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!

… the solitary pleasure of reading and the quiet magic of community

by Amber Daugherty

… and as 2026 gets warmed up (we hope – brrr!), we get to enjoy yet another guest introduction to our monthly blog post! Kind fellow readers, meet Amber Daugherty. Amber works in communications, teaches fitness classes and reads constantly somewhere in between. She’s drawn to stories, ideas and conversations that make people think a little differently. Big believer in community, curiosity and the magic of sitting quietly together with a book.

A year and a half ago, I found myself looking for new ways to feel rooted in my neighbourhood. Not networking. Not professional development. Just real, human connection close to home. Somewhere in that search, I stumbled across the idea of a Silent Book Club and felt immediately curious. When I realized there was a chapter meeting at a café just a five-minute walk from my house, it felt like the universe giving me a very gentle nudge.

I can’t make it every month, but every time I do, I’m reminded why this group is so special. There’s something quietly radical about gathering with strangers and neighbours, opening our books and simply being together. No pressure to perform. Just the shared understanding that reading, even when done alone, doesn’t have to be lonely. Sitting with other people absorbed in their own worlds somehow creates a connection that’s hard to describe but easy to feel.

Books have always been a significant part of my life. As a kid, I was proud of reading above my grade level, not because it meant anything impressive, but because books felt like portals. They took me to places I couldn’t imagine otherwise and introduced me to lives, emotions and perspectives far beyond my own. That sense of escape and expansion never really left me. Over time, reading became not just a habit, but a refuge. I’ll almost always choose a book over a movie, drawn to the slow immersion, the quiet intimacy, the way a story unfolds at its own pace.

What’s surprised me most in recent years, though, is how much reading has become a source of connection. I’m now part of several book clubs and each one offers something different. There’s joy in sharing recommendations, in hearing what moved someone or challenged them and in discovering books I never would have picked up on my own. Even when our tastes are wildly different, there’s something deeply bonding about talking through how a story landed, what we filtered through our own experiences and how a book left us changed, even in small ways.

I once read that fiction strengthens our empathy by allowing us to see the world through another person’s eyes. That idea has stayed with me. Reading is deeply personal, shaped by who we are and where we are in our lives, but talking about books opens that experience outward. I’ve seen it happen in unexpected places too. At a conference last year, a casual mention of having read A Court of Thorns and Roses instantly lit up the women around me. In seconds, strangers became allies, bonded by characters, plot twists and shared delight. It was joyful, surprising and a perfect reminder of how quickly books can bring people together.

At this point, reading has become a visible part of my life. I have over a thousand books in my house, shelves tucked into nearly every available space, and I carry a deep sense of gratitude for the worlds they’ve opened for me. But more than that, I’m grateful for the connections they’ve sparked. Silent Book Club is one of those rare spaces where both things are honoured: the solitary pleasure of reading and the quiet magic of community. And for me, that combination has made all the difference.

(Photos by Jennifer D. Foster)

Every title on our group’s always gloriously brimming lists means that at least one (usually more) readers have given that title thoughtful attention. That doesn’t mean that every work on our lists is expressly recommended, of course. Inclusion on this list always means that our readers have devoted time and consideration to a title – and that counts for a lot!

• Great Expectations by Kathy Acker
• The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
• Persuasion by Jane Austen
• The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (audiobook)
• Our Green Heart by Diana Beresford-Kroeger
• A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
• Thursdays in the Park by Hilary Boyd
• Horse by Geraldine Brooks
• The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
• Murder Under the Mistletoe by The Reverend Richard Coles
• Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, narrated by Christine McMurdo-Wallis (audiobook)
• Apple (Skin to the Core) by Eric Gansworth
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Widow by John Grisham
• Flight Paths – How a Passionate and Quirky Group of Pioneering Scientists Solved the Mystery of Bird Migration by Rebecca Heisman
• Lucky Seed by Justinian Huang
• Daisy Miller by Henry James
• Austen at Sea by Natalie Jenner
• Dressmakers of London by Julia Kelly
• Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
• The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
• Hospital of the Transfiguration by Stanislaw Lem
• Fatal by John Lescroart
• Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews
• Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
• The Distant Hours by Kate Morton
• 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)
• The Black Wolf by Louise Penny
• In Search of Lost Time – Volume VI, Time Regained by Marcel Proust, translated by Andreas Mayor and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright
• Messy Cities – Why We Can’t Plan Everything, edited by Dylan Reid, Zahra Ebrahim, Leslie Woo, and John Lorinc
• A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell
• Islands by Anne Rivers Siddons
• The Girls of August by Anne Rivers Siddons
• The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan, narrated by Emma Lowe (audiobook)
• The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi
• The Poet Empress by Shen Tao
• The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux
• In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
• The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
• Dragon Ball Full Color Saiyan Arc, Volume 1 by Akira Toriyama
• Funny Farm: My Unexpected Life with 600 Rescue Animals by Laurie Zaleski

