ehh, i feel this is just another micro trend and two months from now, girls reading ACOTAR will be ridiculed for being out of style or late on the trend. if anything, it takes what the nerdy girls like and gatekeeps it from them. edit: i understand this trend has been around for a few years. listen to what mina is saying- this dates back to as early as the first century. there has always been the “i’m not like other girls, i read books” mentality. but now you also have to be a model, apparently. mina is making this video now for a reason…the trend has EXPLODED and anytime we see a trend get this popular, we see it fade out just as quickly.

​@@loudchihuahuai feel as though this trend has been around for a few years now

​​@@zulmie5777a few years is a pretty long time for a trend to have stuck around. One more year and it's here to stay or the hot new thing makes it make a comeback in 20 years?

@@loudchihuahuareading badly-written lit from authors like Cassandra Claire, Coleen Hoover, etc has been pretty popular for years now, though.

@@zulmie5777for sure! i think the kendall jenner/runway model of it all has made it explode though. after all, mina is making a video about it now for a reason, ya know?

so true. I’ve been suckered in too many times with popular books that end up being terrible. Learning what I like is great, but now I notice it’s harder to have a discourse with others because no one is reading anything particularly interesting.

I'm sorry I'm not original I love romances 😭 but ig you're right I could totally read other genres but i'm scared to dive in myself? Idk is it weird ?

REAL

but that's how people can discover their taste as well :)

Everyone has to start somewhere though!

I completely agree

So so true! I just finished The Inheritance Games-series, now I'm reading a non-fiction about the history of popular music, and next up on the list is Pride and Prejudice. If you enjoy the book, that's all that matters:)

None of that is high brow

agreed....this is my reading pattern hahahah

This is interesting to me because I see the same discourse in the film community, in the end you may not like reading complex books, but love watching complex films. I'm the opposite, I love classic books but I only like silly movies and I'm judged for that, but in reality I satiate my thirst for knowledge in another way. You can improve yourself through documentaries, films, magazines, music, there are so many things out there, you absolutely do NOT need to read classic literature to be an intelligent and interesting person, just do what you want. If you only want to read trashy smut romance for the rest of your life GO FOR IT, literature is about enjoyment and entertainment too, you are not less smart because of it.

This right here. I’m also autistic and hyperlexic, and just recently a coworker of mine asked me not to use my (admittedly extensive) “college vocabulary” because it made me seem pretentious. I asked for a specific example cause I didn’t understand when exactly I used “college vocabulary.” He mentioned the fact that I used the word “irreparable” when conversing with a regular that comes in (he always wants to talk about Gaza while I fulfill his order, and I oblige cause the situation does need to to be talked about). I don’t remember the specific context, but it was something about irreparable damage done to something, and apparently my use of “irreparable,” despite being the appropriate word for the context, was “pretentious” 🥴 I think people are just insecure about their own shortcomings with language and they take it out on people who understand and use a wider vocabulary. I kind of want to gift people like that a Word-of-the-Day calendar 😅

i had no idea hyperlexia was a thing so thanks for introducing me to that! my parents tell me i was like in diapers reading disney picture books on my own but i only realised i'm autistic in my 20's. when i talk about the books that i've read i'm simply talking about the books that i've read with no underlying motives but non autistics always get insecure and feel judged about their reading habits when i do. communicating cross culturally with non autistics is often pretty tough.

​​@@alexjones8843 my first language is a romance one, so (when speaking english) I'm used to words of latin origin since they're easy to recall (irreparable, as you said, being one of them). I found out that a lot of those words sound posh to other people 😅

Same!! IDK if I'm autistic or not, but I casually use words like "penultimate" and "alas" in casual conversation without thinking about it. I didn't choose the verbose life; it just chose me, and then I wholeheartedly accepted it.

@@aninha-007 I didn’t even know of its Latin origins, that’s so interesting! I’d love to get into linguistics one day when I have the time, the creation and evolution of language is fascinating

I was reading an article yesterday that said borrowing from libraries was up 77% in the past year. Not sure if that was UK or US, but it's good anyways. Every now and then the tiktok girlies discover capitalism and push libraries/thrifting.

libraries are becoming popular again! even with me, i’ve read some of the hated books that people don’t recommend from libraries (like acotar, didn’t like it, just wasn’t for me) and i’m assume others who are weary about things like this have as well.

