- An ABC Favorite - The Circle by Dave Eggers
- A book based solely on its cover - A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman (I mean, look at it!)
- A book published in the year you were born - Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
- A book that scares you - Ghostly by Audrey Niffenegger
- A memoir - Secrets for the Mad by Dodie Clark
- A book by an author who shares your name - Almost Midnight by Rainbow Rowell (my first name, Iris, means rainbow)
- A book connected to the Netherlands - The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
- A book with time travel - The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
- A magazine - Entertainment Weekly, September 29 issue
- A banned book - Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- A prize winning book - Paper Towns by John Green
- A book set on a different continent - The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel García Márquez
- Reread a childhood favourite - The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
- A comic or graphic novel - Adulthood is a Myth by Sarah Andersen
- A book with bad reviews - After Alice by Gregory Maguire
- A poetry collection - milk and honey by Rupi Kaur
- A book with LGBT+ characters - Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green
- A book with orange on the cover - Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
- A book based on or turned into a film / TV show - A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
- A book with non-human characters - American Gods by Neil Gaiman
- A hyped book - Caraval by Stephanie Garber
- A book your parent loves - The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- A book from a small press - Tangleweed and Brine by Deirdre Sullivan
- An ABC Staff Choice - Wonder by R.J. Palacio
- Bonus square - Now You See me by S.J. Bolton (I read this for a travelling book project)
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"Although Miss Justineau's face stands out anyway because it's such a wonderful, wonderful colour. It's dark brown, like the wood of the trees in Melanie's rainforest picture whose seeds only grow out of the ashes of a bushfire, or like the coffee that Miss Justineau pours out of her flask into her cup at break time. " Can we please stop doing this? Yes, I'm aware that Sennia Nanua has been cast as canonically white (ghostly pale, even) Melanie, and while I think that's cool, it doesn't really change my opinion on the Arterton/Justineau situation. It's almost as if the casting directors went "oh, OK, we have one POC in the cast now - that should do it!". Not cool. Representation is important. I am a bit late to the party, as this video has already been up for almost three weeks, but oh well. I saw it on Tumblr and liked it with the intention of actually watching the video later, which I didn't get around to until just now. I don't necessarily agree with all the qualities of the reader types that Marlin describes, but she herself also acknowledges that those are meant to be charicatures and not 100% accurate. It's a very interesting, thought-provoking video that actually ties in very well with the Booktube Peer Pressure discussion I filmed with Kate and Daphne! Earlier this week, Daphne from (my friend from Daphne M) and I met up with Kate from KateMeansGreat. We've been fangirling over each other's videos for the longest time, but even we though we all live within about half an hour travelling time from one another, we never sat down to plan a meet-up. Until now! Daphne and I took Kate on a small tour of Leiden, where we visited de burcht (an old shell keep) and some bookshops before filming three collabs at Daphne's place. Both Kate and Daphne vlogged the experience, and Kate already uploaded hers! Daphne's will be up after the weekend. Enjoy! A few days ago, I woke up to an inbox full of new subscribers. Obviously this made me very happy, but I couldn't really figure out where all these people had come from. UNTIL I SAW THIS VIDEO! It turns out that Claire from The Book Fox, who regularly does booktuber shoutouts in her monthly wrap-ups, recommended my channel to her subscribers. She even said that I'm great! I'm very grateful to Claire for this extremely nice gesture, and I would love it if my followers, in turn, showed some love to her. So if you're reading this, by all means check out some of her videos and subscribe to her! I came across a booktube video today that I really want to share with more people, because I think it contains in incredibly important message. It was made by Mary from books-and-cookies (please check out her blog, she is quite literally THE nicest person on Tumblr), who recently started a booktube channel. Obviously, I myself love reading, and I know I can go a little overboard when giving people book recommendations. In my enthusiasm, I'll momentarily forget that not everyone is as into reading as I am. I also think that reading in general is important because it can teach people so many things - I am a big supporter of projects to help children find the right books for them, and improving literacy in general. But it's important for everyone in the book community to remember that not everyone likes reading, and that that's OK. Like Mary says, we are not special little snowflakes because we happen to like reading. We are not better than people who prefer sports or creating art or collecting stamps. The booktube and bookblr community are generally great, but there is a lot of snobbery going on under the surface as well: avid readers looking down on people who don't read, or not as much; readers looking down on other readers who prefer YA or graphic novels; people who keep their books immaculate looking down on people who annotate theirs; readers of physical books looking down on people who listen to audiobooks, and so on. That is ridiculous, and it needs to stop.
Ultimately, no matter how much 'being a bookworm' is part of your identity, reading is a hobby - it's something that's supposed to bring you joy. But don't forget, it's also supposed to bring joy to the other people who enjoy reading. Our reading habits don't make us better than anyone else and besides, it's not a contest! I've been thinking about it for a while, but today I finally did it: I created a Facebook page! I'm active on so many social media platforms by now that it seemed like a good idea to have a place where I can gather and connect all of it. I can share links to my videos, blogposts and tweets, share interesting articles and funny images, and just generally interact with people. Please go check it out and subscribe!
I've been in a bit of a booktubing slump for the past couple of weeks, and judging by the comments from other booktubers that I follow, I'm not the only one. I don't know if it's something about this time of year, or whether slumps are contagious (I now know from experience that pulling yourself out of one isn't helped by people in your surroundings constantly repeating how slumpy they've been). I also haven't read as much as I normally would, but I am a little hesitant about calling that a slump - mostly because I don't actually like the term.
Before I begin, I'd like to take a moment to explain why I don't like it. As booktubers, we are used to devouring book after book, documenting our reading experiences in TBR videos, reviews and wrap-ups. Although this is our hobby, there is definitely some pressure to read enough books, make enough videos and say enough interesting stuff in those videos. Sometimes, we tend to forget we're actually doing it for fun. The reason I don't like the term "reading slumps", then, is because it makes us feel like we should be reading all the time. I love reading. I really do, otherwise I wouldn't have started a Youtube channel or created this website. But it's really unnecessary and stupid to feel guilty and sorry for myself when a "reading slump" happens. I love cooking and making music, too - doesn't mean I want to be doing that all the time! Anyway. A few days ago, I found myself starting to make new plans for videos and feeling the buzz of booktubing again. So instead of regarding the past couple of weeks as a slump (which implies some sort of failure or malfunction on my part), I've decided to regard it as taking a break, which can actually be a very helpful way of getting some fresh perspective and also, as a term, gives me a hell of a lot more agency. I'm sure you're familiar with the feeling of not remembering the name of a person or object. The more you try to think of it, the more it seems to evade you, but when you finally think 'forget about it!', it suddenly comes to you. I feel like that's what happened with my and my video making: the more pressure (I have to finish this book so I can review it before next month!), the less I am inclined to actually sit down and film. However, taking a break and moving my focus to other aspects of my life gave my brain the freedom it needed to quietly come up with new ideas. The moral of the story, I suppose, is that I shouldn't sit around waiting for inspiration to strike (and as my art teacher used to tell us, inspiration is for lazy people anyway), but simply put my energy into other things. Ideas will come! Guys. GUYS. GUYS.
My favourite bookshop IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY, The American Book Center, is hiring! Can you tell how excited I am? I'm doing my very best not to get my hopes up too high, especially considering I haven't even sent in my application yet (I've written it though - just need to check it one more time), but honestly, working there would be a dream come true for me. Hey, look at that! The book I gave away in this video arrived!
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