The Big Book Project
The Big Book Project is a multi-venue reading experience for bibliophiles fascinated by long or dense works of fiction and interested in discussing them with others, one novel at a time. The works selected will be capacious novels from the mid-nineteenth century through today that possess an abundant writing style or complexity in structure and themes. The notion that reading need not be a solitary activity has special resonance with these novels given that there is much to discuss, elaborate upon and question in the authors’ expression of ideas. I like to think of these novels as abundant because I appreciate their richness and volume, characteristics bestow a sort of grace to luxuriate with the text. The critic and scholar Alexander Nehamas writes that when a work of art beckons, it is because we do not fully understand it but feel the strong desire to do so. And it is this deliberative process, the journey, of trying to understand why a novel is extraordinary that I want to explore with fellow readers at The Big Book Project. We discuss books like Roberto Bolaño’s 2666
Episodes
https://substack.com/@thebigbookproject
(Lori recorded this interview on a different device, and we apologize for the poor quality of her audio.)
For five decades Steven Moore has been one of the most thoughtful champions of the kinds of novels we read at The Big Book Project — the abundant, stylistically ambitious works that reward slow attention. He is the foremost scholar on William Gaddis, the editor who worked alongside Dav...
https://substack.com/@thebigbookproject
Watch the full episode on youtube:
As we continue reading The School of Night by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Richard Bailey joins me to talk about Part Two of the novel. Richard is my fellow bookseller at Interabang Books and simply, one of my favorite people to talk to about books, ideas, and the creative process. As we continue to try to understand who Kristian is, the direction and intent of his p...
The name Fernando Del Paso was new to me two and a half years ago when author, publisher, and Dalkey Archive Press alum Martin Riker introduced me to Palinuro of Mexico. What a revelation this late Mexican novelist! Here was an author who wrote wildly, exuberantly, and explored consciousness, memory, and the ineffable mysticism of the world in such a compelling way. It didn’t take me any time at all to go out and purchase a second-...
https://substack.com/@thebigbookproject
Chad W. Post, publisher at Open Letter Books and translation studies instructor at the University of Rochester joins Lori Feathers on The Big Book Project to discuss the first 145 pages of Karl Ove Knausgåard's The School of Night. They explore Knausgaard's ouvre, the companion novels in his The School of Night constellation, as well as some of the author's autobiographical writ...
https://substack.com/@thebigbookproject
Dostoevsky’s The Idiot is too much—too many characters, too many plot points, too much chaos—and that’s exactly what makes it extraordinary. In this episode of The Big Book Project, host Lori Feathers sits down with Professor Michael Sexton, a devoted reader now on his fourth reading of the novel, to dig into Part Two, Chapters VII through XII.
They talk about the riotous scene where a motley c...
https://substack.com/@thebigbookproject
D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow rewards readers willing to move inward — into the psychological depths of a single family across three generations — rather than outward toward the conventional satisfactions of plot and incident. In this episode of The Big Book Project, host Lori Feathers is joined by novelist Mark Haber for a rich, searching conversation about one of Lawrence’s most extraordinary ...
William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses is one of those novels that resists easy summary — and that resistance is precisely what makes it so worth discussing. In this episode of The Big Book Project, host Lori Feathers is joined by Faulkner scholar Larry Allums for a deep, unhurried conversation about one of Faulkner’s most structurally ambitious and morally searching works.
Go Down, Moses occupies a deliberately uncomfortable formal spac...
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In this episode of The Big Book Project, Lori Feathers is joined by translator Ursula Phillips to discuss her extraordinary translation of Ice, the monumental, genre-defying novel by Polish author Jacek Dukaj.
Clocking in at nearly 1,200 pages, Ice is both an alternate-history epic and a philosophical meditation on truth, language, power, and perception. Phillips guides us throug...
In this episode of The Big Book Project, Lori sits down with novelist and philosopher Mark de Silva to explore his monumental 2022 novel The Logos — a thousand-page meditation on art, perception, capitalism, and the visual texture of contemporary life.
A writer steeped in philosophy and the visual arts, Mark reveals how The Logos emerged from nearly a decade of research into advertising theory, image culture, and the psychological f...