Tons of people use the library. And I’ve actually seen a lot of people create content surrounding the library by either doing hauls, recommending the library, offering library resources etc

​@@tsuki3752acotar is ROUGH. I read it when it came out and the consensus a few years ago was book 1 was bad, 2 was incredible and 3 was decent. I liked 2 more, byt honestly didn't find book 2 to be THAT much better. It certainly wasn't incredible. What are your fav books?

There's also this little thing called "e-books", they take no space at all. Oh, and you can find several tens of thousands of them for free... I guess you're just terribly uninformed. I'm not gonna insist on the fact that borrowing books from the library not only is trending, but it has been for years now

Yes, theres many apps where people can read books for free too. People just love judging because they think your lower than them.

I often quickly read on my phone on public transport when I can't sit down to get comfortable for my 40 minute ride and get my Kindle out. Absolutely possible that more people are doing the exact same thing as me or just always reading on their phones. Sometimes the Kindle is also just in another room or I didn't take it with me when to an event so my phone that is always on me is just convenient.

True

True, since 80% of the time when i'm on my phone it's because i reading well developed, good-plot fanfics everyday

Exactly, books are also heavy to carry

Older generations will always complain about the people that come after, and how the world is going to sh-t.

​@@amara560isn't this the truth.

I'm ten years older than you and still read YA! Though I agree it's a good starting point for young readers to start loving reading and grow into adult fiction. At the same time, there's no age limit on good stories intended for a younger audience. I'm allowed to get meaning from Puss and Boots 2 and Casablanca, and it's the same with books. Anyone who judges me for reading Ella Enchanted or the Graceling series because they're YA can go ahead and do that. I'm having fun, and doesn't negate the classics, adult lit, or nonfiction I also read. (Not saying you're judging or that you're wrong. It's okay to have grown out of the books you used to love, just like it's okay to (re)read YA. There are people who say fiction is useless because books are meant to be productive, that fantasy is useless because it's not realistic, that YA and children's lit never has themes. At the end of the day, everyone should just read what they want and leave other people alone about their choices)

Except they don't grow out of YA. So now you get 'Adult covers' for harry potter, and things like Actar which is just YA with sex scenes.

@@poshboy4749this has been my experience with booktok honestly. There’s a lot of smart people on there but there’s also a lot of people who make their whole persona about reading while also believing anyone who reads stuff more advanced than YA and Colleen Hoover is being performative. Its such a weird mix of pretension and anti-intellectualism

Ikr! Lmaooo

Martial is absolutely savage, definitely recommend reading a translation, he's super funny

THIS. There's a difference between the characters' actions being awful if the text is aware of it or if it is not. Part of the appeal of Lolita is that, if you read it properly, Humbert Humbert's actions are not painted as good by the text itself, but CoHo's texts do not do that! The abuse and other things are painted as good and never put into question by the text.

Personally though I would expect the girlies who claim to read books and be very smart to have enough reading comprehension and ability to make a value judgment enough to u derstand that a bad and abusive romance can still be someone s king to write and read about. I'll revel in an abusive written romance. My real life marriage is good and calm, I want wild and ugly drama on paper. I'm not stupid to think that it's something aspirational, but I'm not arrogant enough to not occasionally fantasize harmlessly about it in my reading chair, either. you are the reader. The text may not be aware of what it is, but you can be and should be. Nothing wrong with enjoying it. Humans have always been 'bad on paper' and liked it, too. Literature is a good way to express your less ideal traits and desires in a sterile, more or less harmless setting.

"wdym, arson isn't hot?" - Colleen Hoover probably

Writing about abuse can help readers realise what they’re going through is wrong - it truly depends on what authors choose to illuminate about the abuse they write about

she never tells her readers its romance lmao she explicitly said IEWU was inspired by her own mums story so idk why yall still try to say the same thing like those seagulls off of nemo

SO MUCH THIS. I used to get labeled as weird and antisocial and people would purposefully trip me in the hallways at school just because I liked to read. Admittedly I had a bit of a problem with reading at inappropriate times (I apologize to my elementary and middle school teachers so much. I ignored their lessons 90% of the time because my books were more interesting, and looking back as an adult it was honestly so rude of me to blatantly ignore them while they were just trying to do their jobs), but reading was my escape from my pathetic life and if I was reading and pretending to be someone else for a while, I didn’t have to feel pity for my own sad situation.

