And I’m loving it.
I only discovered it a little over a moth ago and I’m already hooked! I already can’t remember how I first discovered it, but I know that some of the first videos I watched were BooksandLaLa’s Closet Clean Out Unhaul series (see below). I stayed up late one night and watched every video. I was hooked.
Here’s what wikipedia says about BookTube. A subset of YouTube, it was basically started by publishers to drum up interest in physical books again. Although it is a tool for publishers (and authors) to make money and often features new releases and focuses on books that the publishing world want to make popular, BookTube has taken on a life of it’s own.
Videos you may see include book reviews, hauls, reading vlogs, wrap ups, tag videos, and to be read (TBR) posts. Many BookTubers read those popular books, many do book subscription unboxing and other commercial aspects of this subculture. But many go their way; read classics, make interesting reading choices, read secondhand books, or otherwise make it their own. One of the biggest goals for BookTubers is to connect to other readers thru the books they read and the videos they make.
If this sounds interesting to you, here are some channels to get you started. I was lucky enough to find BooksandLaLa and her series where she looked back at her first TBR list and either read or unhauled the books each month.
A lot of BookTubers are women and it’s a little harder to find male driven channels (much like all of youtube). I really enjoy Gabriel Armstrong’s channel bc he has an engaging style and reads interesting books. His videos are sparse, but really entertaining. The Mid Year Book Freak Out Tag was the next thing I became obsessed with on BookTube, and I really enjoyed his.
If you watch videos mainly for the aesthetic, we have the flip side from the last rec, which is KalynAbridged. Her videos are so pretty! She reads a lot of course, but she also does more traditional influencer vids like night routines, DITL, bullet journaling, and thrift with me’s as well.
I have so many other recommendations for this niche in youtube land, it was hard to pick only three! Let me know if you want to learn more of my favorites or share your own in the comments!