Long books at a stress-free pace
Doorstoppers Epic Reads Book Club on Fable
I started the Doorstoppers Epic Reads Book Club on Fable, the social reading app, in May 2022. I have a lot of long books on my TBR but I just never seemed to get around to reading any of them. So, I decided I wanted to make these books “bread-and-butter” reads that would add to my daily reading life without taking over my entire reading life. Although I tend to read multiple books at a time, in general I prefer reading more quickly, so this club also started as an experiment to see if I could just enjoy reading books little by little, without feeling pressure to finish one book before I move on to another one. It’s sort of an exercise in patience for me, and a way to enjoy long books at a stress-free pace. More recently it’s morphed to be primarily newer releases, because club members seem to want more of those. And that’s totally fine by me!
The Doorstoppers
The Doorstoppers are all, well, doorstoppers, meaning they’re long, as in 500+ pages. Long books can be intimidating. Maybe you’ve never read a book this long (or even picked up a book this long!), or maybe you’ve always wanted to read some of these books but feel like you don’t have enough time to add another big commitment to your life. I would like to encourage hesitant readers or those who just don’t have a lot of time to read to join me as we slowly make our way through these longer selections at what is hopefully a stress-free pace. We’ll be able to savor each book and really immerse ourselves in the reading experience through daily reading. The time spent on each book will depend on the length of the book, but will be anywhere from six weeks to three months.
Time to Read and Reflect
Reading one book over such a long period gives us time to read and reflect, while (hopefully) enjoying the experience of being in the presence of these books. It also allows time for new readers to come in without feeling like they have missed the boat because there is only one month to read a book. For those of you who have the Fable app, you can join me there, where the milestones and discussion are integrated into the app.
Focus on Fiction
If you have been scared off from reading some of these books solely because they are very long, or you didn’t feel like you could keep pace with a faster book club, Doorstoppers could be the perfect fit for you. Even if you join us after we’ve started, you should still have plenty of time to catch up without feeling like the train has left the station. When available (e.g. for the older classics), I’ll try to include a free ebook version through Fable. The focus is on fiction, but I am not necessarily limited by genre. I believe in casting my reading net far and wide, so you’ll see what I hope is a diverse mix. Check out the list below for current and past reads, and feel free to make suggestions for future selections.
Join the Club!
Use the link below to join Fable, download the app (very important step to get your credit), and we both get $5 credit towards an ebook. It’s a win-win!
Doorstoppers Epic Reads on Fable
Current Read
The Terror
By Dan Simmons. Our last selection for the year, and I think it’s going to be a good one. It should fit well with any wintry vibes in the Northern Hemisphere, and possibly bring relief from anyone joining in from an overheated Southern Hemisphere. The Terror and the Erebus were real British warships which were then used for exploration. By the time of this story, the Terror had already sailed to the Antarctic three times, but on this voyage the objective was to find a way through the Northwest Passage. Rooted in the mysterious events surrounding these two ships’ final voyages, the book has a lot of historical details…and cracking and creaking ice. It will make an even TEN books we’ve read together this year at Doorstoppers! Not bad for a stress-free reading pace and long books, eh? Scheduled for November 14 – December 31, 2024.
Past Reads
Feed (Newsflesh #1)
By Mira Grant, pen name of California author Seanan McGuire. All three of the Newsflesh books, which have spawned various prequels and sequels, were nominated for Hugo Awards. Described as a dystopian political zombie thriller, the first book is set against the backdrop of a national election. I didn’t realize that when I suggested it as one of our choices but it seems appropriate given the time period. I have a feeling this will be a fast-paced book full of action. Scheduled for October 14 – November 13, 2024.
The Covenant of Water
By Abraham Verghese. Verghese, a physician and professor at Stanford University, has written a sweeping family epic that begins in 1900 in the Kingdom of Travancore, Kerala, India, on the Malabar Coast, with the arranged marriage of a 12-year-old girl to a 40-year-old widower. In every generation, at least one person dies from drowning. Kerala is surrounded by water, so we can expect plenty of heartbreak in the 77 years that make up this novel. Scheduled for August 29 – October 13, 2024.
