NATIONAL BESTSELLER
‘Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason is our October Reese's Book Club pick! A funny and tender story about loneliness, connection, and finding your way back to yourself.’''Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club October ’26 Pick)
‘The great pleasure of this novel, aside from its depiction of Sophie coming into her own, is its celebration of reading and writers.’ —Wall Street Journal
A TOP TEN LIBRARY READS PICK • AN INDIE NEXT PICK • A MARIE CLAIRE, FORBES, WOMAN'S WORLD, SHE READS, AND GOODREADS MOST ANTICIPATED READ
The ‘brilliant’ (Ann Patchett) and much beloved author of the critically acclaimed Sorrow and Bliss returns with a tender and hilarious novel about heartbreak and the journey from isolation and loneliness toward love.
Sophie Pattison loves books. And as well as a dream job at a local book festival, she has a husband she adores; a lifelong best friend, Emma; and a brother she’s always been close to. Which makes you wonder why since Christmas Sophie has been living alone, estranged from Emma, avoiding her brother, and about to be fired.
Now it feels like the only thing she has left is reading. When Sophie rediscovers an author she first read in her twenties, the words on the page reach her in a new way—becoming both solace and company. Sophie devours every one of the author's novels and begins to dream of meeting her, but knows they never will. But what if they did? What if, by then, the author feels like a friend? What if, for Sophie, it feels almost like love?
In this much anticipated novel, Meg Mason captures the heartache and dark humor of our relationships in all their complexity, with a story about the power of connection and an ode to the inexplicable nature of the human heart.
‘So smart, so funny, so moving. I absolutely loved it.’ —Bonnie Garmus, New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
Genre: Literary Fiction
‘Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason is our October Reese's Book Club pick! A funny and tender story about loneliness, connection, and finding your way back to yourself.’''Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club October ’26 Pick)
‘The great pleasure of this novel, aside from its depiction of Sophie coming into her own, is its celebration of reading and writers.’ —Wall Street Journal
A TOP TEN LIBRARY READS PICK • AN INDIE NEXT PICK • A MARIE CLAIRE, FORBES, WOMAN'S WORLD, SHE READS, AND GOODREADS MOST ANTICIPATED READ
The ‘brilliant’ (Ann Patchett) and much beloved author of the critically acclaimed Sorrow and Bliss returns with a tender and hilarious novel about heartbreak and the journey from isolation and loneliness toward love.
Sophie Pattison loves books. And as well as a dream job at a local book festival, she has a husband she adores; a lifelong best friend, Emma; and a brother she’s always been close to. Which makes you wonder why since Christmas Sophie has been living alone, estranged from Emma, avoiding her brother, and about to be fired.
Now it feels like the only thing she has left is reading. When Sophie rediscovers an author she first read in her twenties, the words on the page reach her in a new way—becoming both solace and company. Sophie devours every one of the author's novels and begins to dream of meeting her, but knows they never will. But what if they did? What if, by then, the author feels like a friend? What if, for Sophie, it feels almost like love?
In this much anticipated novel, Meg Mason captures the heartache and dark humor of our relationships in all their complexity, with a story about the power of connection and an ode to the inexplicable nature of the human heart.
‘So smart, so funny, so moving. I absolutely loved it.’ —Bonnie Garmus, New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Heartwarming, tender and so funny, Sophie, Standing There is a wonderful, bittersweet story of what it means to be truly, achingly lonely. I loved it." - Gillian Anderson
"Truly inspired and original." - Esther Freud
"A funny, poignant, quirky look at the entrancing nature of a parasocial relationship. I love Meg Mason's sharpness and humour, she is the queen of the pithy one liner that stops you in your track." - Emma Gannon
"So smart, so funny, so moving - Mason has done it again - this time using behind the scenes of a literary festival to reveal the complexity of loneliness and how one woman attempts to dig herself out. I absolutely loved it." - Bonnie Garmus
"I feel like I know Meg Mason's characters; they are relatable enough to be universal, but always have that edge or quirk that makes them unexpected - and completely compelling. Anyone who can make me sigh wistfully and snort with laughter in the same paragraph has my literary loyalty for life." - Jojo Moyes
"The lucky reader of Sophie, Standing There peers at the world through Sophie's eyes, and wonders how her life shaped this view. When the answers are revealed - about her marriage, her childhood, the gaps in her understanding - we experience a kind of wholeness with her. Or at least the possibility of wholeness. I loved Sophie, and I love Meg Mason's brain and the strange, wonderful, funny stories she gives us." - Ann Napolitano
"Sophie, Standing There unfolds like a strange origami crane in reverse - so achingly tender and so brilliantly subtle that I could never put it down. The loneliness of our inner world and the quiet movement towards connection - nobody evokes it as breathtakingly as Meg Mason. And by 'it', I guess I mean simply being a person. Dazzling," - Catherine Newman
"Sophie, Standing There is a moving examination of what it means to be alone in the world, and what it means to find connection. It is, by turns, heartbreaking, hilarious and deeply hopeful. Meg Mason is a dazzling talent." - Ann Patchett
"So beautifully written and Sophie's unexquisite world is described so exquisitely. I absolutely lived and breathed Sophie. Such a tender, funny, sad, moving, complicated, painful and yet hopeful book." - Georgia Pritchett
"It's raw, it's massively sad; it's hilariously funny and so epigrammatic that after writing down the novel's pithily astute phrases, I realised I was almost writing out the whole book." - Barbara Trapido
"Truly inspired and original." - Esther Freud
"A funny, poignant, quirky look at the entrancing nature of a parasocial relationship. I love Meg Mason's sharpness and humour, she is the queen of the pithy one liner that stops you in your track." - Emma Gannon
"So smart, so funny, so moving - Mason has done it again - this time using behind the scenes of a literary festival to reveal the complexity of loneliness and how one woman attempts to dig herself out. I absolutely loved it." - Bonnie Garmus
"I feel like I know Meg Mason's characters; they are relatable enough to be universal, but always have that edge or quirk that makes them unexpected - and completely compelling. Anyone who can make me sigh wistfully and snort with laughter in the same paragraph has my literary loyalty for life." - Jojo Moyes
"The lucky reader of Sophie, Standing There peers at the world through Sophie's eyes, and wonders how her life shaped this view. When the answers are revealed - about her marriage, her childhood, the gaps in her understanding - we experience a kind of wholeness with her. Or at least the possibility of wholeness. I loved Sophie, and I love Meg Mason's brain and the strange, wonderful, funny stories she gives us." - Ann Napolitano
"Sophie, Standing There unfolds like a strange origami crane in reverse - so achingly tender and so brilliantly subtle that I could never put it down. The loneliness of our inner world and the quiet movement towards connection - nobody evokes it as breathtakingly as Meg Mason. And by 'it', I guess I mean simply being a person. Dazzling," - Catherine Newman
"Sophie, Standing There is a moving examination of what it means to be alone in the world, and what it means to find connection. It is, by turns, heartbreaking, hilarious and deeply hopeful. Meg Mason is a dazzling talent." - Ann Patchett
"So beautifully written and Sophie's unexquisite world is described so exquisitely. I absolutely lived and breathed Sophie. Such a tender, funny, sad, moving, complicated, painful and yet hopeful book." - Georgia Pritchett
"It's raw, it's massively sad; it's hilariously funny and so epigrammatic that after writing down the novel's pithily astute phrases, I realised I was almost writing out the whole book." - Barbara Trapido
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