Getting our reading mojo working again … with a little help from our silent book club friends

As we observed – in Brady Bunch zoom formation – in recent online silent book club meetings, reading just doesn’t feel the same or offer the same solace and escape as it did before the world changed as it did. But by meeting and commiserating and try try trying again, we’re finding the words and the pieces and the books that are getting us back to what we love. And by getting back to what we love, we’re equipping ourselves to cope with whatever version of so-called normal comes next.

During our latest silent book club meeting, scheduled as a surprise “pop-up” outside of our usual schedule that everyone seemed to appreciate, we shared the ways in which we’re working to get back into satisfying reading grooves. One approach that seems to be working is rereading past favourites. Interestingly, it seems to be the comfort of the familiar, although not necessarily comfort reads per se that is clicking. For example, a couple of us coincidentally are rereading the short story collection The Progress of Love by Canada’s Nobel Prize-winning Alice Munro – and oh, what we’re discovering/rediscovering! Ms Munro is a truly wicked and incisive observer of human nature, and of the passions and frustrations that swim not far beneath the benign and mundane surfaces of the everyday. And oh, how bracing and energizing it is to return 20 (er, or more) years later to reread what captivated the first time with age and gained experience and, of course, wisdom.

Silent book club members have always touted the magic of certain magazines – particularly for long form pieces and journalism – for keeping up one’s reading momentum and enthusiasm. The New Yorker and The Economist are favourites, and others have mentioned and shared copies of West End Phoenix, Arc Poetry, The Walrus and Popshot Quarterly, among others.

Here’s a little bit of what and where our silent book club members are reading right now:

Beth's favourite reading spot

Jo's books and favourite reading spot

Liza reading Don Quixote

Rick's recent reading

Ruth's recent reading

Sue and one of her current reads

Vicki's books, reading spot and reading companion

Book-oriented puzzles help, too ...

While we all remain a little concerned individually that our reading enthusiasm and tempo is not quite what it was (but hey, it’s never been a competition), our aggregate book list is still rich, formidable and gorgeous. Here is the latest:

As always, you can catch up on our previous silent book club meeting reports (from our current online incarnation and our previous and lovingly recalled and anticipated again in-person version) 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. You can check out links to articles, CBC Radio interviews and more here – some with San Francisco-based Silent Book Club founders Guinevere de La Mare and Laura Gluhanich, and some with us here in east end Toronto.

Under the current circumstances, this text I put at the end of each silent book club report isn’t entirely applicable, but I’m going to repeat it with continued optimism anyhow:

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.

And the sign-off from our recent reports is, I think, still very applicable:

We will wait until we can again fling open our doors, venture out and gather in our communities. A silent book club meeting with friends and neighbours, held at and in support of a local business exemplifies exactly the kinds of freedoms we are foregoing now to get through these unsettled and unsettling times … and is where we’re all going to want to be when we get through this. Read well where you are now, be well and let books buoy your spirits and make the time pass swiftly.

4 thoughts on “Getting our reading mojo working again … with a little help from our silent book club friends

  1. Todd

    Two things are bringing back my mojo, I think. The first is just a matter of commitment. I *will* finish this book rather than getting distracted by a newer, more exciting sounding book. (A bad habit of mine pre-pandemic that seems to have worsened)

    The second thing is a change of routine. A couple of weeks ago I was lamenting to my partner, Sage, that I was reading SO much less. I blamed the pandemic. Where I might spend 3 hours a day on transit, much of which could be spent reading, now I was working from home. My commute to work is now a matter of seconds. Sage’s answer, as it so often is, is brilliantly practical: “Why not just have a commute here?”

    And so it is that every weekday morning, after showering, and making and eating breakfast, we route the audio from a Youtube video of a Christmas Day TTC Subway trip from Dundas to Dufferin Station to our Google Home speaker and sit down on the couch. The comforting sounds of transit fill the room and we read – and sometimes, unlike on the TTC, other passengers, furry four-legged ones, take their place on our laps for the ride. Something that makes this even better than the real thing.

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