In this final discussion of Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner, Lori is joined once again by Dr. Larry Allums to close out one of the most haunting and inexhaustible novels in American literature.
Together, they trace Faulkner’s labyrinth of narration—Quentin and Shreve’s imaginative reconstruction of the Sutpen story—and explore what it reveals about truth, storytelling, and the South’s enduring obsession with its past...
https://substack.com/@thebigbookproject
In this episode of The Big Book Project, Lori Feathers and Dr. Larry Allums delve into Chapter 7 of William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!—one of the novel’s most intricate and revealing sections.
They trace Thomas Sutpen’s backstory from his rugged Appalachian boyhood to the life-altering moment that shapes his “design.” What begins as a story of social humiliation—being told to “use the back do...
In this episode of The Big Book Project, host Lori Feathers and literary scholar Dr. Larry Allums continue their deep exploration of William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!—turning to the enigmatic and multi-layered Chapter 6.
This chapter introduces a new voice into Faulkner’s intricate web of narrators: Shreve McCannon, Quentin Compson’s Canadian roommate at Harvard. Lori and Larry discuss how Faulkner weaves Shreve into the novel’s ...
Welcome back to The Big Book Project, hosted by Lori Feathers. In Video 2, Lori continues her discussion of William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! with returning guest Dr. Larry Allums. Together, they unpack the intense drama of Chapters 4 and 5, where Rosa Coldfield’s narration reveals her humiliation at the hands of Thomas Sutpen — and Faulkner deepens his exploration of race, obsession, and the tragic design at the heart of Sutpen...
In this episode of The Big Book Project, Lori Feathers is joined by Dr. Larry Allums to launch our collective read of William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! — one of the most complex and unforgettable novels in American literature.
They unpack the biblical and mythological dimensions of the novel, explore its shifting narrators, and discuss how Faulkner used the story of Thomas Sutpen to expose the South’s tangled history of ambition,...
This week on The Big Book Project I’m joined by Nick During, publicist at New York Review Books, for a deep dive into Henrik Pontoppidan’s monumental novel A Fortunate Man translated by Paul Larkin.
Pontoppidan, who won the 1917 Nobel Prize in Literature, gives us one of the great portraits of ambition, love, and disillusionment at the turn of the 20th century. His protagonist, Per, dreams of modernizing Denmark through a grand engi...
Join host Lori Feathers and guest Chad W. Post (Dalkey Archive Press & Open Letter Books) as they dive into the world of Portuguese writer António Lobo Antunes, one of the most significant literary voices of the last 50 years.
They discuss Antunes’s groundbreaking style—shifting voices, fragmented memory, and narrative consciousness—as well as the political and historical backdrops of his fiction, including Angola and ...
In this final conversation on The Kindly Ones, I’m joined again by Tom Flynn to explore the last chaotic stretch of Jonathan Littell’s massive and deeply unsettling novel.
We talk about the feverish pacing, the bizarre turns, and the chilling final scenes—from Max biting Hitler’s nose to the feral children in the woods. Does the book fall apart, or is it mirroring the collapse of the world it depicts? Is Thomas even real? Why does i...
Why do some readers gravitate toward sprawling, ambitious novels that take weeks—or even months—to read? What is it about long books that makes them so immersive, so risky, and so rewarding?
In this episode of The Big Book Project, Lori Feathers is joined once again by writer and professor James Elkins for an in-depth conversation about the magic and challenges of big books. They explore their personal criteria for what makes a long...
https://substack.com/@thebigbookproject
In this episode of The Big Book Project, Lori sits down with Brad Costa, sales representative for W.W. Norton and an extraordinary reader, to discuss Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones.
Brad brings a unique perspective as someone who worked in library archives with Holocaust materials, offering profound insights into the novel’s detailed depiction of bureaucratic evil, moral...
In this episode of The Big Book Project, Lori Feathers is joined by Professor Dorian Stuber for a deep dive into Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones. They explore the book’s place within Holocaust literature, its historical accuracy, and the challenges it poses to readers and educators alike. From the banality of evil to the controversial portrayal of sexual deviancy, Lori and Dorian unpack the themes, narrative choices, and lasting...
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