Man by Alex North
• Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill
• Dear Evelyn by Kathy Page
• The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett (audiobook)
• The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
• Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny
• The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny
• In Search of Lost Time Volume 3 – Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust
• The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
• Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney (audiobook)
• Bina by Anakana Schofield
• Theory of Bastards by Audrey Schulman
• Leaving the Witness by Amber Scorah
• Discovering Dorothea by Karolyn Shindler
• Autumn by Ali Smith
• Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith (audiobook)
• Aging With Grace by David Snowdon
• The Caiplie Caves by Karen Solie
• Becoming a Supple Leopard by Kelly Starrett
• Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
• Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
• Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method by Daniel Scott Tysdal
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
• Desert Queen – The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia by Janet Wallach
• Train the Brave: Tame Your Fear, Take the Chance, Dare to Live Big by Margie Warrell
• Worry by Jessica Westhead

Enjoy 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.

• CBC Radio’s Ontario Morning (starting at 41:20)
• CBC Toronto web site
• a series of interviews across Canada with CBC Radio, including Toronto’s Here and Now
• The Christian Science Monitor – Witty banter optional: The no-pressure, no-homework book club

San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich were most recently featured in a wonderful piece on the NPR web site (yes, National Public Radio, thank you very much!). Extensive and enthusiastic coverage silent book club coverage includes this piece 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.