Welcome to Footnotes & Tangents! Slow reads of great books
A reading community and book guides to enrich your reading
Book guides | Slow reads | Library | Wolf Crawl
Hello and welcome to Footnotes and Tangents. I am
and I write guides to the books that fascinate, inspire and haunt me most.I host read-alongs of great fiction at a gentle pace. These slow reads are designed for curious and creative readers who want to make the most of their reading.
Footnotes and Tangents is a book group and community of readers who share resources, companionship and insight while we explore the story together.
Join a slow read
We are currently reading:
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Jan–Dec 2025)
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Jan–Apr 2025)
Upcoming slow reads:
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel (May–Sep 2025)
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (May–Jul 2025)
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Sep–Nov 2025)
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald (Nov–Dec 2025)
You can join the slow reads or read at your own pace by using the book guides. Join a slow read by switching on notifications in your subscription settings.
Common Room
On the second Friday of each month, I open the Footnotes and Tangents Common Room with a discussion thread for paid subscribers. This is an opportunity to share what we are reading and to plan future slow reads.
Recent common room threads: JAN | FEB | MAR
Library
The library contains further resources to support the slow reads, including sections on Hilary Mantel, Mantel’s Cromwell Trilogy, The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell and A Place of Greater Safety.
The library also contains the Substack Book Group Directory of read-alongs and book clubs hosted on Substack. This list is updated monthly and sent out to subscribers in Endnotes on the last Friday of the month.
Endnotes
Endnotes is a newsletter sent out at the end of each month to all subscribers. It features my writing with news about our slow reads and a selection of upcoming book groups and read-alongs hosted on Substack.
Your guide
My name is Simon Haisell. I am a writer living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the UK. A few years ago, I started writing creatively about books on Instagram. In 2024, the project blossomed into this website. Through our book groups, I have been gladdened and inspired by the impact slow reading has had on lives all over the world.
I have done a few interviews, including this one with
and this one with . I also spoke to David Holland of the on the Tudor Dynasty podcast about our slow read of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy. You can watch that conversation here.Support
Footnotes and Tangents is made possible by paid subscribers, who get access to all the book guides and slow reads. Subscribe for £5/month or £50/year. This also allows me to offer complimentary subscriptions to engaged readers on a low or no income. Please get in touch if that’s you.
You can also leave me a tip on Stripe or buy a book via the Footnotes and Tangents bookshop. The best way you can support these slow reads is by letting more people know about Footnotes and Tangents. And referring friends extends your subscription for free.
Introduce yourself
There is a lively and friendly community here at Footnotes and Tangents. The joy of slow reading brings us together, but we are a diverse bunch with different backgrounds and interests.
I would be delighted if you would like to introduce yourself in the comments below or connect with other readers. Here are a few things I would love to know:
The place in the world you are right now.
A book (or books) that made you who you are.
Something non-bookish that you are passionate about.
A book you would love to “slow read”.
What you are reading right now?
And let us know if you write or create anything online so we can find you in your favourite haunts.
You were bitten by a snake? So this is how Master Secretary captured you.
In answer to your invitation:
I am Bea and I am a textile artist, based in West London, originally from near Manchester. I learned to love reading in Stalybridge Library where, unbeknownst to me, a young woman was researching the French Revolution. Many years later, we exchanged emails about Stalybridge Library (among other things!)
Most of my textile work is inspired by Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell Trilogy, and I can imagine that I will be continuing to work with it for the rest of my life. Hilary was kind enough to be interested in and supportive of my work, and she liked a paper I wrote about the act of stitching in the trilogy.
The book that changed my life - apart from Master Secretary - was A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley, which I read when I was eight, and I think I will talk about this in more detail in a post on The Thread of Her Tale. But the book that had the most dramatic impact was Giving Up the Ghost by Hilary Mantel. I read it while recovering from one of a series of operations for severe endometriosis - at the time (2003) it was one of the very few accounts of the condition. And that book led me to the rest of Hilary’s work.
I am Barrie, the 'Fables' part of 'Feasts and Fables'. I am the scribbler of words.
We live in rural France, gently working with the seasons to bring our neglected smallholding back to life. There isn't a single book I could nominate as 'the book that changed me' - I have read way more intentionally in recent years - some books pop up more than once - 'Consolations of the Forest' by Sylvain Tesson, 'Underland' by Rob Macfarlane, 'Still Life' by Sarah Winman ... the authors relish words as I do. I write flash fiction, often inspired by a painting or a photograph. Now I am finished with the 'world of work', I offer free encouragement, gentle mentoring, when folk ask for it.