Our latest silent book club meeting report is introduced by one of our long-standing members, Catherine Dorton.

Catherine Dorton is a Toronto-based editor and aspiring writer who is behind on her reading but ahead in her walking. Learn more about Catherine here.

“I’m 200 years behind in my reading.”
— Aleksandar Lemon, author, in conversation with Eleanor Wachtel

My sister visited me last weekend and calculated that, based on my pre-pandemic reading pace, I would need three years to get through my TBR piles, the three precarious towers that lurk in the corners of my living room. And these are only my “downstairs books.”

I know I’m not alone in this sweet hoarding of books. I’m drawn to other book lovers, and the east Toronto Silent Book Club is the perfect place to find kindred spirits. I’ve been a member for about three years — an old-timer! — and I used to love waking up on a Saturday morning, gathering my small pile together, and meeting at the local coffee shop to talk books. But what followed — the silent reading hour, where we committed to stay put on uncomfortable chairs amid the noise and distractions of the café — was a kind of transcendental discipline that I really miss.

We meet on zoom now, and I find I’m a little shy (read anxious). It’s a testament to the community that Vicki and Jo have built that I still come, though I often choose not to speak (putting “silent” back in the group’s name). Our wonderful facilitators have really upped their already superlative game by adding popups and even park meetups when the weather is fine.

This morning, a Silent Book Club Saturday, my husband asked me to go buy a Christmas tree, anticipating this year’s shortage. I explained my predicament. “But you have 12 months a year for book club,” he said, and I wondered for a minute if he was being reasonable. I decided not. I looked around my living room, at those piles again. If we lose out on the Christmas tree lottery, I have more than enough books to make a really majestic, eclectic, enticing DIY book tree and string it with some twinkly lights. A win-win!

Here, in all its usual glory, is our latest combined reading list. The titles featured in each of our reports combine print and digital versions of books, along with audiobooks (which are indicated separately, with narrator/performer information where possible).

• It’s What I Do – A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario
• Science fiction selections by Stephen Baxter
• Shiner by Amy Jo Burns
• The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington, narrated by Sian Phillips (audiobook)
• Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
• Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers (audiobook)
• Open City by Teju Cole
• Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias In A World Designed For Men by Caroline Criada Perez
• The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave, narrated by Rebecca Lowman (audiobook)
• Things Are Against Us by Lucy Ellmann
• Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
• David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell (audiobook)
• Mrs Death Misses Death by Salena Godden
• Benediction by Kent Haruf
• The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes, narrated by Aoife McMahon (audiobook)
• The Moor by Laurie R. King
• Palaces for the People – How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg
• The Red One, a short story by Jack London
• Denial by Beverley McLachlin
• Know My Name by Chanel Miller
• The Mesmerist by Wendy Moore
• No Man’s Land by Wendy Moore
• 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
• A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ni Ghriofa
• To Star the Dark by Doireann Ni Ghriofa
• How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
• Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan (audiobook)
• The Son of the House by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
• Still Life by Louise Penny
• State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton
• Duck Feet by Ely Percy
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
• Body Surfing by Anita Shreve
• The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex, narrated by Tom Burke and Indira Varma (audiobook)
• My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
• Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor
• Fight Night by Miriam Toews
• The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
• Indian in the Cabinet – Speaking Truth to Power by Jody Wilson-Raybould

More book-related articles, resources, news, recommendations and more are often inspired or offered by our members and/or come up during our discussions and chat, including:

• Thank you to Paula Prober and her blog Your Rainforest Mind. Her praise of silent book clubs sent several new book club attendees our way this past month.
• Several of our members are eagerly anticipating the latest from Olga Tokarczuk, The Books of Jacob. Her new work is part of the 15 best historical fiction books 2021 list from The Times UK.

Our previous silent book club meeting reports (online and in-person incarnations) and book lists are always available right here for your enjoyment and edification, not to mention gift-giving ideas – even gifts for yourself, of course! New discoveries, old favourites and more – we guarantee there’s something in our generous reading lists that will keep your bookish appetite fueled.

You can also check out links to articles, 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.

Learn more about silent book clubs 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. Some clubs are currently on hiatus, but many are running virtual meetings in different formats, and some are re-emerging carefully with in-person gatherings. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

Stay safe and stay well, and as we exhorted all of you at the end of our last report: keep your reading supply chain flowing!