The summer reading club 2026

What is summer without summer reading? With that thought in mind, I convened my Second Annual Summer Reading Club for an hour and a half to discuss the pleasures of the written word.

Faithful subscribers will recall that I did this last year, and that it was tremendous fun:

The rules are simple. Three guests, plus your host. Two rounds: Each panelist discusses a book they’re reading this summer, then each panelist discusses a book that comes to mind when we think of all the reading we’ve ever done in all our summers. I made a point of encouraging the panelists not to try to come up with the perfect book, or a book that will necessarily improve humanity. Good reading is its own reward. You’ll find the four of us still came up with an impressive variety of choices.

Last year, off the top of my head, I invited The Globe and Mail’s Ottawa feature writer Shannon Proudfoot, who of course is an old friend from the days when we both worked at a magazine; acclaimed singer-songwriter Donovan Woods; and Curse of Politics regular Scott Reid.

This year, now that I have some precedent for the exercise, I figured the formula had to be: somebody from Sarnia; an unusually bookish politico; and Shannon Proudfoot. So this year’s Summer Book Club panelists are:

Susan Chamberlain, owner since 2001 of Sarnia’s leading independent bookstore, The Book Keeper;

John Delacourt, a senior vice president at Counsel Public Affairs, whose sixth novel, The Innocent Canadian, was published in April;

And Shannon Proudfoot.

Share

To help you keep track, here are the books we discussed:

Opioids and Organs by Arizona O’Neill;

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe;

Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician by Christoph Wolff;

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman;

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara;

The Aubrey McKee trilogy of novels by Alex Pugsley;

Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean;

Atonement by Ian McEwan.

If you prefer to watch this episode on video rather than listen on the podcast feed, I’ve got you covered. Here you go, from my YouTube channel. Hit Like and Subscribe if you want access to all my video content:

Let me know what you think of this unusual episode. And if you like, drop some thoughts in the comments about a book you’re reading now or a summer book you recall fondly. I’m quite sure this won’t be the last time we convene a book club for this show.

Thanks for reading, listening, subscribing and sharing. And thanks, especially, to the other members of this year’s Summer Reading Club.