An important conversation:

This Week in Booktube: July 26, 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

Michael K. Vaughan Library of America Tour: Raymond Chandler

Twelve Months of Christmas It's a fivestarreview saturday! Oh Little Town of Progress Shines a spotlight Promoting change.

Dov James Don't Know What BookTube Wants Anymore

Steve Donoghue Rocket Summer 2026: The Snows of Ganymede

Bookish What Are We Doing?

Book Time with Elvis and Randy Ray Books & Banter Live

Nicole's Bookish Nook Under The Same Stars by Libba Bray | Book Review | Tiny Spoilers

The Wild Digest Rocket Summer 2026 - Week 2ish: Star-Begotten by H.G. Wells

Steve Donoghue Last Week in BookTube for 23 July 2026

Mindy's Book Journey The Silent Appeal Book Review

Reading is a Skill But WHY do you want to read more?

Abby Reads A Reading Cycle Wrap Up

jim's books reading & stuff What are YOU Reading Wednesday (62)?

Abby Reads "Franny and Zooey" by J D Salinger | A 5P Review

Bookish Colson Whitehead: Great American Novelist

Reading is a Skill Lessons learned from one year on YouTube

Steve Donoghue What's Your Odyssey?

Bucky749 Movie  storm : the Last Polka (Sctv related movie ) review

Steve Donoghue Last Week in BookTube for 19 July 2026

The Secret Land Grab Powering The AI Boom

Word Family -og | Phonics Song for Kids | Jack Hartmann

I used this video in my classes to help students learn the -og word family.  

Phonics Song 2

I use this video to help some of my students practice the alphabet and basic phonics.

This Week in Booktube: July 19, 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

Twelve Months of Christmas Honesty Speaks Loudly in This Book Review of "No Holly No Ivy".

Marian H Is Studying Literature Worth It? - An Outsider's Perspective

Steve Donoghue Last Week in BookTube for 16 July 2026

Book Time with Elvis 10 Lessons from 40 Years of Reading

Steve Donoghue Last Week in BookTube: 14 July 2026

Abby Reads Team Mellstock vs Team Yorkshire | Love Triangles in Hardy and Meyer

jim's books reading & stuff I've Reviewed 275 Books on YouTube—Here's What Actually Gets Views...

Bucky749 Samurai vlog :p.o.V Radom location. Of place from vacation

Twelve Months of Christmas You'll RETHINK the Way You Run Your HOLIDAYS while CELEBRATING this FIVE-STAR Read.

Steve Donoghue Last Week in BookTube! 13 July 2026

Steve Donoghue Last Week in BookTube (and Sirens): 12 July 2026!

Your Master POTUS Reading List: 100+ presidential book recommendations

(Thanks to Freddie Deboer for the link.)  I've actually been thinking for a while now about doing a reading project about the U.S. presidents.  This list may be just what I need to get started.  Bookmarking this here for possible later use.

Addendum: Presidents Day Reading List!

This Week in Booktube: July 12, 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

Marian H Wuthering Heights: Romance (Chapters 5–9 Analysis)

Book Time with Elvis Why Adults Stop Reading (And How to Start Again)

Abby Reads "Under the Greenwood Tree" by Thomas Hardy | A 5P Review

Steve Donoghue Epic Comic Book Wednesday: Howard the Duck

Reading is a Skill 9 books that convinced me otherwise (than what the author intended)

Steve Donoghue 22K Answers! Plenty of 'em!

Steve Donoghue Rocket Summer 2026: I, Robot

Steve Donoghue 22K Q&A?

Reading is a Skill "Hate speech" is free speech: a defense of American exceptionalism

Bucky749 My he-man figures villains and others

This Week in Booktube: July 5, 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

Bookish 25 Books That Capture the American Experience

Marian H Men in Charlotte Brontë's Villette - Analysis of Chapters 17-20.5

William’s Library More Books From India

Abby Reads "The Red Pony" by John Steinbeck | A 5P Review

Book Time with Elvis Hello BookTube

Twelve Months of Christmas "Pony Express Christmas" #ridealong! This is a book worth reading. 