I would just love that id they not shown books that romaticises abuse, r show abuse as normal to kids. You get some off the worst books from TikTok.

It's just a trend. It reminds me of skateboarding in the early 2000s. Kids all over the country were doing it for a while, but then it completely fizzled out by 2010. The true hobbyists will continue regardless of a trend, of course, but it's definitely a short-term obsession.

Notes on an execution is one of my favorite books I've read in my life so far. The end of the book from the viewpoint of the serial killer sticks with me and I think of it almost daily. It does not romanticize killing and in my opinion does not intend to make you sympathize with the killer, but gives you a completely objective view of his mind. Just a beautifully written book.

i second this dostojewski is one of my favourite classical authors

Same here, I love a lot of Russian literature and more 20th century writing such as James Baldwin’s, but I just don’t mention it becuase I don’t want to look pretentious or cold to other people.

@@chalkfanatic1848 I have told like 5 people I love the book Master and Margarita and nobody has heard of it in the US. :( Then I try to explain what it's about and I'm sure it just sounds like pulp urban fantasy.

so now reading books is like wearing band t-shirts. there will always be someone (a man) assuming that you are pretending to like it

TikTok can’t ruin everything if you ignore the platform… at least, that’s my strategy 😂

Mostly true, unless you're reading in a foreign language - my bestie was verbally abused for reading a book in English on a train, by young men who clearly felt attacked by her linguistic abilities 🙃 But overall yes, reading in public is pretty normalised in France.

Same here in Germany :)

Happens quite a bit in America. People are very threatened by intellectualism here because they think knowledge is directly tied to class (it isn't. Reading has always been accessible here, so I think people just use that as an excuse out of laziness), and also because it makes people feel inferior to see others actively participating in things they themselves cannot do. Books are a symbol of that to many people. They do the same thing with art. I can't tell you the amount of nasty stares I've gotten in public for sewing something or drawing in my sketchbook.

Definite cultural differences with regard to reading and reading culture in France vs the US. It's the anti-intellectualism combined with lower literacy rates in the US.

@@missvioletnightchild2515 No, not just any foreign language, specifically English. It's why bookstores over there separate "Anglophone lit" into a separate section.

100%. I'll never forget when I was in college and I was talking to folks in class. I mentioned I was reading Lolita and one of them told me I'm reading it because it's allowing me to explore a secret desire of mine, aka she called me a pedophile!! I can't believe someone would just flat out say that to someone else, especially when the book is strongly against pedophilia and is an exploration of how people can twist language. Regardless, it's wild how we no longer trust people to look at things with a critical lense and have their own thoughts beyond the exact words on the page

As someone who wants to publish but is not quite there yet, I am TERRIFIED of that. I am good at writing - but I am horrible with social media clout, and horrible with marketing, possibly due to being autistic. If nobody will help me with that part, literally nobody will ever read or even find my books.

What’s the name of your book? Now I’m curious.

audiobooks have allowed me to fall in love with reading again! 3 years in, and I'm finally reading books again and finishing them too and I know audiobooks played a big part! (late-diagnosed ADHD and narcolepsy made it so that I would read every waking moment to not touch a book for almost a decade!)

My life changed drastically after I stopped being a book seller Now I don’t have as much time for reading / use my time otherwise, but I can listen to audiobooks while working I only buy physical copies of reference books or cook books now, hardly any fiction Most of it is virtual now

People have given me shit for reading so many comics and manga over the years but thankfully I was raised to not really care. I'm also 31 now and simply don't feel like I need to explain to people that I read plenty of conventional books as well. I just don't limit myself to only them and don't see how I can't just read all the different types of books in the wider sense. I also like putting on an audio book when I'm cleaning because that way I'm not thinking too hard about the task and can still fully comprehend what's going on in the story. Listening while doing repetitive tasks is wonderful and makes the time go faster.

