The Bookish Community: Hot Take

The bookish community is marred. And honestly? It’s our own doing.

We’ve given mega-conglomerates the idea that a rosy image of stacked books and dimly lit rooms, is our equivalent of an ice cream truck circling a neighbourhood. Replace “Softee” with phrases like “Book Lovers” and “Bookish,” and we need no more persuading.

The “bookish” cultural moment has grown so popular that it has caught the attention of fashion brands, celebrities and influencers. Coach collaborated with Penguin Random House to launch bag charms that are actual mini books, Miu Miu hosted a book club night, Dior dropped a Dracula bag that’s designed like the book’s cover. Celebrities like Dua Lipa, Dakota Johnson and Natalie Portman, have all launched their book clubs. Suffice to say that books are now in season.

While in retrospect such a popularity of books is a great way to promote the culture of reading, it doesn’t necessarily equate to people actually committing to the practice of reading. An example of this is “bookish” social networking platforms. Goodreads dominated the market until we saw the rise of Fable, Storygraph and now ThingsBook, amongst other platforms. All these apps share common denominators: set a reading goal, track your progress, build reading lists, engage with the community and write/read reviews.

One could argue that Fable and ThingsBook each have a slight advantage over the rest since Fable introduced a book club feature where readers could engage in chapter-wise conversations, while ThingsBook expanded the categories of interest beyond books to include manga, television and games.

However, the goal for all the apps remains the same: community building. And yet, I would argue that the apps defeat that very purpose. The audience is stretched thin in choosing between the numerous apps. The pros and cons list of each platform has flooded the internet with each reader highlighting their #1.

There’s something here that I want to reiterate for emphasis. The primary function of all these apps is tracking your reading journey. That’s it. In spending time choosing the right platform, readers, I would argue, are losing sight of what’s more important: reading the book itself. There already exists a community of active readers on BookTok and Bookstagram that are ever so involved in discussing books.

And to track your reads, a dedicated reading journal does wonders. That’s what I’ve done. I deleted Goodreads, Fable, Storygraph and ThingsBook (yes, I had all of them), and instead switched to tracking my reads on paper and finding my community on platforms that I’m already familiar with. Because what matters at the end of the day is that I read the book I committed to.