Doorstops
- 4 members
- 4 discussions
- Active 20h ago
Run by
Nishant Kumar
Started the club
Six hundred pages and up. Long books, shared stamina, and collective complaining. We read the ones you keep meaning to. This is a Chaptra house club — set up and moderated by us to get the conversation going. Open to everyone; jump in anywhere.
What they're talking about
Abridged editions: vandalism or mercy?
There's a snobbery here worth examining. An abridgement that gets someone through a book they'd otherwise never open — is that a loss or a win?
Nishant Kumar2d agoHow do you keep 40 characters straight?
Notes, family trees, a bookmark with a list, or pure stubbornness? Russian novels especially — three names each and everyone uses a different one.
Nishant Kumar2d agoWhich doorstop actually earned its length?
Following on from the pinned thread, but positively. What's the longest book you've read where you'd cut nothing?
Nishant Kumar2d agoEvery 900-page novel is a 500-page novel nobody was allowed to edit
Length correlates with an author's leverage far more tightly than with ambition. Writers get long once they get famous enough that no editor will take a red pen to them. The counter-argument is that some books need the accumulation — that the length is the effect. So: name a doorstop that would genuinely be worse if it were shorter. Not one you liked. One where the bulk is load-bearing.
Nishant Kumar2d agoWhere the talking happens
No rooms yet.
Rooms keep a club's conversations apart — one for the current book, one for anything else.
House rules
- Post your page number when you post. It helps everyone else pace.
Who's here
- Nishant Kumar
Chaptra
Chaptra Editorial
Chaptra Book Desk