Same!! I looked at my bookshelf and realised that my read-to-not-read ratio was downright embarrassing, so I’m not buying books anymore but am instead working on the ones I own, after that I’ll start going to the library instead and will only buy the book if I love it! I also stopped subscribing to Fairyloot’s monthly boxers because as pretty as the special editions may be, all except one have been hot garbage😭

How did you get the job? Asking for a friend 😅

Yeah, sometimes the recs are bad, but sometimes they are decent

Booktok is plagued with avid smut readers😣

@@ruhamaxo i love my lil corner with my lil account recommending only well written books about women losing their minds (mood) and beefing with CoHo, HD Carlton, and SJM fans 🫶🏻 ✨

I think it really depends. Theres niches within booktok and you kinda have to dig but some great recs come.out of there

That's why I use booktok recs to know what to avoid😅 But yeah I do understand that there are some good books out there somewhere hidden deep down under the pile of coho and other trash

This is such a cute idea! Idk how Nancy Drew, Babysitters Club, and Animorphs books would look together, but I’m excited to display my childhood favorites.

@@keke5577Who cares what they look like together? You should go for it :) I love being able to reread my favorites when I'm feeling nostalgic.

I was *ecstatic* to find one of my childhood favorites at a used book sale a few years back. It has a proud place on my shelf, now and forever. :)

My library growing up had a free paperback exchange. It was full of wonderful finds - romance, YA, sci-fi, classics, fantasy, and everything in-between - I still have a book I found there, more than 20 years later. I don't know if those still exist, but I dearly hope they do.

As someone who doesn’t have much money to spend on books, libraries in my town and online libraries like Libby are the absolute best.

Agree and also as someone who studied bookbinding and preservation and restoration of papers and books, books rot and collect dust. If you can't keep your books in a dry, cold and ventilated area, even in just few years, depending on where you live, that dust is beginning to damage the paper, you might get paper mites. There's a particular smell to many of the homes of paper book collectors that I associate with paper decay and the dust that paper books collect. Badly ventilated and humid libraries have the same stink. if you don't have a good place to store your collection, keep your paper book collection modest, and go to a library or get an e-reader. When you have to move homes, your future self will thank you, moving books suuuuuuuucks.

i mean tough shit we live under capitalism. i’m just happy people are reading

Also, of you do have books that you wanna get rid of, don't just throw them away. There's countless avenues to donate them or sell them second hand at reduced prices. Sometimes even through libraries.

i remember going to korea once and while my cousin was in the middle of a photoshoot, i realised that the books used as props were actual books so picked one up and started reading. one of the staff there told me "you're actually reading that?" 😭✊🏼

yo thats CRAZYYYYY

Kinda sad, but maybe at least it let you shovel out some of those books that seem to forever line the shelves of used book stores (looking at you Terry Goodkind) and make space for others

I get sad thinking about coffee table books that’ll never be read 😢

man i wish i could have someone to just buy books for me like that bc i’d read every single word

That's exactly right and Jane Austen was ingeniously defending novels in NA as well as her other novels. I would like to recommend Dr Octavia Cox if you haven't seen her on youtube? I think she may have a video on exactly this topic, as well as many excellent videos with analysis of Jane Austen's sublime literature.

Some parts of Northanger Abbey do satirize the Gothic fiction in the 18th century.

Haha yeah same. Until I realised that I can't bloody read because ADHD doesn't let me get past a paragraph. Ironically, I have a degree in English literature, I still don't know how I did it, but it must have involved a ton of good type bullshitting because I sure as shit did not read all the obligatory reading material.

If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get to where you are now? I live in a small country and don’t have much hope but it’s my dream to work in the publishing sphere.

@@sodiumghost3153I’m also from a relatively small country in southeast Asia! It’s not a big-name int’l publisher, but a domestic one. I started out small as a copy editor who only works with grammar and punctuation, but eventually promoted to meeting with authors and advising them. The real challenge is keeping your eye out for open positions. From what i know, though, there have been some remote set ups so maybe you can try looking for those online!

@@sodiumghost3153I’m also from a small southeast asian country! I don’t work for a big-name int’l publisher but a small, domestic one. I had to start small as a copy editor (just correcting grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.) before eventually working my way to meeting authors and advising them. I wasn’t even an english/language major, just had a good grasp of writing. The real challenge I think is finding an open position to begin with. You have to keep your eye out for when they’re hiring, and that could be tricky if a publisher doesn’t have an updated website/socials. Recently, I’ve been seeing more remote stuff done in publishing, so there is a chance for you to work for a foreign or out-of-town publisher. Idk if this helps or if this is what you’re looking for 😅 goodluck though!