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.

• More and more readers are joining book clubs, even on social media. Here’s how it’s keeping bookworms engaged! (via People Magazine)
• Here is an overview of how to regain the ability for Sustained Silent Reading.
• Bookmobiles are awesome. Here are Toronto’s two …
• New York Public Library celebrated Muslim American Heritage Month in January and is now celebrating 100 Black Voices: Schomburg Centennial Reading List.
• Check out the Dragon Ball 40th Anniversary Special Video.

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.

Happy and amazing reading in 2026, all!

One of my vital and ongoing sources of joy again this year was our silent book club group: meeting, discussing and sharing online and in person and savouring and expanding one’s horizons every month through our endlessly rich and varied combined reading lists. It never feels like homework or competition, just the most splendid kinds of sharing, encouragement and discovery.

How wonderful then to be able to fit in one more set of meetings before the end of this year!

Those meetings left me and, I hope, my fellow readers (including those of you relishing our meetings after the fact through this blog post) abuzz with more reading aspirations that will send me happily into another new year of reading.

One of yesterday’s zoom attendees praised Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie. According to the reader, not only were the book’s themes and examples heartening and optimistic, but the author’s contention that “I’ve done the sums” was also reassuring.

I’ve never “done the sums” with our collected reading lists, as the sums really aren’t the point, are they? But just for fun, I scanned through our 2025 lists … and discovered that we shared an average of 52 books amongst ourselves and with readers of this blog every month in the past year. So, it’s not homework or competition, as we’ve always contended, but isn’t it nice to know a new, fresh wave of books of all kinds awaits you every month?

Chapbook of poems from Wales on a table at East Toronto Coffee Co, accompanied by coffee and pastries (Photo by Vicki Ziegler)

Every title on our group’s always generous lists means that at least one (usually more) readers have given that title thoughtful attention. That doesn’t mean that every work on our lists is explicitly recommended, of course. Inclusion on this list always means that our readers have devoted time and consideration to a title – and that counts for a lot!

