The Night Owl Bookclub
One book a month. Stamped by me.
For curious minds who want to understand people, question what they believe, and discover new ways of seeing the world.
I read pretty much every day — busy or not, travelling or not, it’s just how I make sense of things. This is where I share what I’m reading, and what I’m learning from it. Join me here.
Every month I send you one book I’ve read and loved, with a personal note and the books it connects to.
Plus five of my all-time favourites, straight away.
What lands in your inbox
One book, a personal note on why it stayed with me, and the books it connects to.
short enough to read before your coffee’s cold
- 01
The pick
One book I’ve read, loved and think you’ll enjoy too.
- 02
The connections
Similar reads, so one good book leads to the next.
- 03
The bookshops
Links to indie bookstores, not only the big shops.
My copy’s margins
The Great Gatsby, the last page
Chapter IX, the last page
And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning——
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
The whole book in one line: the thing he wanted was already gone.
The green light is at the end of chapter I too. There it’s hope. Here it’s already behind him.
This is what lands in your inbox: what I underlined, where I stopped, what I’d argue about.
Things I looked up halfway through
because I couldn’t stop wondering
Titles he almost used
Trimalchio in West Egg
Gold-hatted Gatsby
The High-bouncing Lover
Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires
Under the Red, White and Blue
→ The Great Gatsby
He still wanted Under the Red, White and Blue in March 1925. By then it was too late to change.
WHAT HIS EDITOR WROTE HIM, 10 DAYS IN
SALES SITUATION DOUBTFUL EXCELLENT REVIEWS
Trimalchio = the show-off host who throws endless parties in the Satyricon. So that’s who Gatsby is.
- 20,870
- copies in the first printing, at 2 dollars each. Then 3,000 more, and that was it.
- 1940
- Fitzgerald dies at 44, with unsold copies still in the warehouse, convinced he failed.
- 155,000
- pocket copies sent to soldiers in October 1945. That’s how it came back.
he never knew. that one stings.
The cover was painted before the book was finished. Fitzgerald told his editor not to give it to anyone else, because he had written it into the book.
→ the billboard eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg
Hey there, fellow book lover!
From the time I was a little girl, books have guided me. They have helped me see and understand my place in the world. I owe a lot of gratitude towards the authors I've been able to read over the years. I wouldn't know what I know today without them.
People are always asking me, “What are you reading now?” and “Can you recommend some of these books?” So many times, in fact, that I decided to start an email list just for that.
Each month, I send out one book I’ve read, loved and think you’ll enjoy too. Books I've truly taken the time to read, with an honest opinion. You'll get my personal notes, connections to similar reads, and why the book stood out.
Since I started this platform in 2021, it has grown to 400+ subscribers: authors, coaches, moms, students and just about every kind of reader you can imagine.
People kept asking why I didn’t link to indie bookstores. So I did. This list is as much about great books as about the people who write them and bring them to their local communities.
At the end of each year I put together a “best of” list, and you can look back through the past years’ picks too.
Lisanne x
Every book I’ve sent so far
Each one read cover to cover, in the month it went out.
This month’s email
Hi Sarah,
This month it’s The Great Gatsby. A man throws the biggest parties on Long Island, hoping one person will walk in.
The line I underlined:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Here’s what got me. The green light shows up twice: at the end of the first chapter, when Gatsby reaches out toward it across the water, and again on the very last page, when Nick finally understands what it meant. The first time it looks like hope.
The second time
this is what lands in your inbox, every month
