Endnotes #8: Learning to swim
Slow read update • February book groups
Footnotes & Tangents | Slow reads of great books
Book guides | Slow reads | Library
Endnotes Issue #8: Learning to swim
Hello all
This month, I took our eldest for his first swimming lessons. Eczema has kept him from pools for a long time, but with school starting in September, we decided to set him on his way.
Life has left me unready for this moment. My son stands in his swimsuit, hands clasped across his belly, stunned; facing a fear he didn’t know existed half an hour ago. He listens to the teacher and flops, arms outstretched, into the water.
The reward is a hot chocolate in the café outside. He grips it like a raft and tells me he doesn’t want to learn to swim. A memory tugs in the undertow: little limbs flail above and beneath. Muffled din, eyes stinging, and beads of light as I come gasping up for air.
‘It gets better,’ I tell him. You’re scared at first, but each time, you learn a little more, fear a little less. And doing it – the thing you thought you couldn’t – that feeling is like flying. It’s the best feeling there is. This speech: it half convinces myself.
As the new year came in, a few thousand new people found Footnotes and Tangents. Readers from all over the world, living lives I can only begin to imagine, chose to read with me. If you put us all together, we’d fill a small stadium. I close my eyes, and try not to imagine it.
You pick up a book you’ve been putting off. The pages tower to taunt you, and some voice says you’re not bright enough, brave or bloody-minded enough to read me. This book is not for you. You read it anyway.
You read and write, swim and fly into a future once fearful, but less so now.
After his second swimming lesson, he stirs marshmallows in his cup. He tells me you must walk, not run, beside the pool. Look up, head up, when you float on your back, and count the lights. Water may splash your face, but it’s okay. It’s alright.
He says next week he will be ‘experienced’. He tests the power of the new word in his mouth. I ask him if he had fun. Four-year-old poker face and a steely eye. He smiles.
Our slow reads
January is my busiest month, getting three slow reads underway and helping new subscribers find the posts, podcasts and resources they need.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks is the Substack App, which many people use to read my posts. My biggest piece of advice to anyone struggling with the App is to delete it. I don’t use it, and I have designed everything to be easy to use from the website.
Each book has its dedicated page, with a welcome post, reading schedule and further resources. You can save any of these pages in the App, or bookmark them for easy reference.
We are currently reading:
I encourage everyone to read at their own pace, and latecomers are always welcome.
To join, simply turn on notifications for the book of your choice in your subscription settings.
February Book Groups
Slow reading is having a bit of a moment on Substack.
Some of us want to spend less time with screens and more time with books. Others are looking to change the way they consume literature. Read a little less, but go a little deeper.
In my 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 February:
- : Homeseeking by Karissa Chen
The Big Read with
: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison / All About Love by bell hooksThe Book Club for Busy Readers with
: This One Will Hurt You by Paul CrenshawThe Burning Archive Slow Read with
: The Books of Jacob by Olga TokarczukByronicaly: The Dostoevsky Year with
: Notes from a Dead House by Fyodor DostoevskyCambridge Ladies' Dining Society with
: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend WarnerCams Campbell Reads with
: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (May 2024 – Feb 2025)- : Chasing Fog by Laura Pashby (all year)
Close Reads HQ with
, , : A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (Jan-Mar)Closely Reading with
: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen- : The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt (Nov-Feb)
Creative, Inspired, Happy with
: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart TurtonThe Creative Kingdom Book Club with
: Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer by Julia Cameron- : Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (all 2025)
Deep Reads Book Club with
: Jan-Jun: Homer’s The IliadDostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta» with
: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (all 2025)Elizabeth Goudge Bookclub with
: Henrietta's HouseEmily’s Walking Book Club with
: Kitchen by Banana YoshimotoFrizzLit with
: Dorothy Parker Book ClubGenius & Ink with
: Dante’s The Divine Comedy (all 2025)The Hannah Reads Book Club with
: In Cold Blood by Truman CapoteThe Kindred Spirits Bookclub with
: Anne of Green Gables books (all 2025)- : Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber (continued)
- : Chaucer Reading Challenge
- : King by Johnathan Eig (Jan-Apr)
Read the Classics with
: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (all 2025) / Persuasion by Jane AustenReading Revisited with
& : Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra by C.S. LewisThe Sixty-Minute Book Club with
: ‘The Swimmer’ by John CheeverSleuth Hero Alien with
: A Pirate's Life for Tea by Rebecca Thorne- & : Crossing the Mangrove by Maryse Conde
- : I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
To All My Darlings with
: Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young (all 2025)Virginia Woolf Reading Group with
: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Thank you
Many thanks for subscribing to Footnotes and Tangents and joining our slow reads. I’ll be back next month with more Endnotes.
Until then, take care and happy reading.
Simon
Simon, I am one of your recent arrivals and am very happy to have found you. You may have started this substack with the ambition of creating a niche space. But the thing is, a niche can be very large space, when like minded people, who thought they were alone in their interest, discover there is a space where others can dwell and read together at their own pace.
You deserve all your success.
Such a marvelous swimming story. I now watch my granddaughter in swim meets crisscross the lane with backstroke and come in last, but she still dreams of going to the Olympics, who knows 🙂 I am with you reading TSOK. Just not posting right now. Reading, learning, and packing to move to California, leaving a marriage of 50 years and saying good-bye to my beautiful New Mexico, home since 1973. It is difficult and exciting at the same time but it leaves me no energy for engaging online. I am so happy for you with the explosion of subscribers. It also gives me hope for the world. Going silent but hovering as if I were an angel.