• Algospeak by Adam Aleksic
• The Long Game by Elena Armas
• All the Broken Places by John Boyne
• Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall
• Your Utopia by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur
• Austen Years: A Memoir in Five Novels by Rachel Cohen
• The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern by Lynda Cohen Loigman
• The Tortoise’s Tale by Kendra Coulter
• Emilie by Arlette Cousture
• Blonde Dust by Tatiana de Rosnay
• Wild Animal by Joël Dicker, translated by Robert Bononno
• Into the Magic Shop – A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart by James R. Doty, MD
• The Wasp Trap by Mark Edwards
• The Wasp Trap by Mark Edwards, narrated by John Hopkins & Anna Burnett (audiobook)
• A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst
• Off Limits by Nawal El Saadawi
• Finding Flora by Elinor Florence
• Blood Dark by Louis Guilloux, translated by Laura Marris
• The Winemaker’s Wife by Kristin Harmel
• I Become Her by Joe Hart
• Flight Paths by Rebecca Heisman
• Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
• Followed by the Lark by Helen Humphreys, narrated by Jennifer Pickens (audiobook)
• Let Me Hear a Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson (audiobook)
• The Shining by Stephen King
• Audition by Katie Kitamura
• The Names by Florence Knapp
• On the Edge of Reason by Miroslav Krleza
• Give Unto Others by Donna Leon
• Seasonal Work: Stories by Laura Lippman
• Frostfire by Elly MacKay
• The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
• Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori
• Shut Up You’re Pretty by Tea Mutonji
• Wreck by Catherine Newman
• True Biz by Sara Novic, narrated by Lisa Flanagan, Kaleo Griffith (audiobook)
• We the Kindling by Otoniya J Okotbitek, narrated by Shelby Mwambu (audiobook)
• A Field Guide to Birds of Ontario by Mark Peck
• How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin
• In Search of Lost Time – Volume IV, Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright
• In Search of Lost Time – Volume V, The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright
• Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid
• Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie
• Colony by Anne Rivers Siddons
• Atomweight by Emi Sasagawa
• Cafe with No Name by Robert Seethaler, translated by Katy Derbyshire
• Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories: Lady Ferry by Sarah Orne Jewett, The Mistress in Black by Rosemary Timperley and Lucky’s Grove by H. Russell Wakefield
• Hirayasumi by Keigo Shinzo
• Walking with Beth – Conversations with My Hundred-Year-Old Friend by Merilyn Simonds
• Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld, narrated by Carrington MacDuffie (audiobook)
• Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson
• Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
• Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, narrated by Kate Burton, etc. (audiobook)
• The Solitary Gourmet by Jiro Taniguchi and Masayuki Kusumi, translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian
• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
• Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa, narrated by Zoe Doyle (audiobook)
• Murder on the Marlow Belle by Roger Thorogood
• A Truce That is Not Peace by Miriam Toews (audiobook)
• Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope
• Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui
• The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman
• Time of the Child by Niall Williams
• Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, narrated by Ailsa Piper (audiobook)
• Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida, translated by Haydn Trowell
• Hello Sunshine by Keezy Young

And yes, we usually 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.

• Starting in January 2026, Silent Book Club headquarters will be offering new book recommendations, shining a spotlight on a new book release each month.
• Take a look at the New York Public Library Top Checkouts of 2025, Best Books of 2025 and New Yorker 100 Exhibition at the library. (One of our zoom members lives near and is fortunate to visit the New York Public Library on a regular basis!)
• As Wikipedia defines it, cozy mysteries “are a sub-genre of crime fiction in which sex and violence occur offstage, the detective is an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community.” In this month’s zoom meeting, a reader mentioned that she was embarking on an exploration of cozy mysteries in Asian settings. As you can see from that previous link, the cozymystery.com web site can steer interested readers to any variation of this sub-genre imaginable!
• A vital companion to Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie is the Our World in Data web site.

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 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.

The happiest of happy reading, however you keep track … or don’t!

Confessions of a Non-Reader

by Rev. J. Ruth Bartlett

As 2025 draws to a close, we get to enjoy another guest introduction to our monthly blog post. Dear fellow readers, meet Ruth Bartlett, who is a pastor at the Calvary Baptist Church, which is a short walk from East Toronto Coffee Co, where our readers meet in person.

I live in a world surrounded by books.

The collection of books and bookshelves where I reside fill every nook and cranny of our home with books my aunt has picked up over the years of mysteries, spy thrillers, and nursing research. At work, I look around my office, and I see shelves of books on all manners of theology, philosophy, spiritual help, self-help, church-help, international and community development, and ministry resources.

But I find it so so so hard to read any of it …

During my studies, we used the phrase “alone-together-time” for all the times when we knew we needed to do work, but knew we just could not concentrate on doing the work if we were trying to do it by ourselves. As a capital E Extrovert, I think that anything and everything is done better together, so it really helped me with my studies and forcing myself to reach and research alongside friends who were doing the same.

And so, when I was scrolling through Instagram one evening (instead of picking up a book and reading), the algorithm brought me to a silent book club chapter somewhere in the UK. The concept was so cute and cozy I just had to see if they were something here in Toronto – after all, Toronto seems to have pretty well every kind of group going!

After some research, I was so excited to find that not only was there a silent book club chapter in Toronto, but right here, in my very own neighbourhood!

Vicki has been so incredibly warm and welcoming, and I’ve been so inspired by all of the readers in this group, hearing many, varied types of books that I never find on my own shelves, but find myself intrigued to try.

Joining the silent book club helped me reconnect with the genres that brought me joy before the days of university and seminary. I’ve enjoyed a biography of one of my favourite actors, reread a novel that piqued my attention as an elementary school kid, and now I’m reading the classic Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice in anticipation of trying my first murder mystery novel The Murder of Mr. Wickham!

