Kate's Picks: Book Tok Part 2

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This week's pick: Book Tok Part Two

Hmm. Am I still recommending BookTok? Despite its tendency to recommend the same books over and over? Despite the fact that some of its most popular creators are clearly more about aesthetics than actual reading, at least according to this guy?

Last week, I did recommend BookTok. I still do, but touch less enthusiastically. I do worry about the whole spying business, but also trust The Guardian on the issue, because it is the most consistently reliable news source out there.

In preparation for eventually writing an article about my favorite Booktokers for the June issue of our magazine, I’ve continued to consume a lot of BookTok, and no matter how many ways I try to goose my algorithm for more variety, it’s true that a lot of the same authors appear over and over and they are mostly Colleen Hoover. Her books may be great, but they seem to be very thrillerish, and I’m generally not a thriller person, so I have no thoughts on her actual writing.

But I’m going to be totally honest here and say what it is that I’m really thinking about is why BookTokers are not BookTokkers? Are they smoking books, like, literally? Like ripping out pages, filling them, rolling them and lighting up?

Do these questions indicate that I’m very old to you? They should. I do not believe the youth these days use the expression “toker,” or “toking up,” but back in ‘73, when I was all of 11, “The Joker,” by The Steve Miller Band became justifiably ubiquitous on both AM and FM radio. It spread the word “toker” to the masses, but most of us (especially me) had no idea what it meant. I only realized it was an early popular tribute to weed and loafing and loving the ladies many years later. So when I see “BookToker,” that’s the song I think of.

(Also, to this very day, I think not even Steve Miller himself truly knows what “pompatus of love” means, but maybe this?)

So what does this post even mean? I think it means that I love music as much as I love reading, and that BookTok is still worth paying attention to because it is absolutely affecting what all of us can read. So you might want to check it out.

Yours in Enchantment,

Kate