The God of the Woods
By Liz Moore. Brand new and getting excellent reviews, this literary mystery takes place in the Adirondacks in August 1975, so it has the right feel for one of our summer selections. Moore is well-known for her last novel, Long Bright River, and Heft. The latter was in development as a movie several years ago but I haven’t been able to find any information on its status. In any case, I’m looking forward this selection, which has been called a “fox trap” of a novel. Scheduled for July 24 – August 28, 2024.
Lonesome Dove
By Larry McMurtry. Widely considered one of the best Westerns out there, this is a chunkster, but the story of Augustus and Call, two retired Texas Rangers, moves along at a fast clip. According to McMurtry, he wrote this 1985 novel as a kind of anti-Western, wanting to dispel some of the romantic myths associated with stories about the Wild West. Highly-acclaimed, it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986. Aside from the Lonesome Dove novels, McMurtry also wrote, among others, The Last Picture Show and Terms of Endearment. Scheduled for June 11 – July 23, 2024.
The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth Trilogy, #3)
By N. K. Jemisin. Overall, we had an extremely positive response to the first two books of this trilogy so we voted to continue on, which I was happy to do. The characters and story are engaging, with an interesting world. These books are slightly shorter than our typical Doorstoppers, but, taken together, they more than qualify as a Doorstoppers selection. Scheduled for May 11 – June 10, 2024.
The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth Trilogy, #2)
By N. K. Jemisin. See below for more information. Overall, we had an extremely positive response to the first of this trilogy so we voted to continue on, which I was happy to do. The characters and story are engaging, with an interesting world. These books are slightly shorter than our typical Doorstoppers, but, taken together, they more than qualify as a Doorstoppers selection. Scheduled for April 3 – May 11, 2024. Will we be moving on to book three? Join us and find out.
The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth Trilogy, #1)
By N. K. Jemisin. A prolific speculative fiction writer who makes New York City her home, Jemisin is the first person in history to win three consecutive Hugo Awards for Best Novel (in 2016, 2017, and 2018) for The Broken Earth Trilogy. I’ve heard there are not one, but two, glossaries at the end of this book, along with climate change destruction (hence the fifth season), caste systems, and a magic system. I’m not gonna lie, it might be a stretch for me, but I enjoyed The City We Became a great deal, so I’m looking forward to this one. Scheduled for March 5 – April 3, 2024.
The Bee Sting
By Paul Murray. This is the Irish author’s fourth book. Short-listed for the 2023 Booker Prize and winner of the Nero Award for fiction in 2024 (this award has somewhat “replaced” the former Costa Awards in the UK), I’ve heard nothing but raves about this book, which is supposed to be both funny and tragic. It tells the story of the Barnes family, alternating points of view of the family members, who live in a small town in Ireland. Scheduled for February 4 – March 4, 2024.
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution
By R.F. Kuang. Nebula Winner for Best Novel in 2022, Kuang’s novel explores the issues of academia, colonialism, and racism, in an alternate-history 1830s England. Kuang is a young but already prolific novelist, having written her Poppy War trilogy prior to this hugely successful novel, which itself comes before her most recent success, Yellowface. The story follows main character Robin Swift, a Cantonese orphan who has been adopted by Richard Lovell, a Babel professor in Oxford. Scheduled from January 4 – February 3, 2024.
Black River Orchard
By Chuck Wendig. His blog, Terrible Minds, is not only entertaining but also really useful for those of you who are interested in writing. I mean, it was recommended by Margaret Atwood, so…. Wendig is the author of craft books like Gentle Writing Advice, which I talked about in this post. Black River Orchard, his newest supernatural/horror novel, tells the story of a small town where seven apple trees start growing magical apples. Scheduled from November 18, 2023 – January 3, 2024.
The Good House
By Tananarive Due. The Good House is an older pick from this widely-published speculative fiction, horror, and mystery writer. I first read Due’s works in the Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora anthology, where she contributed the short story, Like Daughter. Who doesn’t love a scary house around Halloween? This is a standalone doorstopper from the award-winning writer who makes Los Angeles her home. Scheduled for October 20 – November 17, 2023.
A Game of Thrones: The Illustrated Edition, A Song of Ice and Fire #1
By George R. R. Martin. Published back in 1996, everyone has heard of Game of Thrones, even if they haven’t read any of the books (like me!). This is the volume that kicks off the whole series and which will transport us to the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Long before GOT became the juggernaut it now is, this first novel was nominated for more than one award, and it won the 1997 Locus Award. Are you a diehard fan? Never read it? Come join me as I see what all the fuss is about. Scheduled for September 3 – October 19, 2023.
