Young Men on BookTube! 

Great video! Love these videos when you talk about so many different topics and books, always interesting and thought-provoking.

This was incredibly kind of you, Steve! Thank you so much. I largely created a channel because of your frequent encouragement in your videos, and I have found this community to be as wonderful and welcoming as you say. Thank you again for all that you do in this community! By the way, I’m guessing Virginia Woolf and Samuel Johnson for two of the greatest critics, but I don’t know who the other woman would be.

I miss the “literary fiction” of the 90s.

Csop just did a book reaction video for all the books he doesn't like and it was hilarious.

Very, very excited about a new Richard Price novel. Great video!

Actually there is a Christian Booktube. I happened to stumble upon it a couple of weeks ago.

I never disagree when people say that Murakami is the equivalent of french fries for literary fiction, but I enjoy him even when he's bad. Please help!!

But who are the three greatest book critics of all time? My guess for the two women - Woolf and Hardwick?

Richard Price is 74 (my parents swear that's the new 50) and Powers is 67 (mom and dad say it's the new 40). Murikami is an ancient 75 so expect another sleep-inducing novel.

A-a-am I a young, sprightly fellow?

A possibility, if people want a read a different book about someone growing horns, is Mister Pye by Mervyn Peake

A young(ish) man here. I started a BookTube channel after seeing your ‘Video Response the Dark Side of BookTube!’ video from a few months back where you said (among other valuable pieces of advice) if someone was thinking about starting a channel then they should at least give it a go. At that point I’d been thinking about starting a channel for several months. Unfortunately, I realized very quickly that ‘Booktubing’ wasn’t for me. I’d even recorded a BookTube ‘newbie tag’ video, which I decided not to publish in the end. It just wasn’t working for me. I hated appearing on camera, hated my voice, found my attempt at doing a structured review too stilted and po-faced, and found my unstructured videos to be a lot of embarrassing waffle. I’d tried to think of creative ways I could get around these stumbling blocks, but in the end, I found the process of making videos took up too much of my already limited free time, which I needed for other hobbies (music, writing and of course reading.) I was definitely much happier returning to being a watcher of booktube videos, rather than an active participant, so these recommendations are great! 😊 I’ve already subscribed to Joshua and Zeke’s channels. It’s always great finding new channels to follow and then spending a few idle hours watching their past videos, and even better watching a new channel gain traction and become huge over time (I think I started watching Grammaticus Books when he only had five videos uploaded - now he has one of the biggest channels on BookTube!)

Thank you for confirming you're a Pynchon fan (haven't watched 100% of your videos - just started recently). Ever since watching a lot of your videos, I've been sitting here sweating that I'm a dudebro for liking Pynchon.

Thanks. This was very thoughtful, thought provoking and (phew😅) thought supportive.

I keep reading Murakami, and I'm not sure why. I never get a ton of enjoyment out of his novels. They're odd, yes. But to what end? I keep thinking maybe it's just because I can't read him in Japanese that I can't understand the works better, but maybe it's just that the stories and characters are really not that good? I don't know. I think I need to move on from him. There are too many other intriguing writers out there that probably deserve my time and attention.

Uh oh, I think RU-vid deleted my original comment because I tried to recommend a channel to you (Must Read More). Well, again, thank you for your kind words and all you do for this community. I'll be watching all of these channels as soon as I can!

The ratio of female to male viewers of RU-vid was a big surprise to me.

So happy to hear you talk about Pynchon! You said ALMOST everything by him is great, are there any Pynchon novels you think are skippable?

👍🏾 🙏🏾

That's strange, because all of my favorite Book Tubers are men.

What no Joe Spivey? An easily remediable lovers tiff, I hope..

I'm really not very interested in fiction, in the hands of most book talkers. What I could use is recommendations of book talkers who are interested in non-fiction, which Steve often is. History, science, essays, humor... those sorts of things.

I see and acknowledge all of the issues of Murakami's writing, and still really enjoy his books.

That's odd -- the only booktubers I subscribe to are men. It's not policy, it just happens to be the case. I like women, but I haven't found any female booktubers yet that interest me.

I'm doing my best to swing the numbers back to the man's side, its going to take time though 😄

I enjoyed Horns. ☺️

I've noticed more and more that you open mail off-camera these days, giving relief to the publishing industry from your own fireballs of critical splendour. Is this perhaps your own late style..

No mention of Joe Spivey??

I had no idea there was a booktube until you told me. Then I looked it up. IT LOOKS TERRIBLE! I think I'll stick with you. Any libertarian or conservative booktubers?

I’m a 20 year old guy. I got into reading because of Jordan Peterson, so maybe chill out on him 🤷

you need to wear a hat