Though I still can’t quite call myself a reader, per se, I think I can finally shed the non-reader title knowing how much I enjoy reading alongside the wonderful people of the East End Toronto chapter of the silent book club.

Every title on our group’s always immense lists means that at least one (usually more) readers have given that title thoughtful attention. That doesn’t mean that every work on our lists is expressly recommended, of course. Inclusion on this list always means that our readers have devoted time and consideration to a title – and that counts for a lot!

• The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, borrowed as a Blind Date with a Book!
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
• The Fleur de Sel Murders by Jean-Luc Bannalec (#3 in the Brittany Mystery Series)
• Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett
• The Queen Who Came in from the Cold: Her Majesty The Queen Investigates by S.J. Bennett
• The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
• All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley
• Horse by Geraldine Brooks
• The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter
• Austen Years: A Memoir in Five Novels by Rachel Cohen
• I Would Like to Say Thank You by Joseph Dandurand
• The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History of Afghanistan by Lyse Doucet
• Things That Disappear by Jenny Erpenbeck
• The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians by Matt Eversmann and James Patterson
• Jenny Cooper Has a Secret by Joy Fielding
• The Beguiling by Zsuzsi Gartner
• The Murder of Mr Wickham by Claudia Gray
• The Gardener’s Guide to Native Plants of the Southern Great Lakes Region by Rick Gray and Shaun Booth
• The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
• Encampment by Maggie Helwig, narrated by Maggie Helwig (audiobook)
• Summerhouse, Later by Judith Hermann
• The Girl from Berlin by Kate Hewitt
• The Retirement Plan by Sue Hincenbergs
• The History of Iceland by Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson
• The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
• Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World by Brandon Keim
• Cattail Lane by Fran Kimmel
• The Names by Florence Knapp
• The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight
• Burr by Brooke Lockyer
• Death in Venice and Other Stories by Thomas Mann
• Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid
• Never Lie by Freida McFadden
• The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
• Circe by Madeline Miller
• Miss Iceland by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
• Overdue by Stephanie Perkins
• The Maid’s Secret by Nita Prose, narrated by Lauren Ambrose (audiobook)
• Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright
• The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
• With a Vengeance by Riley Sager
• Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan
• The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
• The Cafe With No Name by Robert Seethaler
• Walking with Beth – Conversations with My Hundred-Year-Old Friend by Merilyn Simonds
• The Ruins by Scott Smith
• Remain by Nicholas Sparks and M. Night Shyamalan
• The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St Clair
• Hakim’s Odessey – Book 1: From Syria to Turkey by Fabien Toulmé
• The Palliser novels by Anthony Trollope
• Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West
• The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
• The Conscious Style Guide: A Flexible Approach to Language that Includes, Respects, and Empowers by Karen Yin

Here are some extra book-related articles, resources, news and recommendations, 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.

• Silent book club member Richard took part of his book update time this month to introduce us all to the ICCT Book Club, the Icelandic Canada Club of Toronto’s gathering of readers, who rally round the motto: Að ganga með bók í maganum: To walk with a book in your stomach. Everyone gives birth to a book. As you’ll see at the link, they’ve jumped enthusiastically into their relaunch this fall with some great books, with more ahead going into 2026.
• The Walrus recently showcased the many book club choices readers in Toronto can consider, of which silent book clubs are just one.

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 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.

Happy reading till next we gather!

I came away from another set of warm, welcoming and elucidating silent book club meetings this past weekend … with head, heart and to be read list brimming!

As readers share their delights and challenges during our zoom and in-person gatherings every month, I always discern interesting recurring themes. This time, there was an undercurrent of mild disappointment with each reader’s perceived amount and pace of reading since we last gathered. And then every reader reported on numbers of books and pages read that surely would make any reader proud … really.

My reaction? Just as every read in our group is legitimate in every way, the pace at which every reader reads is also just right, whatever that pace and volume of books and pages that represents from month to month. If you’ve read more of or less of or differently than you did the last time you took note … well, it’s all good. That you’re reading is the essential constant. The rest might be interesting to record or monitor – on Goodreads, in a book diary, in a text file, whatever – but it need not be a competition, with other readers or even with yourself.

