Endnotes August 2024 & Book Group Directory
Announcing book line-up for Footnotes and Tangents in 2025
Hello!
This is my monthly update to all subscribers to Footnotes and Tangents – book guides and slow reads of great books.
We currently have two groups: Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy. Read on to find out which books will be featured in 2025. And scroll down for the latest version of the Substack Book Group Directory to find other readalongs and book clubs hosted on Substack.
Footnotes and Tangents is now a year old! Twelve months ago, I decided to turn this Instagram side project into a full-blown newsletter. By the end of 2023, I began to work full-time writing Footnotes and Tangents – and I haven’t looked back!
Thank you to everyone for making that happen. This is an evolving project, an adventure in reading literature with creativity, compassion and curiosity.
Footnotes and Tangents encourages everyone to make great books their own. Each reading experience is unique; we live inside stories and renew them as we read and retell them. You are the only expert of that encounter so I cannot tell you how to read a book. Instead, I attempt to be a guide and a companion in that journey and create an inclusive space to share our adventures in literature.
Book groups in 2025
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel (Free)
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Free)
The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G.Farrell (Free)
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald (Free)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Paid)
The Cromwell trilogy: Wolf Hall, Bring up the Bodies, The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel (Paid)
Next year, I will re-run the year-long slow reads of War and Peace and Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy for paid subscribers. I will talk more about these two readalongs in October and November.
Alongside these re-runs, I am exploring Mantel’s other great historical novel, A Place of Greater Safety, and three works of historical fiction that Mantel especially admired: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G.Farrell and The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald. I will introduce these books in next month’s post, along with the reading schedules and how to sign up.
Like this year, next year’s new titles will be free for everyone. If you have the means to support my writing with a paid subscription, it will help me continue this project and offer ‘scholarships’ to subscribers on low or no income. This year, I have been working full-time on the book guides. Hopefully, next year’s subscriptions will allow me to dedicate time to researching and writing my own novel.
Finally, to reflect the detail and quality of the completed book guides, new paid subscriptions will rise to £5/£50 on 1 Jan 2025. Existing subscriptions will not change, so upgrade this year for the best deal at £3.50 a month or £35 a year.
Thank you again for joining me on these reading adventures. I’ll be back next month with more on the 2025 reads. In the meantime, please explore my list of book groups with Substack newsletters. And if there’s a book you would like to read slowly and together, let us know in the comments and maybe someone might be inspired to lead a reading!
Have a great month and happy reading,
Simon
Substack Book Group Directory
If you would like to update your details here or add your own book group, book club or read-along, please send me a message on Substack.
For past books, peruse the archive.
For the most up-to-date list, click here.
Key: 📞 video meetups 🎧 podcasts
The Audacious Book Club 📞
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The Big Read
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Cams Campbell Reads
Host:
Close Reads HQ 🎧
Hosts:
Closely Reading
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The Common Reader 📞
Host: Henry Oliver • Last: As You Like It by William Shakespeare • Now: Twelfth Night & Hamlet (Discussion: 8 Sept) • Next: Troilus and Cressida & Anthony and Cleopatra (Discussion: 13 Oct)
Creative, Inspired, Happy 📞
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The Crossroads Gazette’s Audio Book Club 🎧
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Dostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta»
Host: Dana Oljós • Now: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (July – Dec 2024)
Elizabeth Goudge Bookclub
Host: Julie Witmer • Last: Linnets & Valerians • Now: Island Magic
Emily’s Walking Book Club📞
Host:
Footnotes and Tangents 🎧
Host: Simon Haisell • Last: Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel • Now: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy & The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel • Next: A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel (2025)
FrizzLit
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Gentle Book Club
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MakingHistory and Lifelong Learning 📞
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Notes from the Town Hermit
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Paper Knife
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The Paulo Coelho Read Along
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Peak Notions 📞
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Poetry & Process
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Read the Classics
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Reading Revisited
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Receipt from the Bookshop
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The Selfish Bookclub
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The Story Social
Hosts:
Virginia Woolf Reading Group
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Walking Away
Host:
Very much looking forward to next year's slow reads! I love a Place of Greater Safety so an in-depth dive into it will be lovely. Having had to change my plans regarding the course I should be starting in November so we can get our son to appointments etc, I will be focusing on more creative endeavours next year to keep me grounded. Therefore I be able to read all books on the read along and as I have not read the others it will be an entirely new experience.
Oh well, looks like I’ll have to give up my day job as I want to read them all 😅 I’m so glad you’re re-running W&P as that feel like a must. And I really want to read APOGS after enjoying the #wolfcrawl this year. But then the Siege has been on my list since forever and I’d love to relook at Things Fall Apart because I read it as a youngster and struggled. This really is a surfeit of riches and I can’t wait. Very glad to be a subscriber - it’s honestly the best money I spend all year.