Demon Copperhead
By Barbara Kingsolver. A 2023 co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize along with Hernan Diaz’s Trust (which I absolutely loved, but which doesn’t qualify as a Doorstopper), Kingsolver’s novel is a modern-day retelling of David Copperfield, set in a poverty-stricken American South. The main character is Damon, a young boy born to an opioid-addicted mother. The book also won the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Scheduled from July 15 – September 2, 2023.
Lisey’s Story
By Stephen King. It’s summertime and time to shift gears. After last summer’s mammoth War and Peace, the book club has decided to go with a “summertime spooky” read. Published in 2006 and now a TV mini-series with Julianne Moore, Lisey’s Story was published in King’s fourth decade of published works. He’s now in his sixth decade of publishing stories, which is almost incomprehensible to me. According to the author’s website, the idea for Lisey’s Story came to King when he was recovering from pneumonia. While he was laid up with that, his office was cleared out and repainted. He realized that what was in his room is what his wife, the writer Tabitha King, would have to deal with if he died before her (that and, naturally, having to mourn the loss of her husband after being married for so many years). If this is anything like his other books, it will be a fast read, so I’m scheduling it for a slightly shorter time than I would normally schedule our long books. Scheduled from June 10 – July 15, 2023.
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
By Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. This is another much-lauded book, winner of the National Book Critics Cirle Award for Fiction; a National Book Award finalist; and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. It chronicles the story of one American family from the times of the colonial slave trade, through the Civil War, and into modern times. We follow Ailey Pearl Garfield from her childhood through high school in the late 1980’s, and beyond. I’m always shocked when I hear about a writer who has come out with a debut of this “heft,” in both number of pages and scope, but I read that Jeffers spent nine years working on this novel. As an award-winning poet, this book promises a lyrical read. Scheduled for April 10 – June 9, 2023.
The Shadow of the Wind
By Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Winner of multiple awards, this is the first in the quartet by Zafón about a hidden “cemetery” for lost books in Barcelona. Daniel, a young boy, is taken there by his father at the start of this mystery, which begins in 1945. Sadly, Zafón passed away in 2020 but we can enjoy embarking on this series, his ode to reading. After the heavy realism of A Little Life, this should provide something of a brain balm. Scheduled for March 1 – April 9, 2023.
A Little Life
By Hanya Yanagihara. Set in New York City, the story follows four male friends through the decades from their twenties into their fifties. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the National Book Award, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and more, all signs point to it being a heart-wrenching read. Scheduled for January 1 – February 28, 2023.
Outlander
By Diana Gabaldon. Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Romance, 1991. The Starz TV series based on the Outlander series has won and been nominated for multiple awards since its debut in 2014. This book may have won an award for best romance when it was first published, but it is a cross-genre adventure story which blends historical fiction and time travel with the romance. Scheduled for November 1 – December 31, 2022.
Black Leopard, Red Wolf
By Marlon James. Finalist for the National Book Award, 2019; Winner, The Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction, 2019; Winner, Locus Award for Best Horror Novel, 2020, among other accolades. Scheduled for September 1 – October 15, 2022.
War and Peace
By Leo Tolstoy (the Anthony Briggs translation, Penguin Classics edition. What to say about War and Peace? It’s a real doorstopper of a book but it’s not the length that concerns me. I just wonder if I’ll like it (update: yes, I did! But I doubt I’ll read it again.). Scheduled for May 1 – August 31, 2022.
In the Mix
In the mix (random sampling of potential selections): The Books of Jacob, by Olga Tokarczuk; The Eighth Life, by Nino Haratischwili; The World According to Garp, by John Irving; A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles; Babel, by R.F. Kuang; The Way the Crow Flies, by Ann-Marie MacDonald; Mordew, by Alex Pheby; Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace; The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
Suggestions for Future Reads
If you’d like to make suggestions for future reads, please Send me a Message, or find me on Fable.
Shorter Reads
I sometimes read shorter books, too! And I also read long books that aren’t part of this club. To get an idea of the other things in my reading life, you can take a look at Off the Shelf.
Image by Mysticsartdesign.