Your reaction?

Photo credits: Jennifer D. Foster, Helen Gunnarsson, Vicki Ziegler

Every title on our group’s always brimming lists means that at least one (usually more) readers have given that title thoughtful attention. That doesn’t mean that every work on our lists is expressly recommended, of course. Inclusion on this list always means that our readers have devoted time and consideration to a title – and that counts for so very much.

• Martyr by Kaveh Akbar, narrated by Arian Moayed (audiobook)
• There is No Blue by Martha Baillie (audiobook)
• Dream When You’re Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg
• In a Riptide by Ronna Bloom
• Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen
• The Solitary Friend by Gail Bowen
• The Elements by John Boyne
• Horse by Geraldine Brooks, narrated by James Fouhey, Lisa Flanagan, Graham Halstead, Katherine Littrell, Michael Obiora (audiobook)
• American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell
• The Killing Stones by Ann Cleeves
• Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
• Welcome to Murder Week by Karen Dukess
• Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis with art by Darick Robertson
• A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst
• The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians by Matt Eversmann and James Patterson
• Being a Beast by Charles Foster
• Burst Your Bubble! Outsmart the Algorithms and See What You’re Missing by Joyce Grant
• The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths
• The Murder of Mr Wickham by Claudia Gray
• The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray
• The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau by Kristin Harmel
• I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
• Awake by Jen Hatmaker (audiobook)
• Killing Stella by Marlen Haushofer, translated by Shaun Whiteside
• That Librarian by Amanda Jones
• Rebel with a Clause by Ellen Jovin
• The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr
• We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
• The Chain of Chance by Stanislaw Lem, translated by Louis Iribarne
• Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman
• The Housemaid is Watching trilogy by Freida McFadden
• The Tenant by Freida McFadden
• The Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
• Ultramarine by Mariette Navarro, translated by Eve Hill-Agnus
• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
• The Black Wolf by Louise Penny, narrated by Jean Brassard (audiobook)
• Restaurant Kid by Rachel Phan
• Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter
• The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose, narrated by Lauren Ambrose (audiobook)
• The Maid’s Secret by Nita Prose, narrated by Lauren Ambrose (audiobook)
• In Search of Lost Time Volume IV, Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright
• 52 Ways to Reconcile: How to Walk with Indigenous Peoples on the Path to Healing by David A. Robertson
• Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
• Mona’s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser, translated by Hildegarde Serle
• A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales
• Country Wives by Rebecca Shaw
• Walking with Beth – Conversations with My Hundred-Year-Old Friend by Merilyn Simonds
• The Great Hippopotamus Hotel by Alexander McCall Smith, narrated by Bianca Amato (audiobook)
• In the Time of Five Pumpkins by Alexander McCall Smith, narrated by Bianca Amato (audiobook)
• The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St Clair
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, narrated by Dylan Baker (audiobook)
• Rosewater by Tade Thompson
• The Rosewater Insurrection and The Rosewater Redemption by Tade Thompson
• The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope
• Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte, narrated by multiple readers (audiobook)
• A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
• Three Days in June by Anne Tyler
• Three Days in June by Anne Tyler, narrated by J. Smith-Cameron (audiobook)
• Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
• Labrador Skies by Kayla Williams

Here are some extra book-related articles, resources, news and recommendations, 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.

• The Silent Book Club 10th Anniversary this fall culminated in a very special meeting on the Today Show’s Read With Jenna:

• “If you, too, yearn for a way out of the despair and disconnection that is the zeitgeist of our time, let me suggest a tried and true remedy: join a book club.”
• Author Barbara Kingsolver lays the foundation for women in Appalachia to beat addiction.

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 October … and our chapter celebrates its 8th anniversary ths month, thank you very much!

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.

However much and frequently you’re doing it, relish every moment you get to read!

… and we’re one of them! Read all about it, including the other nine chapters with which we share this honour, right here!

Fresh from back-to-back silent book club meetings (on zoom, followed by in person at a coffee shop just down the street), I realize so much dazzles me about our gatherings, from the selections our members discuss to the enthusiasm and eloquence with which they describe the books and their reading experiences. Vibrant adjectives abound in each description, of which the ones in this report’s title are just a few – and those were applied to one book, thank you very much!