@@sodiumghost3153 I'm also from a small country in SEAsia! I don't work for a big-name int'l publisher, but a small domestic one. I started as a copy editor (just grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.) and worked my way up to advising authors on how to change/make improvements. I'm not even an english/language major, just know my way around writing and audiences. I think the real challenge is just finding open positions to begin with. Some publishers are just reeeeeally traditional and don't have updated sites/socials, so you have to keep an eye out for when they're hiring. I've seen some hiring remote workers tho, so it might be possible to work for a foreign/out-of-town publisher. Idk if this is what you're looking for, but goodluck!

Lucky you that you actually get to read the books you worked with 😂 A common complaint amongst my rare book seller cohorts is that we never have time to read!

I never comment, but I have a similar story to share: in 7th grade I was a big Otaku and Japanese loving girl, and so when our class began learning about WWII, I was supremely annoyed with my (white female) teacher continuing to pronounce many Japanese words incorrectly. I was unaware of the tendency in America to Americanize foreign words, and so I politely corrected my teacher. Specifically, I knew that the term Kamikaze (referring to suicidal fighter pilots, a foreign concept in general for Americans) was pronounced "Kah-MEE Kah-ZEH". My teacher pronounced it "Kamakazee." When I corrected her, she continually said I was wrong, and because I KNEW I was right on a phonetic level, certainly knowing more about Japanese language at that point than her, I kept pushing because I thought she was giving bad information. I got into massive trouble for insubordination, which has haunted me to this day. As an adult, it astounds me the way in which this teacher was reinforcing a traditional anti-Japanese, derogatory way of referring to a cultures history, as I distinctly recall her being frustrated with me for insisting on being respectful to a culture that she saw as being Anti-American and backwards. She definitely had disdain in her voice on presenting us this information about history, and I feel it was her own propaganda-influenced prejudice that prevented her from accepting my correction. Otherwise, it would have allowed the Other, the Japanese culture that her grandparents living through Pearl Harbor probably experience, some semblance of empathy and respect, which is unthinkable for the nationalistic American mindset. This ties back to critically thinking about one's self image and how one wishes to be perceived, and I've always felt that my interest in respecting all views, no matter if I fundamentally disagree with them, has been met with such vitriol even among "liberated minds" on the left that I usually align myself with. Like being literate in Ayn Rand enough to be able to counter arguments for her ideology without saying things like "free market, BAD, socialism GOOD". ANYWAY I'm a bookseller and I miss being in school having intelligent critical discussions bc booktok promotes the same 10 authors. :/ still glad people are reading tho, and I too love my own trashy, pulpy nonsense like VC Andrews

She heard you present on megalomaniac and said “huh guess I’ll illustrate that with a real world example”

this has nothing to do with reading or books, but your story reminded me of when I was in third grade and my teacher was teaching us about Italy (landmarks and culture, etc.) I expressed a lot of interest and knowledge because I had recently been there on a trip the summer prior. I explained this to my teacher and he got so upset and contacted my parents to let them know I had been lying. I had to come to school with proof aka my vacation scrapbook. It was more likely the fact that my age and race solicited this reaction. I was also a straight-A, very obedient student with no prior issues, so....

​@@rewrittengirlGood for you for standing up for the real takeaway lesson, which was how to correctly pronounce the names of imperial suicide bombers.

This reminded me of the stupid "Star reading" charts that the teachers had, they would never put a star on my chart but would always put stars on other chidrens charts and when I made a remark on it, the teachers would say "Well you dont have good reading comprehension ." or would say "we are encouraging others to read." despite the fact that my reading comprehension was actually really good and I was able to compare or contrast, summarize and build my vocabulary. It was then that I realize that the teachers don't understand what reading comprehension was at all because they still refused to give me those darn stars.

love this comment 🤣

booktok in general is just male anime fans who eat up the same generic anime that objectifies women and is soft core p*rn. i got nothing against spicy books or soft core spicy anime, but can we at least respect women while we’re at it? damn. but that’s tangential lol

As a reader of both manga and comics but also conventional books it's definitely interesting to see the differences and similarities between the two cultures and also seeing how different groups within those two are yet again different.

As an avid manga reader, I would only want to buy completed works, which is very difficult with manga. I would then buy the entire series in one go, and possibly never open the pages, having read every entry already, but from a library shelf.

Unfortunately it might actually be all those “self help” books

Any Soviet time capsule apartment lol that hasn't been renovated and renewed in 40+ years. Walls upon walls of cheap back then classics and pulp literature where only a few were ever read even in intellectuals' homes. Looking at you, both sets of grandparents.

