Kaia Gerber just confirmed—reading is all the rage again. The revival, it seems, is thanks, in part, to the very thing that almost killed it, the internet.
Of late, chronically online bookworms may have observed the rise of subcultures like ‘hot girl books’ (it has its own category on Goodreads) and ‘sad girl books’ (this one too), which have turned books into something of a fashion accessory. But really, it’s been brewing for a while. In 2019, Kendall Jenner spearheaded ‘Lit Girls Summer’ when she was seen carrying around a copy of Tonight I’m Someone Else by Chelsea Hodson on a yacht off the French Riviera. Later, she was photographed reading Darcie Wilder’s exploration of grief and anxiety, Literally Show Me a Healthy Person, as she traipsed around the south of France. Both books sold out within hours of her posts on social media.
These days, celebrity book clubs have taken over the biblioverse, so much so that if a book is worth reading, you’re likely to hear about it from Gerber, Reese Witherspoon, Sonali Bendre, Emma Roberts, Dua Lipa, or, most recently, Dakota Johnson. While women appear to be leading this reading revolution, the biblio bug sees no gender. The internet’s favourite boyfriend, Harry Styles, once confessed that although he had never been an avid reader, Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood converted him. Meanwhile, Timothée Chalamet and Jacob Elordi’s love for reading has not just earned them the moniker of ‘Brontë Bros’, but also opened debates around performative reading.
But it isn’t just celebrities who have made reading be seen as cool again. An army of Booktokers and Bookstagrammers are connecting with other readers with their content. Through aesthetically curated recommendations, these avid readers have succeeded in introducing the internet generation to new authors, and even helped push the sale of physical books. It speaks of how popular they are that Barnes & Noble even has a dedicated section for books that have gone viral.
While we are grateful for this reading renaissance, it also means that being a book lover today comes with its own set of struggles. The sheer number of recommendations being thrown at you on every platform, not to mention the various book challenges going viral every second day, can leave even the most dedicated bookworm feeling overwhelmed. In the meantime, full-time Booktokers and Booktubers seem to be getting through hundreds of books a year. How do they do it? Turns out there are tricks to every trade. We got four Indian bookstagrammers to share theirs.
Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan (@minnareads)
Annual book flex: 118-124
The author, whose latest book Soft Animal hit shelves last year, offers this tip for those who want to see if a book is the right fit for them: “When confronted with a new book and not sure whether you should read it, read both page one and page 99. If both engage you, you'll probably like the whole thing.” She adds, “This has saved me a lot of time, because sadly the older I get, the more I realise I will probably die without reading all the good books ever written.”
Karuna Ezara Parikh (@karunaskitaabclub)
Annual book flex: 30-40 books
Setting clear reading goals can help you train yourself to read more, says the author of The Heart Asks Pleasure First. “Set a target of reading at least 10 pages a day—that means you can easily finish a 300-page book in a month. That’s already 12 books a year!” She also swears by another reading hack to tackle a reading slump: just divide the number of pages in a book by seven to see how many pages you’d need to read in a day to finish it in a week
Apurva & Mansi (@frenchflaps_and_deckleedges)
Annual book flex: 60-65
Regularly curating content, working a full-time job and reading books is no easy task, and this duo of school friends understands it well. While Mansi juggles her passion for reading with her full-time job as a lawyer, Apurva, a jewellery designer, sneaks the hobby into her daily routine while running a business. For them, audiobooks allow them to go about a day’s work while they get their words in. “Audiobooks don’t just save time; it can also be pleasant to have someone read to you on your daily commute,” they say, recommending audiobook virgins to start with a short story or novella to explore the new medium.
Shreya Verma (@_notesandnovels)
Annual book flex: 30-40 books
Reading does not come easy to everyone, but picking up books on subjects that are of genuine interest to you is one way to see the activity through, says Verma, a Gurgaon-based analyst. “People often try to read what others are suggesting and, in the process, they end up not liking the book. Figure out which genre excites you and start there.” Not a stickler for reading books cover to cover, she thinks that learning when to put a book down is another way to make the hobby feel like less of a chore.
