Endnotes #10: April books & Mantel May

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Endnotes | Issue #10: April books & Mantel May

This is Endnotes, a monthly newsletter from Footnotes and Tangents. You can choose which emails to receive in the notifications list in your subscription settings.

Hi everyone!

This is your monthly update from me about all the slow reads and book groups happening on Footnotes and Tangents, and elsewhere in the Substack universe.

This month, we finished our read-along of JG Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur. This was an exceptionally rewarding re-read for me, enhanced by all the wonderful observations from fellow readers. You can now find my guide to The Siege of Krishnapur in the list of complete book guides.

Meanwhile, readers are a third of the way through War and Peace in our third and final year of reading Leo Tolstoy’s novel, a chapter a day for a whole year. Next month, Wolf Crawlers will complete Wolf Hall, before we head into May, which might as well be called…

Mantel May!

With two big Hilary Mantel read-alongs on the go. Who is brave enough to do both?

On 30 April, we will begin 12 weeks with Bring Up the Bodies, the second novel in Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy. You don’t have to have joined us for Wolf Hall, but you should have read the first book at some point.

Mantel was writing a Cromwell duology when the events of 1536 took on a life of their own and demanded their own intense, murderous novel. The dramatic fall of Anne Boleyn through Cromwell’s eyes is electrifying, and you may struggle to slow down for this one!

But there are enormous benefits to doing so. Each week we will have archival documents from

Bea Stitches

, custom-made maps from

Matt Brown

, and my own footnotes and tangents to enrich your reading. We have paintings and music and additional notes from fellow readers,

Andrea

,

Nikki

and

Analise Brower

. I cannot recommend these books highly enough, and this slow read is such a magnificent way to experience them.

To sign up, turn on notifications for “2025 Wolf Crawl” in your subscription settings. Wolf Crawl is also available as a podcast, and there are links in each post to help you get set up with the audio version.

Bring Up the Bodies is part of Wolf Crawl, a slow read for paid subscribers: £5/month or £50/year. I also offer complimentary upgrades for anyone on a low or no income, so please get in touch if you would like support with your slow read.

But that is not all. On 5 May, we begin a 20-week slow read of A Place of Greater Safety, Hilary Mantel’s thrilling account of the French Revolution. This book gives me the creeps. It’s alive. It’s all-consuming. It is definitely haunted. Come read it with us; it’s probably the only safe way to do it.

The reading schedule is now up, along with a list of further resources. And we are working on a full list of characters.

To sign up, turn on notifications for “2025 A Place of Greater Safety” in your subscription settings. This read-along is free for all, and everyone is welcome.

Please mind your head.

More about this read-along here:

Read 'A Place of Greater Safety' in 2025

Fellow Wolf Crawler,

elizabeth graham madden

is testing the water for a James Joyce deep dive in 2026. If you are interested, let her know and subscribe to her newsletter:

April Book Groups

As usual, in our library of further reading resources, you can find the Substack Book Group Directory. I update this list monthly. If you run a book group or book club on Substack, get in touch so I can add yours to the list.

And here is a list of some of the books people will be reading in April:

• The Audacious Book Club with

  Roxane Gay
  : The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

• The Austen Connection Read-Along with

  Plain Jane
  : Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (Mar-Apr)

• The Big Read with

  Jeremy Anderberg
  : Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain / Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain / When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

• The Book Club for Busy Readers with

  Jeannie Ewing
  : Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

• Breccia with

  Ruth Allen, PhD (MNCPS Accred)
  : Weathering Book by Ruth Allen (Starts 20 March, runs for 9 weeks)

• The Burning Archive Slow Read with

  Jeff Rich
  : The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk (Feb - Sep)

• Cambridge Ladies' Dining Society: The 20th Century Book Club with

  Ann Kennedy Smith
  : The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sheriff (Apr-May)

• Chasing Fog Book Club with

  Laura Pashby
  : Chasing Fog by Laura Pashby (all 2025)

• The Classical Book Club with

  The Freelance Writing Network
  : Book TBD by vote

• Close Reads HQ with

  David Kern
  ,
  Tim McIntosh
  ,
  Heidi White
  : O Pioneers! by Willa Cather / The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni / The Great Mistake by Mary Roberts Rhinehart

• Closely Reading with

  haley larsen, phd
  : Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis / Yonnondio by Tillie Olsen

• Commonplace Philosophy with

  Jared Henderson
  : Plato’s Republic

• Creative, Inspired, Happy: Read Like a Writer Book Club with

  Evelyn Skye
  : One Two Three by Laurie Frankel

• The Creative Kingdom Book Club with

  Julia Garza
  : Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection by Julia Cameron (Mar-TBD)

• The Cultural Diegetic with

  Kode
  : Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (all 2025)

• Deep Reads Book Club with

  Matthew Long
  : Homer’s The Iliad (Jan - June)

• Dostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta» with

  Dana • Dostoevsky Bookclub
  : The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (all 2025)

• Elizabeth Goudge Bookclub with

  Elizabeth Goudge Bookclub
  : Smoky House by Elizabeth Goudge

• Emily’s Walking Book Club with

  Emily Rhodes
  : Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski

• Four Thousand Weeks with

  Heidi Fiedler
  : Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman (Feb-TBD)

• FrizzLit with

  Christopher Frizzelle
  : The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald / E.M. Forester Book Club: A Room With a View

• Genius & Ink with

  Vashik Armenikus
  : Dante’s The Divine Comedy (all 2025)

• The Gentle Book Club with

  Luisa Skinner
  : Breaking Waves by Emma Simpson (Mar-Apr)

• Guerilla Readers with

  Susan Wittig Albert
  : Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

• The Kindred Spirits Bookclub with

  Briana Kohlbrenner
  : Anne of the Island by Lucy Maud Montgomery

• Melanie’s Frontal Lobe with

  Mel Tan Uy
  : Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber (continued)

• Paper Knife with

  Leonard Gaya
  : A Year of Reading Kafka

• Personal Canon Formation with

  John Halbrooks
  : Chaucer Reading Challenge (continued)

• Pomus Aureus with

  Ellie
  : One, No One and a Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello (Feb - Apr)

• Read the Classics with

  Henry Eliot
  : Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (all 2025) / The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens

• The Reader & the Writer with

  Shari Dragovich
  &
  Rhea Forney
  : War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (all 2025) / The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

• Reading Revisited with

  Jessica Risma
  &
  Kelsie Hartley
  : The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

• Receipt from the Bookshop with

  Katie Clapham
  : The Painter’s Daughter by Emily Howes

• Science Fiction Reads with

  SF Fan
  : Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

• The Sixty-Minute Book Club with

  Emma Kriskinans
  : The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• Sleuth Hero Alien with

  Emma Veritas
  : Something Close to Magic by Emma Mills

• Symbolism & Structure with

  Jessica Leigh Allen
  : Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (Mar-May)

• To All My Darlings with

  To All My Darlings
  : Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young (all 2025)

• True Stories Book Club with

  Katherine May
  : Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer

• Well-Read Weekend with

  Taylor D'Amico
  : On the Road by John Kerouac

Thank you

And that’s all from me. Many thanks for subscribing to Footnotes and Tangents and joining our slow reads. And I’ll be back next month with more Endnotes.

Until then, take care and happy reading.

Simon