@@Killjoy_Mel I’m from post soviet country 👋 we eventually decided to giveaway those cheap books and left only those that interested us

I actually aspire to have this wall of books, but I'd never put a book I haven't read on a bookshelf. The unread ones go on the pile :D

It's actually an indication of a specific niche genre "upmarket women's fiction" (or it was) that is tracked separately than the steamy romances. They're supposed to be more modern day, still romantic, but having a major focus on interior women's lives that might not center the romantic aspect. Like the romance has to have a secondary plot that focuses on the woman's life (usually career/ personal journey/ other relationships).

That sounds so lovely (:

a drive through window??! That sounds amazing

That is so cool!!! During the pandemic, my library had a service where they would bring books out to you curbside style. It was really convenient but it'd be so cool if all libraries had a drive-thru...especially for the elderly or disabled 🥹

@@Jessica-wt2sm it's a big part of why I go to that particular library out of the three that are closest. It's also the most convenient drive

I hate how a lot of colleges discourage people to read. It's not helping students it's pushing them away, the same way a person would be pushed away if you tried to force certain foods on them.

Agreed!!!!

I'm 36 and this is CRAZY talk to me, because as a teenager EVERYBODY was reading Harry Potter voraciously and there was so much discussion around it. And because of Harry Potter people were reading other fantasy/ya books and discussing them too.

​@@TexTheBestyeah not to mention the Twilight series after HP!

@@TexTheBest Yeah, if anyone's saying enthusiasm for books is new, they've just been looking in the wrong places.

braiding sweetgrass is my favorite book! im not a big reader tho so it took me over 6 months lol

Thank you so much for these book recs! I've had braiding sweetgrass on my tbr for ages

I love this book ❤

loved how she wrote, had to read this book for a school asignment and enjoyed it, the indigenous culture is beautiful

I just finished the first chapter of braiding sweetgrass yesterday and im loving it so far. I highly recommend it! Im going to use it as a resource for my ecology students to look to as we work through what is traditionally considered the "correct" way of approaching ecology in academia

Omg! I was reading an explicit book where the characters are 19-25 so i guess they’re young adults technically??? But when I think about all the 12 year olds reading y/a… like please do not conflate having young women in a book with a book genre that middle schoolers gravitate towards

I love reading manga

@@TofuDinoNugsI think there’s a new genre called new adult. That’s the genre these books should be shelved in

Yes! Yikes. I started reading acotar and got it from the library and was so shocked to see they’re classified as YA here. Ick. The later books should NOT be. It’s so weird to me.

I think its frustrating that YA is for teenagers when a young adult is typically 18-26 in any other context.

This is exactly what I do too! It's basically rent before you buy except even better, because the renting part is free!

That's why I make my own ambiguous dust jackets whenever I read in public, it's just annoying to have people side eye you

Oh... people regret this with me because I like reading nonfiction and then forcing people to learn with me if I can. You wanna know if I'm really reading this? Lemme tell you about two Merovingian era queens...and a very simple rule to follow: if a gal makes it to "Queen/Consort" from a lowly position...be the *most* afraid of her... And then they fucking evaporate. But upside is the Bartenders all have high class degrees and are pumped to pass the time talkin bout Lovecraft or weird French history.

@@petitmains I do the same exact thing actually, and I love it! I make them listen to me rant about biographies, historic battles, declassified cia files, and more! If they dare to ask me, they best be prepared for 10mins straight of literary babble.

People are so werid why would anyone just randomly carry a book to look cool it's not like you taking photos of yourself in public I would never assume that someone carrying a book with them are doing so to look cool and haven't actually read the. Book also I feel like People who do this especially towards women do so because of misogyny like it's reminding me of when women wear band tees and men will question them on if they actually listen to the band or are they just wearing it to look cool because how dare a women be interested in anything other than make up and clothes

Completely agree. The problem is that lots of people nowadays get offended by *not* understanding a word and instead of being fueled by their ignorance to learn new words, they attack the supposed source of their feeling of inferiority.

Precisely correct.

