When we meet, by zoom or in person, we always devote time to updates from all attendees on their latest books and reading adventures, good or not-so-good. This precedes the time when we get down to the silent reading. I’m sure I speak for many if not all when I say that the updates are as captivating and valuable as the reading time.

Not surprisingly, everyone’s enthusiasm for what they’re reading sometimes spills over. It’s glorious, but we have to admit that sometimes it cuts into our time to put library holds on tempting titles … and to just reeeeead!

We’re going to start sharing snippets of some of our group members’ extra reviews, observations and other sources of information about what they’re reading. We hope readers of our blog posts will enjoy these additions!

Jenn E offers her comments on Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector (translated from the Portuguese by Benjamin Moser)

This short novella (under 100 pages) revolves around two characters: a writer named Rodrigo, and Macabéa, the woman he is writing into being.

Macabéa is a typist living in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. She is poor and uneducated but takes pleasure in her life. Excluded from bourgeois worlds, she is “free” and exists in accordance with simply being.

Rodrigo has none of the enlightened indifference of Macabéa. He tries to understand and connect with her as he narrates her but has limited knowledge of what is going to happen as he has never experienced what she is living.

Through these two characters, Lispector illustrates the difficulty in truly understanding another’s existence and the intricate pitfalls of communication. Macabéa is a nod to Lispector’s past growing up poor, and Rodrigo is a tribute to herself as an author.

There is a lot packed into this book. A few short paragraphs don’t do it any justice. This was my first Lispector, and I can’t wait to read more.

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Vicki (that’s me) is undertaking the Sealey Challenge again this year. It’s named after US poet Nicole Sealey, who first challenged herself and others in 2017 to aim to read 31 works of poetry, one for each day in the month of August. The challenge has blossomed into a beautiful celebration on several social media platforms of the many forms poetry takes. Learn more here.

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Lori S offers lovely quotations from All The Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley.

“Sometimes life can be about simplicity, stillness, and shimmering works of art, but it is also about the head down work of living, struggling, growing, and creating.”

“Artists create records of transitory moments appearing to stop their clocks.”

As Lori observes, “for me a great piece of music does this.”

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“I think every book is a gateway drug.”
– Ann Patchett

After reading Whistler by Ann Patchett, Lisa P sought out this informative interview:

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Sooky L deepened her appreciation of The Birth House by Ami McKay by visiting Scots Bay, Nova Scotia, where the novel is set around World War I.

As Sooky describes her pictures of Scots Bay: “You’ve got the town sign, the actual Bay at low tide with the red sand. When the tide comes in, the whole area is under water. Finally a picture of the Annapolis Valley from the Mountain.”

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Here are some more images from our readers’ adventures in reading this month.

Photo credits: Eva Woehler, Vicki Ziegler

We want to give a special shout-out to our latest in-person reading venue, Sprouty Cafe at 1062 Gerrard St E (Gerrard and Jones) here in east end Toronto. We were warmly welcomed, graciously served, exceptionally well fed and watered, and enjoyed a lovely meeting and silent reading time in Sprouty’s heavenly second floor roost. Highly recommended!

OK then … are you ready for another scrumptuous group booklist? Multiple readers from our group have typically given considered attention to each title appearing on our monthly group list of eclectic reading. That doesn’t mean that every work on our lists is expressly recommended. However, rest assured that inclusion on our lists always means that our readers have devoted time and thought to each book, which counts for a great deal, wethinks!

• Pitch Dark by Renata Adler
• Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis
• Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley
• Vidal by Danila Botha
• All The Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley
• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
• Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes
• Mister Wonderful by Daniel Clowes
• Lake Effect by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
• Libra by Don DeLillo
• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
• Skin Contact by Elisa Faison
• Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune
• The Trickster’s Lullaby by Barbara Fradkin
• River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh
• Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
• Everyone is Watching by Heather Gudenkauf
• Bumperhead by Gilbert Hernandez
• Julio’s Day by Gilbert Hernandez
• Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
• Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki, translated by Karen Van Dyck
• Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
• The History of Bees by Maja Lunde
• Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden
• The Birth House by Ami McKay
• A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
• From Hell by Alan Moore
• The Upside Down World – Meetings with the Dutch Masters by Benjamin Moser
• The Frenzy by Joyce Carol Oates
• Leaving Las Vegas by John O’Brien
• In This Faulty Machine by Kathy Page
• Whistler by Ann Patchett
• A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck
• Rough Description by Don Pyle
• Sublunary by Lisa Richter
• The Antidote by Karen Russell
• The Matchmaker by Aisha Saeed
• Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
• The Last Movement by Robert Seethaler
• Why We Love The Water by Lynn Sherr
• Glyph by Ali Smith, narrated by Lesley Sharp (audiobook)
• Ru by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman
• Travels in Vermeer by Michael White
• Stoner by John Williams
• In Memoriam by Alice Winn
• The Rainfall Market by You Yeong-Gwang, translated by Slin Jung
• Finding My Way by Malala Yousafzai

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

• Don’t forget – there is another silent book club here in Toronto. Learn all about them here!
• “Optimists once believed that universal literacy was inevitable. Now it seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history.” We’ll agree to disagree with this recent article in The Atlantic.
• “The magic of going to the theatre isn’t about the movie. It’s about watching it with strangers” says this segment from CBC Radio’s The Current. Although many of us have become friends over time, couldn’t the same be said of silent book club gatherings?
• In Search of the Brontes is an excellent dramatized documentary about the three literary sisters.

Our previous reports and book lists are always available for you to enjoy and explore new reads … 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, 2025.

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.

We’ll conclude again this month with some advice, OK? Let your love for books floooooow!