The Big Book Project

Lori Feathers
  • 4.0 (4)
  • BOOKS
  • UPDATED MONTHLY

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

  1. 1D AGO

    Reading Faulkner's Go Down, Moses with Dr. Larry Allums | The Big Book Project

    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 space — neither quite a novel nor quite a short story collection — and Lori and Larry explore how that ambiguity is central to the book’s meaning rather than incidental to it. They trace Faulkner’s decision to arrange the chapters outside of chronological order, examine why the McCaslin family genealogy is essential reading before the first page, and follow Ike McCaslin from boyhood to old age as he grapples with inheritance, land ownership, and the accumulated moral weight of what his family has done and left undone. The episode gives extended attention to “The Bear” — the novel’s longest and most mythically charged section — where Old Ben emerges not merely as an animal but as something closer to a totem for the land itself. The mentorship of Sam Fathers, the ritual dimensions of the hunt, and the way Faulkner’s extraordinary nature writing creates a kind of sacred space outside ordinary human corruption are all examined at length. Lori and Larry also discuss the surprising vein of dark comedy running through the novel. The conversation does not look away from what Go Down, Moses most urgently demands: a reckoning with the entangled bloodlines of the McCaslin and Beauchamp families, the unacknowledged moral debts of the slaveholding South, and the question of whether the McCaslins's legacy of inheritance is an attempt to rectify a wrong or a form of denial and evasion. Larry Allums is a William Faulkner scholar who previously joined The Big Book Project for the group read of Absalom, Absalom! His expertise and genuine love for Faulkner’s fiction make him one of the most illuminating guides available to this particular literary terrain. Subscribe to The Big Book Project for readings and discussions of novels that reward the full measure of attention you bring to them. Where to Find the Host The Big Book Project on Substack Follow on Instagram Watch on Youtube Chapters: 00:00 Introduction & Welcome Back to Larry Allums 01:20 Publication History of Go Down Moses 07:20 Non-Chronological Structure & Family Genealogy 13:00 Ike McCaslin — Childhood to Old Age 18:30 Humor in The Fire and the Hearth 27:50 Lucas Beauchamp & Inheritance 40:20 Interiority and Character Consciousness 47:55 Old Ben the Bear & Sam Fathers 55:50 Ike’s Renunciation of the Land 59:50 McCaslin Characters Across Faulkner’s Fiction 01:03:30 Final Reflections & Reading Tips

    1h 7m

  2. JAN 22

    Translating the Impossible: Ursula Phillips on Ice by Jacek Dukaj

    https://substack.com/@thebigbookproject 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 through the novel’s vast imaginative scope—from its reimagining of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century, and its complex political, religious, and commercial entanglements in a world frozen by ice, to the deeply personal story of its hero, the Polish mathematician Benedykt Gierosławski, who travels to Siberia in search of his exiled father. Along the way, Phillips offers insight into the intellectual and technical challenges of translating such a singular work. This conversation moves fluidly between plot, prose, and process, exploring how Ice engages with 19th-century novelistic traditions while pushing the boundaries of science fiction, historical fiction, and metaphysical inquiry. Phillips also reflects on narrative voice, linguistic instability, and the role of the translator as both craftsman and interpreter. What We Discuss in This Episode An overview of Ice’s alternate-history premise and frozen world after the Impact The novel’s protagonist, Benedykt Gierosławski, and his search for his exiled father, who has become a cult figure in the Land of Winter Political theories, religious movements, and commercial interests shaped by the Ice The historical and speculative roles that the Russian Empire and the Trans-Siberian Railway serve in the novel’s plot. The unusual shifts in narrative voice and perspective and how this is executed. The translator’s postscript and the philosophical problems of language and meaning The technical and conceptual challenges of translating a 1,200-page novel Dukaj’s lush, sensory language Connections to Kafka, Dostoevsky, and the 19th-century “big novel” tradition Recommendations on other Polish literature for readers to explore Notable Moment Lori reads a striking passage describing Benedykt’s first experience wearing frosto-glaze glasses—a scene that transforms the world into a riot of color and movement, highlighting the novel’s extraordinary visual imagination and the precision of Phillips’s translation. About the Guest Ursula Phillips is an acclaimed literary translator specializing in Polish literature. Her translation of Ice has been widely praised for preserving the novel’s philosophical depth, linguistic complexity, and stylistic ambition. About the Book Ice by Jacek Dukaj is an alternate-history novel set in a world reshaped by a mysterious climate-altering event. Blending science fiction, political theory, metaphysics, and historical fiction, the novel interrogates how truth, logic, and power shift under radically altered conditions. Listener Tip Ice includes a Glossary and Dramatis Personae to help readers navigate its neologisms and cast of characters. Links and Resources: 📚 The Big Book Project on Substack 🎙️ Follow The Big Book Project on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube ➡️ Follow on Instagram

    1h 20m

  3. 11/17/2025

    Mark de Silva Discusses "The Logos"

