The big bumper list of 2025 book groups
And what was your best read of 2024?
Hi all
Here’s a question for you:
What was your best read of 2024? I’d love to know whether it is a book you’d like to read again and whether you’d recommend it for a slow read here on Footnotes & Tangents.
Congratulations to everyone who has finished this year’s slow reads! Don’t stop now — this post is a big bumper list of group reads for 2025, with something for everyone.
This was my first year of running Footnotes & Tangents as a fully-fledged website, newsletter and podcast. It was a colossal undertaking: running two book groups side by side, and researching and writing two posts a week, every week, for a year.
And yet, I am enormously proud of what I have created. I am delighted by the community that gathered around these books, and deeply moved and inspired by the stories readers have shared from their adventures in slow reading.
Below, I link to the intro posts, home pages, and reading schedules for next year’s books. To join, simply subscribe and turn on notifications for one or more books in your subscription settings.
2025 at Footnotes and Tangents
It’s all gone a bit wild here, following generous shoutouts from
, , and . Welcome to everyone who heard about us at The Londonist Time Machine, the Happier podcast, or Pantsuit Politics!I’m running three flavours of slow read next year:
War & Peace is the OG read-along in its third and final year. Like the book itself, the read-along is a ‘large, loose, baggy monster’1. Wolf Crawl is an immersive celebration of Mantel’s writing, getting an exciting makeover in its second year. Finally, I’m writing the ‘first draft’ of guides for four historical novels, and inviting readers to join me on the journey.
War and Peace: the original slow read
Next year is the last year I am running the original slow read: Leo Tolstoy’s War & Peace. My priority here is to tidy up the weekly posts, re-record the podcasts and make them into a permanent resource for this year’s and future readers.
War & Peace Home Page | Reading Schedule | Welcome Pack | Podcast Trailer
To join, turn on notifications for 2025 War & Peace in your subscription settings.
Wolf Crawl: the flagship slow read
Writing this 52-week guide to Mantel’s Cromwell books has been a labour of love. In 2025, I will revise and improve these posts with archival material from
, maps from , and illustrations from Crow.Wolf Crawl Home Page | Reading Schedule | Welcome Pack | Podcast Trailer
To join, turn on notifications for 2025 Wolf Crawl in your subscription settings.
New books: experiments in slow reading
Where do you go after Wolf Crawl? I knew I wanted to write a guide to Mantel’s other historical tome: A Place of Greater Safety. I am bookending that read with three historical novels admired by Mantel. These are experiments in slow reading, and I have no idea where these read-alongs will take us.
The Siege of Krishnapur
J. G. Farrell wrote three novels about the decline of the British Empire. The Siege of Krishnapur follows the siege of a fictional Indian town during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 from the perspective of its British residents. It's a dark and absurd critique of imperialism, which won The Booker Prize in 1973.
The Siege of Krishnapur Home Page | Reading Schedule | Starts 13 January
To join, turn on notifications for 2025 The Siege of Krishnapur in your subscription settings.
A Place of Greater Safety
Hilary Mantel’s doorstop on the French Revolution is magnificent and terrifyingly alive. It’s the first novel she wrote, and it almost didn’t get published. We will be making our own place of safety here to help us make it through this book and the revolution in one piece.
A Place of Greater Safety Home Page | Starts 5 May
To join, turn on notifications for 2025 A Place of Greater Safety in your subscription settings.
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe’s novel on Igbo culture and the colonial encounter in Nigeria. A landmark in historical fiction and African literature, I am so excited to be giving this novel the slow-read treatment.
Things Fall Apart Home Page | Starts 29 September
To join, turn on notifications for 2025 Things Fall Apart in your subscription settings.
The Blue Flower
Penelope Fitzgerald’s complex final novel on the early life of Novalis, a foundational figure in German Romanticism. This curious book is often hailed as one of the best historical novels ever written. Let’s explore it together.
The Blue Flower Home Page | Starts 3 November
To join, turn on notifications for 2025 The Blue Flower in your subscription settings.
I hope you will join me for one or more of these books in 2025. Please explore the list of book groups below for more reading inspiration, and let me know in the comments about your favourite reads of 2024.
Wishing everyone a peaceful new year and many engrossing reads in 2025.
Simon
The Substack Book Group Directory
I maintain a list of active bookclubs hosted on Substack newsletters. It is extensive but not exhaustive, so let me know if you run a book group and would like to be included. The full list is here, and below are all the listings for 2025:
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 with
Jan: The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham / Attention Span by Gloria Mark
Feb: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Feb-Mar) / 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 with
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
Close Reads HQ with
, &In 2025:
• The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
• Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
• The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
• Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare
• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Closely Reading with
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
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 with
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 with
2025: Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Deep Reads Book Club with
Jan-Jun: Homer’s The Iliad
Jul-Dec: Homer’s The Odyssey
Dostoevsky book club «Theta-Delta» with Dana Oljós
2025: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Emily’s Walking Book Club with
Now: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
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
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 with
Jan-Feb: Dune by Frank Herbert
Genius & Ink with
2025: Dante’s The Divine Comedy
Next Year: Chaucer & Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
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 with
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 with
, ,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
Sleuth Hero Alien with
Jan: The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
To All My Darlings with
2025: Miss MacIntosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young
Jan: A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter
Henry James’s famous description of Tolstoy’s epic.
The best book I read in 2024 is actually nonfiction: Good Energy by Dr Casey Means. A how to live healthier and happier page-turner.
I’d love a 2026 slow read on Middlemarch. It’s a good candidate, I think, based on its length, literary significance and dauntingness factor. I have tried to scale Middlemarch more than once, but on my own, I gave up.
We could call the group Slow March. (?)
Middlemarch without a doubt. A hefty read but a great world to spend time in.