Why not give a ponder to how you would describe your reading in lively ways … maybe using alliteration the way our fellow reader did. Sweet, sentimental and sensitive? Wild, wicked and whimsical? Thorough, thoughtful and therapeutic? Dark, dazzling and dangerous?

… and oh my goodness, did our online and offline meetings this month produce another delectable combined reading list from the group!

As we always note in these reports, every title on our group’s generous lists means that at least one (but usually more) readers have given that title considered attention. That doesn’t mean that every work on our lists is expressly recommended, of course. Inclusion on this list always means that our readers have devoted time and thought to a title – and that counts for so very much.

• What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama, translated by Alison Watts, narrated by Hanako Footman, etc. (audiobook)
• The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
• The Hospital by Ahmed Bouanani
• Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley
• Milkman by Anna Burns
• My Beloved Monster by Caleb Carr, narrated by James Lurie (audiobook)
• Not My Type by E. Jean Carroll (audiobook)
• What is Broken Binds Us by Lorne Daniel
• The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers, Shawn Harris
• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
• Secrets in the Water by Alice Fitzpatrick
• One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune
• This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel, narrated by Gabra Zackman (audiobook)
• The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard
• Country by Michael Hughes
• Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval
• Always Look on the Bright Side of Life – A Sortabiography by Eric Idle
• The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun
• Jennie’s Boy by Wayne Johnston
• Easy Beauty by Chloe Cooper Jones
• Six Days in Bombay by Alka Joshi, narrated by Sneha Mathan (audiobook)
• Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian by Ellen Jovin
• Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories by Ghassan Kanafani
• The White Book by Han Kang
• An Evening with Birdy O’Day by Greg Kearney, narrated by Sky Gilbert (audiobook)
• The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Mr Potter by Jamaica Kincaid, narrated by Robin Miles (audiobook)
• Penitence by Kristin Koval
• Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor
• Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman
• The Little Book of Drag: Pearls of Wisdom from Your Favourite Glam Queens, published by Headline Publishing Group Limited
• Barometer Rising by Hugh MacLennan
• Fortunes of War novel series by Olivia Manning
• Fury: A Novel by Clyo Mendoza, translated by Christina MacSweeney
• The Secret Hours by Santa Montefiore
• After Dark by Haruki Murakami
• May Contain Murder by Orlando Murrin
• The New Yorker, August 18, 2025
• All the Words We Know by Bruce Nash
• Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan
• Akira Vol. 1 by Katsuhiro Otomo
• The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
• How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley
• True Grit by Charles Portis, narrated by Donna Tartt (audiobook)
• In Search of Lost Time Volume I – Swann’s Way, Volume II – Within a Budding Grove and Volume III – The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncreiff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright
• The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis
• Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
• How to Share an Egg by Bonny Reichert (audiobook)
• Death on the Island by Eliza Reid
• The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl
• The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
• Village Fortunes by Rebecca Shaw
• A Murder in Hollywood by Casey Sherman
• Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue, narrated by Nasim Pedrad (audiobook)
• Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
• Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
• Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Here are some extra book-related articles, resources, news and recommendations, 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.

• Check out this great review of a popular video game … about running a Tiny BookShop!
• Silent book club member Catherine loved this U.S. exhibition dedicated to Tove Jansson, the beloved Finnish artist, writer and creator of the Moomins.



• “People may draw particular benefits from thinking deeply about what they read and talking about it with others” … so it is worrying that a new study reveals that from 2003 to 2023, the share of Americans who read for pleasure fell 40 percent, a sharp decline that is part of a continuing downward trend.
• “It’s all about having tea, listening, paying attention, showing up.” Kitchen table readings!

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 closer and closer to 2,000 chapters … (There were around 60 chapters when we joined as the first Toronto chapter in 2017.) The SBC organization will be celebrating its 10th anniversary this fall … and our chapter will be celebrating its 8th anniversary not long after that.

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 combinations) 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.

Whatever adjectives your readings inspire, savour them all!