    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 forces that shape our desires. Lori and Mark’s conversation ranges from the phenomenology of seeing, to the dark glamour of New York City, drawing versus painting, and the strange seductions of stealth marketing. Together, Lori and Mark dive deep into: The narrator’s crisis of art and identity — and how success in the gallery world becomes a trapDrawing vs. painting as competing ways of capturing truthThe philosophy of visual perception and why looking too closely can dissolve the worldAdvertising as the new public art, and the blurred lines between art, manipulation, and influenceDaphne and Duke, the quasi-celebrities at the center of a massive, ambiguous ad campaignNew York City as a psychological landscape — its light, darkness, and peripheriesEmotional stuntedness, knowledge as alienation, and the costs of obsessive perceptionThe Logos as a portrait of contemporary capitalist culture — the beauty and the rotMark’s new work-in-progress: a sweeping novel about psychiatry, objectivity, homelessness, and agricultural labor in CaliforniaMark also recommends some of the big books currently on his mind, including: Hermann Broch — The Sleepwalkers and The Death of VirgilSolvej Balle -- On the Calculation of Volume seriesThis is a rich, layered conversation about what it means to see, what it means to make art, and what it means to capture the truth of a world defined by images. CHAPTERS 00:00 — The twin crises at the heart of The Logos 00:40 — Introducing Mark de Silva 02:00 — Nine years of research and writing 04:20 — An artist losing faith in the art world 06:15 — Advertising as the new public art 08:10 — Portraiture, obsession, and the essence of a person 10:00 — Seeing too closely and dissolving boundaries 12:00 — Drawing vs. painting: form vs. sensory seduction 15:15 — The sensory trap of consumer culture 17:30 — Ubiquity vs. usefulness in advertising theory 20:00 — Stealth campaigns, non-celebrities, and identity 23:00 — Art or capital? Garrett’s mysterious motives 25:30 — The darkness underneath Daphne and Duke 29:00 — New York City as a living organism 33:00 — Emotional stuntedness and the alienation of knowledge 37:00 — Writing through the eye — the book’s visual intensity 40:45 — Art after capitalism: what still matters? 45:00 — Is commercial art “real art”? 47:20 — Mark’s next novel: psychiatry, mind, and California 51:00 — Big book recommendations 55:00 — Closing reflections

    58 min

  4. 11/07/2025

    Absalom, Absalom! Final Thoughts with Dr. Larry Allums

    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. Lori and Larry discuss themes of fatalism, love, terror, and the moral weight of history, examining how characters like Judith and Charles embody both the inescapability of inheritance and moments of grace within it. They also reflect on Faulkner’s ambivalence toward the South—his simultaneous hatred and love for it—and how that tension gives the novel its tragic depth. From the image of the blackbird referring to Wallace Stevens’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” the conversation concludes by considering what it means, as readers, to seek truth in a story that resists any single interpretation. A fitting end to The Big Book Project’s journey through Absalom, Absalom!—and a reminder that the most profound books never truly end; they continue to reverberate in the imagination long after the final page. Chapters:00:00 — Introduction02:00 — The unreliable narrators: Quentin and Shreve15:30 — Judith and Charles: love, fate, and moral choice35:00 — The curse and fatalism of the Sutpen legacy50:00 — Faulkner’s ambivalence toward the South1:02:00 — Wallace Stevens and the search for truth1:04:30 — Closing reflections 📚 Subscribe to The Big Book Project for more deep dives into literature’s boldest novels.🎧 Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

    1h 4m

  5. 11/05/2025

    Innocence, Design, and the American Adam: Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! Video #4 Dr. Larry Allums

    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 door”—unfolds into a meditation on innocence, ambition, race, and the American faith in self-invention. Lori and Larry discuss Sutpen’s fatal pursuit of a perfect plan, the symbolism of the front door, and Faulkner’s devastating irony: the man who vowed never again to reject a child as he had been rejected ends by repeating the same cruelty. Together they explore how Faulkner layers fate and free will, class and color, guilt and innocence—linking Sutpen’s vision to larger American myths of reinvention and control, from The Great Gatsby to The American Adam. Chapters & Highlights 0:00 — Opening reflections on Chapter 7 4:30 — The twin taboos: race and kinship 10:15 — The front-door incident and the birth of “the design” 20:00 — Innocence, ambition, and moral blindness 30:00 — Haiti, revelation, and the seeds of tragedy 40:00 — Charles Bon’s return and the great irony 50:00 — Wash Jones and the novel’s most brutal reckoning 58:00 — Faulkner and the myth of the self-made man 📚 Subscribe to The Big Book Project for more deep dives into literature’s boldest novels. 🎧 Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

    1h 6m

  6. 10/30/2025

    The Southern Labyrinth: Faulkner’s Layers of Storytelling in Chapter 6 of Absalom, Absalom! Video 3 With Larry Allums

