Maybe it's because I'm 200 years old but I don't see the appeal of "booktok" at all. Just saw a "not like other girls" today that was like "your booktok is Coleen whateverhername is. My booktok is Dostoevsky. We are not the same" and I was just like "both are equally stupid". (not the authors and books, just the concept)

I've only started doing this fairly recently, and it is REALLY fun. I put together a whole Korean reading list for my trip to Korea last fall, but out of all of the books I found reading Beasts of a Little Land in the exact areas of Seoul where most of it takes place to be just perfect.

I also read Medicine Walk while on a camping trip with my dad in the same area the book takes place, which was also cool.

Genuinely not surprised.

I read The Hunger Games on a solo hiking trip in North Carolina. Definitely felt very immersed in Katniss's struggle as I listened to the very real coyotes yipping away at night and imagined the very not real teenagers hunting me down during the day.

Just don't force it, IMO. If you don't feel like reading for a week, just don't read that week. You don't need a reading goal if you don't want one, I know I don't have one.

I complained about the French all the way through Villette, it was a paper copy for uni with notes, so I kept having to flip to the back to even follow what the characters were on about. It's so funny now I read French, it makes you aware how similar the two languages actually are (60% English vocabulary being Latinate, most directly from French), so it's hard to remember what I thought the big deal was.

My big bugbear now is how keen eighteenth century French writers are on throwing in original phrases in Latin, which are impossible to look up. I wonder what women were expected to do since most wouldn't have had a Classical education. Not be reading it? Ask a man? On the one hand as a woman it makes me feel justified in going 'quid?', on the other, I do have the opportunity today to improve my scattered Latin...

Well, no, not really. I can feel sympathy for him in a “yeah that’s terrible” kind of way but beyond that? Nah. Also, it’s adorable that because I’m not overly emotionally invested in Harry, that must mean I’m a cold, emotionless robot.

Life is too short to waste on mediocre and bad books. Just focus on reading things you'll enjoy and drop the books that aren't worth your time. I use to read loads of books a year but I got burned out, now I just read when I'm in the mood and if I'm enjoying the book.

You people are genuinely concerning. OMg who cares if some rich guy has feelings and wants to let people know about it reeeeeeeee

You don't have to care about royalty/famous people, but it's concerning to not feel bad for someone whose mother died in a public tragedy and he wasn't allowed to talk about it and didn't get therapy to deal with it for 20 years. They're still people with feelings like most of us, apparently not YOU, even if you aren't interested in the royalty aspect of it.

Yes clearly it's ridiculous to fantasize about being rich enough that you can only get gag gifts for Christmas because you buy whatever expensive things you want whenever you want, and to live in beautiful palaces where you never have to clean or cook for yourself but you still could if you wanted to.

How utterly ridiculous to be fascinated by these real people whose every waking personal moments are on display for the entire world to analyze.

Because some people who aren't even alive anymore did bad things that directly or indirectly benefited most of us.

Nice! It’s only I’ll be returning to before long for many reasons. There’s a good podcast that has an episode worth listening to as well. The Great American Novel podcast.

There’s a lot more to it than that. Diana also had an eating disorder and attempted suicide multiple times because of her husband’s affair with Camilla, and she also hated being royal. Harry’s father even went on to say that he only married Diana because he felt pressure to marry quickly, and then there’s the theory that Diana was murdered by the royals following her divorce from Charles.

Harry was exposed to all of that and let’s be honest, if this was a fiction novel people probably wouldn’t think its boring at all. It would a contemporary familial drama with a love story and a romance. Like, yeah, Harry is out of touch with reality but that’s not 100% his fault — being royal is the only life he knows.

To not be sorry for him is classist and indicates a lack of empathy.

I’m 40 now, and I haven’t read that since high school. You’ve inspired me to read it this year.

Tbh, as an American I’m most interested in how his father’s affair with Camilla and losing his mother impacted his life and relationships with his family. Mainly because his brother seems much more emotionally stable(?) than Harry does despite all of this if that makes sense.

A friend of my family, a Russian woman who is now 102, told me to read War & Peace once every decade of life. She said it would have a totally different effect. I read it at 20, again at 37, and I’ll give it another go at 45 or so. The experience at 37 was so much different and better than at 20. I’d like to do the same with Les Miserables.

I mean the royal family is the head of like a dozen countries and a decent amount of them are wealthy and have a large presence in world issues. It's kinda hard to say that family is irrelevant. Like they clearly shouldn't be relevant cause having a monarchy attached to otherwise democratic nations is outdated, but as long as they are still in power they will be relevant

It's like when people complain that there are too many sequels, marvel movies and remakes while simultaneously going to see each and every one of them.

Or my favorite clicking and commenting on Reddit posts about how much they don't care about whatever the post is about.

LotR while living in the Austrian Alps.

The way I fell in love with reading must have been back in primary school, I stuck to the same few books until I discovered Doctor Who and realised that Doctor Who books existed. That is almost certainly why I'm such a bibliophile today and most of my collection remains Doctor Who books. Basically, I found a genre/series that I was interested in and that allowed me to branch out into all kinds of books. I'm still mainly fantasy and sci-fi but I did recently read 1984.

ppl don’t want to accept their faves authors or books are problematic. I had this same issue with diversity in books… You’re entitled to your own opinion, but it becomes invalid as soon as you offend someone or a harmless community

So what? Someone has to be autistic to like a certain book?!?! what the fucking fuck

Dude. What part of "in this fantasy world black people just don't exist because that's my personal fantasy vision" is NOT fucking racist?

Don't get me wrong. I don't think there's anything wrong with a story set in a place where there happen to only be white people. In an isolated village or whatever that makes perfect sense. But there's a difference between "in this setting, these characters have no reason to come into contact with people from other ethnic backgrounds that aren't what we would see as white" and "actually only white people exist in this world because white is the default normal for humanity"

You know it's kind of a little fucked up that you are not able to separate FANTASY and reality. Right?

Natalie Haynes is doing an AMA tomorrow (3/25/23) at 1PM ET in r/books. A THOUSAND SHIPS, this month's book club pick, and her new novel STONE BLIND!