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.

• England, England by Julian Barnes (audiobook)
• The Only Story by Julian Barnes (audiobook)
• Harry Potter and the Art of Spying by Lynn M. Boughey and Peter Earnest
• My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
• The Long Call by Ann Cleeves (audiobook)
• Patience by Daniel Clowes
• Watching You Without Me by Lynn Coady
• Watermark by Christy Ann Conlin
• The Innocents by Michael Crummey
• Breaking the Ocean – A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Reconciliation by Annahid Dashtgard
• Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson (audiobook)
• The Rain Watcher by Tatiana de Rosnay (audiobook)
• Children of the Moon by Anthony De Sa
• The 30 Second Commute: A Non Fiction Comedy About Writing and Working From Home by Stephanie Dickison
• Rose’s Run by Dawn Dumont
• The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store by Cait Flanders (audiobook)
• The Witch Elm by Tana French (audiobook)
• Patterns of Empire – The British and American Empires, 1688 to the Present by Julian Go
• The Humans by Matt Haig
• The Radleys by Matt Haig
• The Mountain Master of Sha Tin by Ian Hamilton
• The Hole That Must Be Filled by Kenneth J. Harvey
• The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz
• Everything Under by Daisy Johnson
• A Small Person Far Away by Judith Kerr
• An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion by Dorothea Lange and Paul S. Taylor
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer by Arthur Lubow
• The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso
• Our Eyes, Our Tongue by Erika McKeen
• Circe by Madeline Miller
• The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton (audiobook)
• Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
• The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (audiobook)
• Popshot Quarterly
• In Search of Lost Time Volume 3 – Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust
• The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
• Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
• Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
• We are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer
• Autumn by Ali Smith
• Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout (audiobook)
• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (audiobook)
• The Break by Katherena Vermette
• Robert Capa, A Biography by Richard Whelan
• October by Richard B. Wright

(Photos by Jo Nelson)

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.