    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 chorus of storytellers and how this outsider’s perspective both contrasts and transforms as he becomes absorbed in the haunting saga of Thomas Sutpen. Their conversation delves into the chapter’s dizzying narrative structure—its use of italics, parentheses, and shifting points of view—and the profound questions it raises about race, family, innocence, and inherited guilt. They also examine Faulkner’s portrayal of characters like Clytie, Judith, Charles Bon, and Sutpen himself, and how the themes of lineage and identity echo through generations. As Lori notes, reading Absalom, Absalom! feels like piecing together a vast jigsaw puzzle—frustrating, dazzling, and endlessly rewarding. Listen to this episode to explore: Why Faulkner introduces Shreve in Chapter 6 and what his voice addsThe evolving narration and blurred lines between storytellersThe moral and racial complexities surrounding the Sutpen familyThe concept of “innocence” in Faulkner’s modern worldHow memory, myth, and history intertwine in Southern storytelling⏱️ Chapters 00:00 – Introduction and recap of Absalom, Absalom! 02:15 – Welcoming Dr. Larry Allums back to discuss Chapter 6 04:05 – The arrival of Shreve McCannon: a new narrator enters 07:40 – Faulkner’s use of multiple voices and shifting narration 10:55 – Why Faulkner gives Shreve an outsider’s Canadian perspective 14:20 – Quentin and Shreve’s dynamic: skepticism vs. obsession 18:10 – Revisiting Sutpen’s Hundred after 43 years 21:00 – Deaths, births, and the letter announcing Rosa’s passing 24:45 – Understanding Charles Bon and questions of race 29:30 – Thomas Sutpen’s suspicions and the “design” of his life 34:20 – Innocence, guilt, and the Southern moral code 39:00 – Judith and Clytie’s shared loyalty and quiet defiance 44:30 – The role of New Orleans and the octaroon society 48:15 – Charles Bon Jr.’s identity struggle and racial ambiguity 52:40 – Family lineage, belonging, and Faulkner’s concept of “passing” 56:25 – The haunting of Sutpen’s legacy across generations 59:10 – Faulkner’s use of italics and parentheses in Chapter 6 1:02:30 – The mystery of the cemetery and Judith’s epitaph 1:06:00 – Memory, inheritance, and the Southern sense of place 1:09:10 – Shreve’s humor and levity amid tragedy 1:12:00 – The brilliance of Faulkner’s narrative control 1:14:45 – Closing thoughts and preview of Chapter 7 🗣️ Join the Conversation If you’re reading along, I’d love to know: 💬 What struck you most about these chapters?Share your thoughts in the comments so we can read and wrestle with Faulkner together.✨ Follow The Big Book Project 📺 Watch on YouTube📚 Support independent bookstoresFollow on Instagram

    1 hr

  7. 10/22/2025

    Absalom, Absalom! Chapters 4–5: Rosa Coldfield’s Humiliation and Sutpen’s Obsession | The Big Book Project (Video 2 with Dr. Larry Allums)

    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’s Hundred. In this episode, Lori and Larry discuss: Rosa’s fateful journey to Sutpen’s Hundred and the death of Charles BonJudith’s shocking composure and Clytie’s defianceThe detective-story structure of Faulkner’s storytellingSutpen’s bizarre “courtship” of Rosa and his obsession with producing a male heirThe moral and emotional unraveling of the Sutpen dynastyThe chilling ending of Chapter 5 — and what may still be “alive” inside the dark houseIf you’re reading Absalom, Absalom! along with us, this video helps illuminate Faulkner’s intricate web of narrators, memory, and myth. 📚 Next episode: We’ll continue the conversation with Chapters 6–7. 🔔 Subscribe to join our Big Book discussions and never miss a new video. Chapters: 00:00 – Welcome back to The Big Book Project 01:10 – Rosa’s journey and the murder of Charles Bon 11:25 – Judith’s calm and Clytie’s defiance 21:45 – Rosa’s narration and Faulkner’s detective style 31:30 – The “courtship” of Rosa and Sutpen’s obsession 49:00 – Reconstruction and loss of Sutpen’s Hundred 1:04:00 – Rosa’s outrage and the theme of humiliation 1:20:00 – The mysterious presence in the house Keywords: William Faulkner, Absalom Absalom analysis, The Big Book Project, Lori Feathers, Larry Allums, Faulkner deep dive, Rosa Coldfield, Thomas Sutpen, Southern Gothic, literary discussion, American classics, book club, big books, modernist fiction, Faulkner interpretation

    58 min

  8. 10/13/2025

    Understanding Absalom, Absalom!: Faulkner’s Biblical Roots, Mythic Imagination, and the Southern Psyche

    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, race, and memory. Whether you’re a first-time reader or a lifelong admirer of Faulkner, this conversation offers insight and encouragement as we journey together through the first three chapters. Highlights The meaning behind the title Absalom, Absalom!Rosa Coldfield’s rage and unreliable narrationSutpen’s “Hundred” and his mysterious design The “fever and the disease”: Faulkner’s metaphor for the South’s legacy of slaveryWhy Faulkner’s idea of innocence redefines tragedyFollow & Support 📺 Watch on YouTube 📚 Support independent bookstores 📸 Follow on Instagram 💌 Join the community on Substack #Faulkner #AbsalomAbsalom #BookPodcast #SouthernGothic #LoriFeathers #LarryAllums #TheBigBookProject

    53 min
See All (26)

Ratings & Reviews

4
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

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

Information

  • Creator
    Lori Feathers
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    26
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Big Book Project
  • Show Website
    The Big Book Project

You Might Also Like