There’s definitely a market! My mom owns a second hand bookstore. She has a website “Werdz Quality Used Books”. Her dream is to open a brick and mortar shop. Might take some digging in your local area as most of these businesses are small shops without much (if any) promotion

The US has a pretty thriving for-profit used books market. There’s a national chain called Half Price Books that has large selections of mostly recently published used books. For some reason pristine books seem to be more trendy than well worn books, so I think people who can afford it do prefer to buy books new for the aesthetic, but in the US at least, the used book market is still going strong

That's so weird. Of course you should get rid of books you won't read again! I do have a small number of books that I keep for sentimental reasons, but mostly the reason I keep books I won't reread is because I forgot I had them😂.

Marie Kondo speaks some hard truths that a lot of people are not ready for.

That was a meme. She never said that, but it was easy to believe because it sounds like something she would say. Her book has a few good tips, but she was so annoying! 😂 She would secretly throw away her family’s stuff and she says that inherited photos were pointless and you should get rid of those because those aren’t your memories.

She admitted she was annouing and that it was bad for her to do that lol. She was a kid, it as in the bio section of her book. ​@@JennieGarciaN

​@@JennieGarciaNAs for inherited photos she said throw them away of they don't mean anything to you, which like she has a point.

That's great actually I wish i could read in public 😔

yess, im also autistic and read in public mainly just so that people dont talk to me

same here, though sometimes I read e-books on my phone and people probably end up thinking I'm just on my frickin phone again lol

I hope it is an expression, but who brings books to a party. If you wanna read why go to a party in the first place

@@Sun.Shine-parties can be really fun! but they can also get veryyyy overstimulating very fast. i enjoy parties, but whenever i am overwhelmed, it's wonderful to have a book on hand so i can escape the moment and enter into another world. it helps me enjoy the rest of the party because instead of having to leave, i can just read and calm down and re-enter the scene :)

Also loads of them in free little libraries. I live in a city so the one near me is actually not so little and usually well stocked. Also a good way to pass on your own books

we were liars was so good prepare to be shook

second hand stores and charity shop are also usually well stocked in classics!

And i’ve volunteered at goodwill before i know theres bins of books in every store they just really slack on putting out the books cause they are the cheapest thing ($1 and $2)

Secondhand book stores tend to have a larger variety than chain bookstores as well

My high school had a massive library… full of computers. I think there were maybe 500 books in this GIANT building. It made me so sad.

The book thief is so good!!!

@@harshdeep8835 Ishiguro's stories always have this beautiful wistfulness to them. The emotional depth is simply unfathomable.

@@ovenbird1253 "I am haunted by humans." Just remembering the story makes me tear up :')

I loved "Never let me go." It's one of those stories I still think about today, around a decade after reading it 💜

David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" is spectacular but big ole trigger warning for r4pe.

I am not a native speaker so the way I had to learn English was through rigorous study of grammar and memorising vocabulary. My English can get extremely pretentious. One native speaker once told me that my English is very beautifully spoken, but nobody fucking talks like that in real life, and we had a good fat laugh about it because it's true. I still use ten dollar words but I hide behind my accent. 'Not a native speaker!' And suddenly instead of ughs you get ooohs.

@@Killjoy_Melwe should all be trying to talk like you!

@@Killjoy_MelEnglish is not my first language either and I had to learn the same way as you.l did. I read mostly books in English so I can learn new vocabulary and I use “big words” in English and Spanish, but not to be pretentious, that just comes out naturally after having read so much in my formative years.

@@Killjoy_Mel i believe those big words are the ones which has their roots in latin. does your native language descend from latin?

The thing is though the people who are consuming so many books are only buying the popular books

@@usernotfound.......1918 buying popular books can ensure the livelihood of an entire industry, it’s always been like this and in every possible sector

Conversely, if you cannot express yourself in lay terms, then your speech is of poor quality, no matter how florid it is. Language is for communication and someone who keeps spitting ten dollar words that confuse most people is showing off alright, but also being a poor communicator more interested in basking in the light of their own knowledge than getting their message across. Saying this as a degree holder in English philology and literature. My idea that refined language is the one that uses big words a lot flew out of the window within the first few months I was studying, and I have no patience for people who insist on talking through a rosebush for the sake of it.

Isn't deliberately keeping track of new words from an elite university kinda the definition of pretentious, though?

​@@NShomebase No

I used to write down words I came across while reading that I didn't understand and look them up in the dictionary afterwards. It's so much easier now with an ereader.

I downloaded Libby on my phone and use it to fall asleep. The number of books I have not finished is mind boggling considering I used to be one of those if-I-start-it-I-have-to-finish-it people, but I've found some interesting stories that I never would have read otherwise. I don't love audiobooks because a lot of times the reader's voice or the over-the-top production of the book is annoying but I like that I can read and play games on my phone at the same time.

