Substack Book Group Directory

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Find a book group on Substack…

Footnotes and Tangents is part of a growing community of book groups, book clubs, readalongs and slow reads on Substack.

This directory lists active newsletters hosting current and upcoming reads. Titles include fiction, nonfiction, plays, and poetry.

If you host a book group on Substack and would like to be included, message me with links to your most relevant posts/pages and start dates for current and upcoming reads.

This list is updated monthly and sent to all Footnotes and Tangents subscribers.

Substack Book Group Directory

Key: 📷 video meetups 🎧 podcasts

The Audacious Book Club 📷

Host:


Jul: Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin
Sep: Moderation by Elaine Castillo / Resting Bitch Face by Taylor Byas
Later this year: What If We Get It Right? by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson / We Survived the Night by Julian Brave NoiseCat

The Austen Connection Read-Along

Host:


Jul-Aug: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Sep-Oct: Emma by Jane Austen
Nov-Dec: Persuasion by Jane Austen

The Big Read

Host:


Jun-July: Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Book Club for Busy Readers 📷

Host:


Aug: Live Love Now by Rachel Macy Stafford
Sep: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
Oct: These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
Nov: All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Dec: One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

The Burning Archive Slow Read

Host:


Feb-Sep: The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
Oct-TBC: The Mahabharata

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

Host:


Jun-Jul:
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

Cams Campbell Reads

Host:


July: TBA

Chasing Fog Book Club

Host:


2025: Chasing Fog by

The Classical Book Club

Host:


June: The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
July:
TBD by vote

Close Reads HQ 🎧

Hosts:

, ,
Jul-Aug: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Aug-Sep: The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
Sep-Oct: A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Nov-Dec: Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare

Closely Reading

Host:


May-Jul: Middlemarch by George Eliot
Aug-Oct: The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
Oct-Dec: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Commonplace Philosophy 📷

Host: Jared Henderson
July: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Aug-Sep: Chuang Tzu
Oct-2026: Aristotle’s Politics

Creative, Inspired, Happy: Read Like a Writer Book Club 📷

Host:


Jul: Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Aug: The Incredible Kindness of Paper by Evelyn Skye
Sept: Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Oct: The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
Nov/Dec: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

The Creative Kingdom Book Club

Host:


June-TBD: Floor Sample by Julia Cameron

The Cultural Diegetic

Host:


2025: Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Nov: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Deep Reads Book Club

Host:


Jul-Dec: Homer’s The Odyssey

Dostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta»

Host:


2025: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Eclectic Reader

Host:


Jul: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
Aug: Quicksand by Nella Larsen

Elizabeth Goudge Bookclub 📷

Host:


Jul: The Valley of Song
Aug: Child from the Sea
Sep: The Middle Window
Oct: My God & My All
Nov: The Dean's Watch
Dec: I Saw Three Ships

Emily’s Walking Book Club 📷

Host:


Jul: Persuasion by Jane Austen

The First Books Book Club

Host:


July: TBA

Footnotes and Tangents 🎧

Host:


2025: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Apr-Jul: Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
May-Sep: A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
Jul-Dec: The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel
Sep-Oct: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Nov-Dec: The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

4,000 Ideas: The Oliver Burkeman Bookclub

Host:


Feb-TBD: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

FrizzLit 📷

Host:


Jul-Sept: Joan Didion Book Club

Genius & Ink 🎧

Host:


2025: Dante’s The Divine Comedy

Guerilla Readers

Host:


Jul: Network of Lies: The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy by Brian Stelter

Interpreting the Great Artificer: Close readings of the works of James Joyce

Host:


May-TBD: Dubliners by James Joyce

The Kindred Spirits Bookclub

Host:


Jul: Anne of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Aug: Rainbow Valley by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Sep: Rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Love of Literature

Host:


Jun-Aug: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

Melanie’s Frontal Lobe

Host:


2024-2025: Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber

More Magic

Host:


Jul: The Web of Time by Flavia Brunetti
Aug: Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs
Sep: Water Moon by Samantha Sotti Yambao
Oct: The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
Nov: Once Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods
Dec: The Everlasting by Alix Harrow

Mystics Reading Society

Host:


July: When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron

Personal Canon Formation

Host:


Jan-TBD: Chaucer Reading Challenge

Pirate Seminar

Host:


Jun-Aug: A General History of the Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson

Pomus Aureus

Host:


Jun-Sept: Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante
Autumn-Winter: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Read the Classics

Host:


2025: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
July: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

The Reader & the Writer 🎧

Hosts:

&
2025: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
July:
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Reading Revisited

Host:

& &
Jul: Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri
Aug: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Receipt from the Bookshop

Host:


July: TBD

The Sixty-Minute Book Club

Host:


Jul: The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
Aug: Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl
Sep: Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler
Oct: A Small, Good Thing by Raymond Carver
Nov: A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel García Márquez
Dec: The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Arthur Conan Doyle

To All My Darlings

Host:


2025: Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young

True Stories Book Club 🎧📷

Host:


Currently paused

Well-Read Weekend

Host:


July: TBD either Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie, or A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr