In the early days of the east end Toronto silent book club chapter, a member revealed that she set herself a limit by which, if a book was not captivating her in one way or another, that book went “over her shoulder” and she moved on to others. Life is too short, the tbr pile is too tall … ONWARD! It sometimes varied, but that limit was generally 50 pages.

That member’s forthright admission gave other readers permission: some to confess that they wanted to make that freeing toss from time to time, but couldn’t bring themselves to do it, and others to gratefully acknowledge that they did it but had never felt free until finding reassurance in our group to admit it. A smaller group of readers revealed that they simply couldn’t leave a book unfinished, as much as they wanted to from time to time …

Because these admissions come up regularly during our meetings, a wise member recently offered a handy acronym for the practice: POMS, for Pitch Over My Shoulder. And to be clear, this is a figurative expression (or at least that’s how I think we’re all using it), because even if a book does not please us, I don’t think any of our members would so callously mishandle a book.

So, do you ever POMS when you’re reading?

(Photos by Jennifer D. Foster, Helen Gunnarsson and Vicki Ziegler)

Every title on our group’s bursting-with-goodness lists means that at least one reader (and usually more) has given that title considered attention. That doesn’t mean, of course, that every work on our lists is expressly recommended. Inclusion on our lists always means that our readers have devoted time and thought to books – and that counts for so much!

• Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, narrated by Arian Moayed (audiobook)
• Boys in Zinc by Svetlana Alexievich
• TonyInterruptor by Nicola Barker
• The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry, narrated by Kevin Barry (audiobook)
• The Sellout by Paul Beatty
• Thursdays in the Park by Hilary Boyd
• The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
• The Elements by John Boyne
• People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
• Horse by Geraldine Brooks
• Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner, and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Mystery of the Age of Sail by Stephen R Brown
• Strangers by Belle Burden
• The Empire of Forgetting by John Burnside
• Free Day by Inès Cagnati, translated by Liesl Schillinger
• Crooked Cross by Sally Carson
• The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
• On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin
• Ten Poems from Wales, selected and introduced by Gillian Clarke
• Ghost Work by Robert Colman
• The Halifax Explosion: Canada’s Worst Disaster by Ken Cuthbertson
• The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld
• The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfeld
• The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
• There’s No Turning Back by Alba De Céspedes, translated by Ann Goldstein
• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
• Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev
• You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue
• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
• James by Percival Everett
• Question 7 by Richard Flanagan
• Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Empire by Ernest Frahm
• Five Found Dead by Sulari Gentill
• A Slowly Dying Cause by Elizabeth George, narrated by Simon Vance (audiobook)
• The Widow by John Grisham
• The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B Hughes
• Detective Aunty by Uzma Jalaluddin, narrated by Deepti Gupta (audiobook)
• How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir by Molly Jong-Fast
• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
• The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan by Yasmin Khan
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Names by Florence Knapp, narrated by Dervla Kirwan (audiobook)
• Independent People by Halldor Laxness
• No Time to Spare by Ursula Le Guin
• Anji Kills a King by Evan Leikam
• Hospital of the Transfiguration by Stanislaw Lem
• The Amateur by Robert Littell
• Green by Zachari Logan
• dig.8 / dig.7, edited by Jennifer LoveGrove
• The Paper Birds by Jeanette Lynes, narrated by Denice Stradlina (audiobook)
• Off-Leash by Dorothy Mahoney
• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
• Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews
• Wintering
• Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden
• Seeing Red by Lina Meruane
• Burnt Snow – My Years Living and Working with the Dene of the Northwest Territories by Kieran Moore
• My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
• Read Dangerously – The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times by Azar Nafisi
• Wreck by Catherine Newman, narrated by Helen Laser (audiobook)
• Fox by Joyce Carol Oates, narrated by Max Meyers, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Kirsten Potter, Fred Berman, Matt Godfrey, Gail Shalan, Rebecca Lowman, Rachel L Jacobs, Eunice Wong, Ina Barron (audiobook)
• Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, Crito (Oxford World Classics) by Plato
• True Grit by Charles Portis, narrated by Donna Tartt (audiobook)
• In Search of Lost Time Volume VI – Time Regained by Marcel Proust, translated by Andreas Mayor and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright
• Endling by Maria Reva
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ranson Riggs
• Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
• Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine by Padraic X Scanlan
• The Café with No Name by Robert Seethaler, translated by Rob Jones, narrated by Katy Derbyshire (audiobook)
• There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
• The Green Hollow by Owen Sheers
• Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
• A Simple Plan by Scott Smith
• Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
• Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa, narrated by Zoe Doyle (audiobook)
• Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte, narrated by Micky Shiloah, Allyson Ryan, Quincy Surasmith, Dan Bittner, etc. (audiobook)
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• A Season For Spies by Iona Whishaw
• If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies – Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares

We often have some extra book-related articles, resources, news and recommendations to share. These are items and tidbits that are often companions to books on the list, or are inspired or offered by our members and/or come up during our discussions and chat.

• Reading and writing can lower dementia risk by almost 40%, a study examined in The Guardian suggests. Cognitive health in later life is “strongly influenced” by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments, say researchers.
• Penguin Random House offers many great recommended reads for Women’s History Month.

Our group’s previous reports and book lists are always available right here!

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 the worldwide phenomenon of silent book clubs via Guinevere and Laura’s Silent Book Club web site. In fall 2023, they welcomed their 500th chapter … and with continuing, breathtaking momentum, they now boast almost 2,000 chapters … (There were around 60 chapters when we joined as the first Toronto chapter in 2017.) The SBC organization celebrated its 10th anniversary throughout last October … and our chapter celebrated its 8th anniversary in early November.

You can find information on meetings happening around the world and close to where you live. Every club is different in size, format (in-person, virtual or hybrid) and vibe, so contact a club’s organizers beforehand if you have any questions or preferences. Please feel free to contact me for more information about our club and its offerings.

To POMS or not to POMS – that is the question for every thoughtful reader with a towering tbr pile!