Have you tried ebooks or audiobooks? I have ADHD so I listen to audiobooks and I consume on a low end estimate over 100 a year (I'm als oa historian so like reading is 90% of what I do).

@@DrAnarchy69 Audiobooks are expensive

@@crystalcharee57 Thanks!

@@PokhrajRoy. there are MANY free ones here on youtube, you just have to look for them.

Discovering Libby app was one of the best things to happen to me in 2023!

I think it’s a positive outcome from Covid.

Sarah J Maas was huggeeee on booktube back in the early to mid 2010s. Her and Cassandra Clare ruled that space.

@@TalkAsSoftAsChalkYESSSS that’s actually how I started reading SJM and the shadowhunter chronicles years ago! Polandbananasbooks was my booktube queen haha

Colleen Hoover wasn't traditionally published until she blew up on BookTok though, so her books literally weren't in bookstores. That applies to a lot of self-pub authors (mostly romantasy) these days. (Not to SJM, though - she's been huge for like a decade.) There is a massive difference between the reach and fanbase of a self-pub novel you can only get on Amazon, vs a trad published novel that's physically on the shelves at bookstores everywhere.

@@Midhiel Guess I didn't actually see a bunch of copies of Ugly Love in the Staff Picks section of my Barnes and Noble in 2016 then lmao

i feel this so hard. i've been watching booktube since 2015 and it was so funny to see tiktokers act like they discovered sarah j maas and coho. i remember when ugly love came out and everyone was going feral for colleen hoover, and the throne of glass series pretty much was the poster child for the mid-late 2010s ya fantasy craze. like, i've never been a fantasy or romance girlie, but it was pretty impossible for me to not recognize those titles and authors because of just how oversaturated they were on booktube.

I use the iPad to bring books when I travel because 1 iPad=all my e-books. And less back pain!

I have struggled to read new books during depressive or stressful times, but have some great books that I re-read frequently and feel like I am visiting with old friends.

I went through the same thing! It's the first time I've heard someone else who experienced this. I also mostly stopped listening to music for many years. It sucks how depression can kill your passions and hobbies like that. That's how I knew I eas getting betyer, because I started listening to music again. Books took a bit longer though. I'm so glad to hear you are doing better now and enjoying reading again! 💜

@@rhythmandblues_alibi Music was the first to go for me too! And we’ve found each other on this little corner of the internet to send well wishes! Hope you’re well, safe and thriving. Keep going ❤️ I didn’t know for many many years that there was another side to depression, I thought I was in for life. Enjoy every moment

@@lololpoppy you really made me smile 🥰 so thanks! Wishing you health and happiness too, my friend 💖

my bookshelves are shaking

Ohhhh yah. Neurobiology here and yep. My background was carefully assembled of favorite books in subject, tongue in cheek objects (phrenology head, antique microscope), "wonderkammern" items out the wazoo, my best insect pins, annd the aggressively weird nature meets Culty stuff art I love so much!! But...I must confess. I got the idea to arrange the background like that from KZfaqrs!!

Like, I think the reality of having read a book is different from owning that book, especially the multitudes of expensive ones. In academia especially, there's a difference between having read Dante's Inferno and owning 5 copies or whatever.

Concerning your last point, I think that is why Hemingway is such a classic author. His sentences are so basic yet classic- never convoluted. Vs authors that have aged poorly and are harder to understand

oh man, it's been so long since i read girl with a pearl earring! i remember it being such an enjoyable read of class and gender in the space of dutch art.

excellent recommendation yes. I loved The Lady and the Unicorn and The Virgin Blue

Omg Girl with the Pearl was massive when I read it probably 20 years ago! I still think about the story 💜

Yeah I relate with that A LOT

I did this in college and it was the greatest decision I've made in the past 10 years. Vividly remember the day I took the bus to the library after class to sign up for a new card. I feel like it has really helped my attention span and made it easier to get school assignments and now work assignments done.

I may be showing my age, but facebook has some great groups based on author or genre, at least for my favourite genres!

I also found a local book club through Facebook, and they're all around my age and read mostly YA/fantasy stuff, not stuffy middle aged women reading romances like I expected - and that's on me for stereotyping!

Happy valentines!!! 💘