FrizzLit Book Club is a Zoom class. We explore great books, at a pace of approx. 50 pages a week.

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A few years ago, I read a novel about what it would be like to become the Roman emperor at the age of 19. That's what happened to Octavian, later renamed Augustus Caesar, and the novel Augustus tells his life story.

It's a glorious novel told through the perspectives of many people of Augustus's day. The Roman poet Ovid is a minor character. Augustus won the National Book Award in 1973.

A few years later, I read the other novel that this writer, John Williams, is known for — a novel that had been recommended to me more times than I could count, a novel called Stoner. I put off reading it for years because I assumed it was about a stoner, which it's not. It tells the life story of an English teacher in the Midwest, named Professor Stoner.

"Stoner is something rarer than a great novel — it is a perfect novel," according to the New York Times Book Review. 

As for Augustus? The Washington Post called it: "The finest historical novel ever written by an American." 

We'll read both novels, back to back, in this 10-week "book club" style class.

—Christopher Frizzelle

All classes are recorded

If you can't make it to the live Zoom meeting, no problem! You won't miss anything. The full recording of each meeting will be sent to the email address you use to sign up for the club after each meeting concludes.

Who is leading this class?

Christopher Frizzelle founded FrizzLit in 2020, an experience he wrote about for the Washington Post. He is the former editor-in-chief of The Stranger and the current editor-in-chief of FrizzLit Editions. He invented the Silent Reading Party in 2009, inspiring a wordwide trend. He has a master's in creative writing from Bennington.

What to read before the first meeting

Nothing. But you should get a copy of Stoner and have it with you at our first meeting, where we are going to encounter its opening pages together. You will also need a copy of Augustus for the second half of this club.

Recommended edition

Get this edition of Stoner and this edition of Augustus if you want to have the same page numbers as everyone else. If you prefer to read a different edition, that works too.

How to pay in installments

Sign up for Part 1, reading Stoner, below.

Later — if you're enjoying the club — you can sign up for Part 2.