• We’ve discussed the 50-page rule at more than one meeting over the years of our group. Some can and will, and some can’t or won’t, set a book aside if it isn’t sparking their interest by 50 pages in. Now, 50-page proponent Mary is raising the bar, sticking with books where she “can’t wait to get back” to them. If a book isn’t softly (or not so softly) calling to her, well then …
   
• We don’t often discuss readers returning to books they’ve set aside, for some reason. But one reader reported this month that she recently gave a book a second chance and was very, very glad she did. So, sometimes a book will still keep a wee spark burning …
   
• Silent book club member Lisa kicked off her zoom report by showing off a lovely cross stitch bookmark. Oh, this has sparked an idea for a future meeting and discussion!

Our group offers another combined list of titles that will shake your reading out of the summer doldrums (if need be). It and all our lists are here, to heat up or cool down your reading (again, if need be).

Every title on our group’s generous lists means that at least one (but usually more) readers have given that title considered attention. That doesn’t mean that every work on our lists is expressly recommended, of course. Inclusion on this list always means that our readers have devoted time and thought to a title – and that counts for so very much.

• Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
• The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis, narrated by Matthew Lloyd Davies (audiobook)
• What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama, translated by Alison Watts, narrated by Hanako Footman, etc. (audiobook)
• Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield
• Private Rites by Julia Armfield
• Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
• The Drowned by John Banville, narrated by John Lee (audiobook)
• The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry
• The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius by Patchen Barss
• Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists – The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All by Laura Bates
• Strong Female Character by Fern Brady (audiobook)
• These Days by Lucy Caldwell
• A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr
• Boy Parts by Eliza Clark
• She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark
• Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
• Care of – Letters, Connections and Cures by Ivan Coyote (audiobook)
• Recipe for a Good Life by Lesley Crewe
• The Adversary by Michael Crummey
• Fieldwork by Sadiqa de Meijer
• The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue, narrated by Justin Avoth (audiobook)
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Turncoat by Aaron Elkins
• Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
• A Dark Death by Alice Fitzpatrick
• Curiosities by Anne Fleming, narrated by Anna Tierney, etc. (audiobook)
• Finding Flora by Elinor Florence
• The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
• The Mare by Angharad Hampshire
• Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
• Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
• The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry
• The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer
• Maria Chapdelaine by Louis Hermon
• King of Envy by Ana Huang
• Lost Signal by Chris Hutchinson
• Detective Aunty by Uzma Jalaluddin
• Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski
• Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara
• Fairy Tale by Stephen King
• Softie by Kirby
• The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich
• The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern by Lynda Cohen Loigman, narrated by Gabra Zackman & author (audiobook)
• All You Can Kill by Pasha Malla
• Held by Anne Michaels (audiobook)
• Skippy Dies by Paul Murray, narrated by Patrick Moy (audiobook)
• Sandwich by Catherine Newman
• Sandwich by Catherine Newman, narrated by Nan McNamara (audiobook)
• Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott
• Adventures in the Louvre – How to fall in love with the world’s greatest museum by Elaine Sciolino
• Whispers in the Village by Rebecca Shaw
• The Village Green Affair by Rebecca Shaw
• The North Star by Julian Sher
• Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
• The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
• Miss Buncle’s Book by DE Stevenson
• The Queen of Sugar Hill: A Novel of Hattie McDaniel by Reshondra Tate
• Living Expenses by Teri Vlassopolous
• Remember Me as Human by Lucy Walsh
• Augustus by John Williams
• Bitter Sweet by Hattie Williams
• Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
• The Fun Times Brigade by Lindsay Zier-Vogel

Here are some extra book-related articles, resources, news and recommendations, 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.

• “But here’s the thing about words: They don’t have fixed, Platonic meanings that float in an ethereal realm outside human usage.” Ponder these recent reflections from Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles.
• One of our sbc members reminds us that the beloved Lakefield Literary Festival is happening July 18-19th, 2025.
• Stephen Fry’s thoughts on the enduring appeal of Georgette Heyer are grand!

Our group’s previous reports and book lists don’t take the summer off – they’re 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 closer and closer to 2,000 chapters … (There were around 60 chapters when we joined as the first Toronto chapter in 2017.) 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 combinations) 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.

Wherever you’re taking your time off – cottage, beach, on the road, wherever – we know books are traveling with you!