Author: Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

Aria @ Book Nook Bits will be the new host for Let’s Talk Bookish! If you aren’t following her yet, good check out her blog and give her a follow!

November 25: Books That You’re Grateful For

Prompts: What are some books that you’re grateful for? What books have had the biggest impact on your life?  How did you discover them?

Welcome everyone to the last LTB of November! Today’s topic is great, and I believe it is either suggested by Aria herself or perhaps someone anonymous? I have never thought about what books I am “grateful” for, so this ought to be interesting.

I think books that I am grateful for often have a huge impact on me and end up becoming some of my favourite books. It may not change how I necessarily act or think, but most of the time it does give me perspective or at least affect a little bit my opinion of similar books.

When I was young, I really enjoyed a book called The Supernaturalist and honestly I hardly remember what it was even about or why I liked it. But I definitely remember that I liked it. Later I read Memoirs of a Geisha, and I think that really changed the way of how books affected me. Is a pattern starting to appear? Finally, in this new age, my new favourite impactful book has been The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

I think the pattern are these big melodramas, with realistic scenarios with heartbreaking choices and decisions no one could make. Something about the way that even as a third person omniscient, there was just almost no right answer, and everything is just a choice and a path you take, and you can’t look back. I really admired the persistence of all the characters as well, despite whatever obstacles life threw at them (and there were many).

I think all of these books were really just randomly discovered. Two were suggested by friends, and I believe one was given (donated) to me! I really don’t know if there’s any rhyme or reason as to why I ended up reading these books, but I think that’s the beauty of it too. When you are looking for a book to change your mind, that already alters your perception of the book. I think it’s impossible to try and do that intentionally; rather it just happens when you read books that resonate with you.

Which books changed your lives or perspectives? Let me know in the comments below!

Aria @ Book Nook Bits will be the new host for Let’s Talk Bookish! If you aren’t following her yet, good check out her blog and give her a follow!

November 18: Gatekeeping in the Book Community (Nicole @ Thoughts Stained With Ink)

Prompts: Are there times where you have noticed gatekeeping in the book blogging community? What about in the publishing industry as a whole? What does this gatekeeping look like? How can we combat this?

Welcome to another week of LTB here at DTRH everyone! Today’s topic is very interesting, as I haven’t really thought about it. I’ll try and parse out some of my ideas here, but I’m certainly no expert. I’d love to see what you guys have to say on this!

I haven’t really noticed any gatekeeping in particular in the blogging community. People do tend to read the books mainly that are hyped or popular within the community and provide their own thoughts on it. I certainly wouldn’t call that gatekeeping though, as I have seen people express their real opinions on books despite their popularity (and I have done the same here as well). I do wonder if there are books that bloggers don’t mention though, because they’re not as well-known in the community. I just post about whatever I read, but I can definitely tell when books are popular or not even by the responses.

The public industry as a whole definitely gatekeeps. I don’t have specific examples and I don’t really see it, but I just know that it happens. There are certainly ideas and perhaps types of tropes, etc., that never make it past the editors/publishers, and there is some sort of censorship or gatekeeping happening here. They do have the monopoly on everything, so it does make sense that this would happen.

Gatekeeping can look like a lot of things. But it’s usually an individual or a group of individuals (a community) expressing the same opinion to keep something suppressed. So an obvious example would be people who call audiobooks not real reading. These kinds of sentiments are generally unproductive and tend to alienate another class of people. I haven’t seen this too much in our community actually, I feel like we are generally a welcoming bunch, and most “bad” reviews I read always have a hint of optimism or at least include that it may have just been due to personal taste.

Being more open-minded and more careful in how we express our opinions can be a way to make sure this doesn’t happen as easily within the community. As for the publishers and other big corporations doing it, it may be a bit more difficult to challenge. It’s okay to share your opinions, but it should almost never be done in a way to alienate or put down others, when it is really just a pure opinion. A little more compassion can go a long way I think!