This Week in Booktube: May 3, 2026

(These are the Booktube videos I watched this week. As always, I encourage you also to check out each of the videos I've linked to down below.  Support Booktube.  And let me know what you've watched this past week.)

Google document: docs, pub

Pens and Poison by Liza Libes Why I Left Academia (And Why Modern Literature Is So Bad)

Bookish I Hate Frankenstein!

Raf Blutaxt Dear Booktube, Get An Education!

Randy Ray Do Audiobooks Count as Reading?

Steve Donoghue A Little Rant about Book-Reviewing by a Book Reviewer!

William's Library Why I Temporarily Stopped Reading

Bucky749 Star Trek dvd and blu-ray collection 2026

Abby Reads The Seriously Well Read Tag

Abby Reads „The Martian Chronicles“ by Ray Bradbury | A 5P Review

 ...although this week, I must add a caveat for a couple of these videos.

There's been some discussion on booktube lately about the rise of conservative booktube.  I don't have a problem with conservative booktube per se (the more diverse points of view, the better), but it does appear that this new conservative booktube is only interested in complaining about woke books.  (i.e.--the anti-woke grifters are finally coming for booktube.)  There are some indications from the video below that this young women is going to be attempting to milk the anti-woke grift, but we'll give her the benefit of the doubt for now.

What bothers me at the moment is her apparent assertion that great literature is divorced from politics.  (Or am I misinterpreting her?)  As it happens, I just finished listening to The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 by Eric Hobsbawm in which Hobsbawm makes the point that the only works of art we remember from this period are the ones that dealt with the political and social issues of the day.

I wish I had remembered to include that in my video review of that book, but I didn't.  (I've already filmed the video review of that book, and it'll be posting in 4 days.  I'm trying to restrain myself and only publish one video per day, so I've got a bit of a backlog at the moment.)  

But I can console myself with the fact that I already made that point in my written review:

In his section on the arts, Hobsbawm claims that almost all of the art of lasting value from this period was politically motivated (contrary to the post modern view that true art must be separated from politics). He cites examples from Mozart's "The Magic Flute" to Beethoven's "Eroica" to the French painters such as Delacroix and David to all the romantic and revolutionary novelists of the period.

I posted a comment to this effect in the young women's video: 

I sympathize with much of this story.  I don't believe academia should exclude political viewpoints, or force conformity to one political viewpoint.  But where I disagree is the premise that great literature should always be apolitical.  I think a lot of the classics of the 19th century were very political in regards to the issues of their day. 

...and then predictably, my comment inspired other people to reply with their own comments, some of which were nonsensical and incoherent.

The other video I want to caveat is this one: 

I like this guy, what little I've seen of him, and I was intrigued by his video, but ultimately left confused as to what his message was.  He seemed to be simultaneously saying that booktubers need to get an education, that a proper education is not just reading books but rather formal schooling, and that American schools don't give us a proper education.  

So, what are we to do then?

I wrote in the comments:

Okay, I'll bite.  I'm an American.  How do you suggest I go about getting an education?

...and I got a bunch of unhelpful replies.

Like, for instance:

For you personally, I would suggest starting with the difference between good faith and bad faith arguing.

Dude, what?  I'm just trying to get some clarification here!

Or, this one:

If you can write a youtube comment, you can get educated. Yale and Oxford have dozens of hours of lectures on this website alone. Most high end schools have free lectures online. Wiki's exist, history books can be sold privately. You probably have a local library.

You may not be able to a job with a degree from it, but you can ALWAYS continue educating yourself, for free, with a little bit of time and effort.  Never, ever, let people convince you that you are trapped in ignorance, the average person has more ability to learn now than they ever have. IF we can avoid the distractions along the way, THAT is the real challenge.

To which I replied: 

Okay, but, the premise of this video was that reading a lot of books does not make you educated.  Or did I miss something?

I'm assuming by extension this applies to online audio, lectures and wikis.