In our modern digital age there are a thousand ways to access stories. Movies, Netflix, Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, Audible and so many others. Then there are books. A sheaf of papers connected by some kind of binding. Next to flashing lights, blinding action scenes and resonant voices, it doesn’t seem like they would stack up all that well.
But it seems they are. For centuries, people have been reading books. In recent years that has changed, for the first time people can reach out through a tiny glass screen and access whatever kind of entertainment or stimulation they want. Through that portal, infinite possibilities exist and can be reached with a few clicks. Then left just as quickly. It is an almost withering abundance of options.
In a sense, books provide the same palette of options. There are literally millions of different books. The difference is that no one can access them all whenever they like. It requires time and intention to get in your car and drive to a library or bookstore and deliberately choose the book (or, let’s be realistic, books) of your choice.
Yet somehow there is a resurgence of the love of books in this world. Go to any kind of bookstore and you’ll find people there – buying books, just looking or doing both somehow. If you round a corner, you’ll probably see at least one person curled up in a chair reading. Listen to the conversations around you and somewhere people will be talking about a book. There’s a decent chance that person is me.
Every month, this becomes a little more common.
There is something in reading a real book which is beautiful. It is everything that digital media is not. There are those who say that reading is just a way to escape the world around us. To which I say, why not? Books are portals, but not to infinite worlds, rather, to one infinite world.
There is a communal aspect in reading which is not really there for the digital sphere. Which is odd, because a group can experience a movie together in a way they cannot with a book. But there is an almost magical moment that everyone encounters sooner or later when you bring a book, confident that no one has read it. And then there is the “Oh, I love that book!” moment.
It is like finding a friend you never knew you had been missing. Do things like that happen with digital media? Sometimes, but it isn’t the same. Why? Because consuming a TV show is something which is inherently for a group. There is an association there that it is something that is known. But when you pick up a book, as far as you know you’re the first to see it. The only people you read it with are the characters. There’s a kind of subtle pleasure to that.
The community with reading comes after. Many times I’ve read a series alone, only to run across it in the hands of a friend. It is a revelation of a shared experience I didn’t know I had, and with that comes an instant sort of kinship.
Then there is the exchange of books. Not always physically, of course – it can be merely meeting a fellow reader and swapping book suggestions. This is the best way, in my opinion, to find new books to read.
There is now an entire internet subculture based on this principle. Social media encourages one thing before all other things: uniformity. When a book becomes popular with one influencer, those in the same space quickly follow suit so they can identify with the appeal of fame. This is the general principle of social media spaces like BookTok.
The result? A mixed bag. On the one hand, there are more people reading, and some of those people likely go on to become avid readers, which is simply delightful. On the other hand, the vast majority are likely just reading and discussing the same few books that have gone viral at the time. This seems unpleasant because it brings a sort of monotony to the delightful landscape of books. It reduces the millennia of literature to a handful of contemporary authors.
I have been a voracious reader for most of my life, long before BookTok and its cousins were a thing. As such, the echo-chamber nature of the digital reading landscape has nothing to do with my own reading habits. Since the advent of BookTok, however, I have noticed a change in the bookstores, in the people and anywhere else affected by books. Whole sections of bookstores are devoted to books that are online sensations. There are those among my friends who only read those books they find on social media. I can’t say I really mind; more people are reading, after all. But I hope anyone who is in the same situation will branch out and try some less well-publicized books. They’re the best.
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