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:


Feb: Homeseeking by Karissa Chen
Mar: Back After This by Linda Holmes
Apr: The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
May: My Documents by Kevin Nguyen
Jun: Marsha by Tourmaline
Jul: Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin
Sep: Moderation by Elaine Castillo / Resting Bitch Face by Taylor Byas

The Austen Connection Read-Along

Host:


Feb: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Mar-Apr: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
May-Jun: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Jul-Aug: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Sep-Oct: Emma by Jane Austen
Nov-Dec: Persuasion by Jane Austen

The Big Read

Host:


Feb: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison / All About Love by bell hooks
Mar: Range by David Epstein
Apr: Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain / Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain / When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
May: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain / The Infernal Machine by Steven Johnson
Jun: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather / A Supposedly Fun Thing by David Foster Wallace
July: The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin / Confessions by St Augustine
Aug: Silas Marner by George Eliot / What Stands in a Storm by Kim Cross
Sept: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston / Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Oct: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (Oct-Dec) / American Scary by Jeremy Dauber
Nov: I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong
Dec: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

The Book Club for Busy Readers 📷

Host:


Feb: This One Will Hurt You by Paul Crenshaw
Mar: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Apr: Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
May: Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis
Jun: On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks
Jul: Days of Wonder by Caroline Leavitt
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

Breccia

Host:


Mar-May: Weathering Book by

The Burning Archive Slow Read

Host:


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

Byronicaly: The Dostoevsky Year

Host:


Feb: Notes from a Dead House
Mar: Notes from Underground
Apr-May: Crime and Punishment
Jun: The Gambler
Jul: The Adolescent
Aug: The Idiot
Sep: Demons
Oct: Selected Short Stories - White Nights, The Double and Others
Nov-Dec: The Brothers Karamazov

Cambridge Ladies' Dining Society

Host:


Feb-Mar: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Apr: The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sheriff
Later this year:
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
At Mrs Lippincote’s by Elizabeth Taylor
The World My Wilderness by Rose Macaulay
The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins

Cams Campbell Reads

Host:


Now: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (May 2024 – Feb 2025)

Chasing Fog Book Club

Host:


2025: Chasing Fog by

The Classical Book Club

Host:


Feb: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Close Reads HQ 🎧

Hosts:

, ,
Jan-Mar: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Apr: O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
May:
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Jun: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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:


Jan-Mar: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Apr: Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis
Apr-May: Yonnondio by Tillie Olsen
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
Now: The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt (Nov-Feb)
Mar: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Mar-May: Plato’s Republic
June: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Aug-Sep: Chuang Tzu
Oct: Aristotle’s Politics

Creative, Inspired, Happy 📷

Host:


Feb: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Mar: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Apr: One Two Three by Laurie Frankel
May: Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
Jun: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

The Creative Kingdom Book Club

Host:


Feb: Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer by Julia Cameron
Mar: Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection by Julia Cameron
2025 titles (all by Julia Cameron):
The Writing Life: Ideas and Inspiration for Anyone Who Wants to Write (with Natalie Goldberg)
Floor Sample: A Creative Memoir
Letters to a Young Artist: Building a Life in Art
How to Avoid Making Art (or anything else you enjoy)
The Sound of Creativity (with Tim Wheater)
Unlocking Your Creativity
The Creative Life: True Tales of Inspiration

The Cultural Diegetic

Host:


2025: Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Deep Reads Book Club

Host:


Jan-Jun: Homer’s The Iliad
Jul-Dec: Homer’s The Odyssey

Dostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta»

Host:


2025: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Elizabeth Goudge Bookclub

Host:


Feb: Henrietta's House
Mar: The Castle on the Hill
Apr: Smoky House
May: The Scent of Water
Jun: The Joy of the Snow
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:


Feb: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Mar: Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald
Apr: Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski

Footnotes and Tangents 🎧

Host:


2025: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Jan-Apr: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Jan-Mar: The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell
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

Four Thousand Weeks

Host:


Feb: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

FrizzLit 📷

Host:


Jan-Feb: Dune by Frank Herbert
Feb: Dorothy Parker Book Club
Mar: E.M. Forester Book Club: A Room With a View

Genius & Ink 🎧

Host:


2025: Dante’s The Divine Comedy

The Gentle Book Club

Host:


Mar-Apr: Breaking Waves by Emma Simpson
May-Jun: Move, Rest, Recover by Erin Taylor
Jun-Jul: The Way of the Fearless Writer by Beth Kempton
Aug-Sept: The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
Sept-Oct: The Handmade Grimoire by Laura Derbyshire
Oct-Dec: Chasing Fog by Laura Pashby
Dec-Jan: The Once & Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

Guerilla Readers

Host:


Feb: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
Mar: Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow
Apr: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
May: Attack from Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America by Barbara McQuade

The Hannah Reads Book Club

Host:


Feb-Mar: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

The Kindred Spirits Bookclub

Host:


2025: Anne of Green Gables

Melanie’s Frontal Lobe

Host:


Now: Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber

Paper Knife

Host:


Now: A Year of Reading Kafka

Personal Canon Formation

Host:


Now: Chaucer Reading Challenge
Next: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Pomus Aureus

Host:


Feb-April: One, No One and a Hundred Thousand by Luigi Pirandello
Spring-Summer: 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
Feb: Persuasion by Jane Austen
Mar: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
Apr: The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
May-Jun: The Counterfeiters by André Gide
Jun: Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Reading Revisited

Host:

& &
Feb: Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra by C.S. Lewis
Mar: That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis
Apr: The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
May: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
June: Trust by Hernan Diaz
Jul: Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri
Aug: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Receipt from the Bookshop

Host:


Feb: Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

The Sixty-Minute Book Club

Host:


Feb: The Swimmer by John Cheever
Mar: Story of your Life by Ted Chiang
Apr: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
May: The Apple Tree by Daphne Du Maurier
Jun: Recitatif by Toni Morrison
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

Sleuth Hero Alien 📷

Host:


Feb: A Pirate's Life for Tea by Rebecca Thorne
Mar: The Nameless Restaurant: a cozy cooking fantasy by Tao Wong
Apr: Something Close to Magic by Emma Mills
May: Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord
Jun: The Crescent Moon Tearoom by Stacey Sivinski
Jul: The Princess of Potential by Delemhach
Aug: The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho
Sep: The Honey Witch by Sydney J. Shields
Oct: A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna
Nov: Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim
Dec: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Reader & the Writer 🎧

Hosts:

&
2025: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Feb-Mar: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
April: The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

Science Fiction Reads

Host:


Feb: I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Mar: Cities in Flight by James Blish
Apr: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
May: The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
Jun: Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
Jul: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
Aug: The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
Sep: Gateway by Frederik Pohl
Oct: The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith
Nov: Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
Dec: Earth Abides by George R. Stewart

Symbolism & Structure

Host:


Now: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

To All My Darlings

Host:


2025: Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young

True Stories Book Club 🎧📷

Host:


Feb-Mar: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Virginia Woolf Reading Group

Host:


Feb-Mar: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Well-Read Weekend

Host:


Feb: On the Happy Life by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, translated by Roger L’Estrange
March: Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë