Substack Book Group Directory
Book guides | Slow reads | Library | Chat | Notes
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:
Jan: Private Rites by Julia Armfield
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 Big Read
Host:
Jan: The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham / Attention Span by Gloria Mark
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:
Jan: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
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
Cambridge Ladies' Dining Society
Host:
2025 books:
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Fortnight in September by R.C. Sheriff
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)
The Classical Book Club
Host:
Jan: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
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:
Jan: Deep Work by Cal Newport
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 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:
Jan: Gentian Hill
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:
Jan: Tales from Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mistry
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
FrizzLit 📷
Host:
Jan-Feb: Dune by Frank Herbert
Feb: Dorothy Parker Book Club
Genius & Ink 🎧
Host:
2025: Dante’s The Divine Comedy
The Gentle Book Club
Host:
2025 books to be announced
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:
Spring-Summer: Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante
Autumn-Winter: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Read and Think Deeply
Host:
Jan-Apr: King by Johnathan Eig
May-Jun: Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
Jul-Oct: Douglass by David W. Blight
Nov-Dec: Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis
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:
& &Jan: Othello by William Shakespeare
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:
Jan: The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall
The Sixty-Minute Book Club
Host:
Jan: ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackso
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:
Jan: The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
Feb: A Pirate's Life for Tea by Rebecca Thorne
The Reader & the Writer 🎧
Hosts:
&Jan: The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis
Feb: Crossing the Mangrove by Maryse Conde
Mar: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Science Fiction Reads
Host:
Jan: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
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
To All My Darlings
Host:
2025: Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young
True Stories Book Club 🎧📷
Host:
Jan: A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter
Virginia Woolf Reading Group
Host:
Feb-Mar: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Well-Read Weekend
Host:
Jan: Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