Joseph Francis Burton Let's Run!! June 2026

Steve Donoghue Epic Comic Book Wednesday Flash Gordon

Joe's Probably Reading Channel Direction Going Forward

Bucky749 Jeremy’s dvd review cartoon craze Harvey street kids before the street

jim's books reading & stuff What are YOU reading Wednesday (59)?

Abby Reads A Willing Suspension of Science | Expedition and Evidence in Verne, Wells and Crichton

Joseph Francis Burton Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë - book discussion

This Week in Booktube: June 28, 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

Reading IDEAS. Simenon's Maigret in Montmartre and are sensitivity readers ruining publishing.

Joseph Francis Burton White Lady, Black Christ by Charlson Ong - book review

Twelve Months of Christmas "One Perfect Gift" by Kathleen Morgan: Is It The Right Gift For You?

Abby Reads "Heart of Danger" / "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer

This Week in Booktube: June 21, 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

Abby Reads Reading As a Personal Canon Project | Playing Catch Up with Jean Webster

Abby Reads "Congo" by Michael Crichton | A 5P Review

Randy Ray Can You Read Every Classic?

jim's books reading & stuff What are YOU Reading Wednesday (57)?

Michael K. Vaughan Superman: Brainiac

Abby Reads The Reading Shame Forgiveness Tag

Marian H Wuthering Heights: Childhood (Chapters 1–5 Analysis)

Steve Donoghue Response Video: Tier-Ranking Arguments for Gods (Note: absolutely no bookish content!)

Bucky749 Booktube: Kamala speaks review

Joseph Francis Burton The Thief and the Dogs, by Naguib Mahfouz - book review

Abby Reads "The Checkers Tales: Philippine Mythical Creatures" by Joem Antonio | A 5P Review

This Week in Booktube: June 14, 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

RiffRaff's Reading Renaissance (Mike) 1000 Subscribers! | What I learned in my first year on BookTube about growing my channel

Bucky749 Samurai vlog : song recommendation.

Abby Reads Defenders and Destroyers | Masked Agents in Conrad, Chesterton and Myers

Abby Reads "The Man Who Was Thursday" by G.K. Chesterton | A 5P Review

This Week in Booktube: June 7, 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

Dad's Den of Pop Culture The Newsboy Legion & Guardian - Year One Retropective | Simon and Kirby Do It Again! | 1942

Reading is a Skill Isaac Asimov is the American Tolkien

Steve Donoghue A Truly Epic Epic Comic Book Wednesday!

jim's books reading & stuff What are YOU Reading Wednesday (55)?

Reading IDEAS. From Russia With Love. A Hunter's Sketches by Ivan Turgenev.

Abby Reads "The Secret Agent" by Joseph Conrad | A 5P Review

Bucky749 Flip-through:golden age comic:Hit comics issue 2

William's Library Mangroves in Sulawesi (April 2025)

This Week in Booktube: May 31, 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

Reading IDEAS. Simenon and Maigret 1st edition Birthday Book Haul Green Penguins.

Steve Donoghue Epic Comic Book Wednesday: In Mortal Combat wtih the Sub Mariner!

Abby Reads Last / Now / Next | April Achievements & May Misses

jim's books reading & stuff What are YOU reading Wednesday (54)?

William’s Library: Sulawesi Woodpecker

Joseph Francis Burton Rebranding my garbage BookTube channel..!!!

Bucky749 Movie  storm: adventure time Distant lands Obsidian

Joseph Francis Burton The Acts of Peter - Discussion

This Week in Booktube: May 24, 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

Steve Donoghue The Hedgehog Book Recommendations of Our Lives!

Reading is a Skill Evolutionary psychology is not the red pill!

Bookish We Need to Talk, Again

Joseph Francis Burton My Effin' Life, by Geddy Lee - book discussion

Reading IDEAS. The Seriously Well Read Book Tag.

Life on Books Book reviews are DEAD...now what?

RobertG: Reader of Books The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: My personal experience with Booktube.

jim's books reading & stuff 1 min review: The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Bucky749 American 🇺🇸 samurai: Poetry corner AnnaBel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe

This Week in Booktube: May 17, 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

Abby Reads "The Silence of Six" by E.C. Myers | A 5P Review

Randy Ray What Happens if You Quit Social Media and Read Instead

Steve Donoghue Response Video:My BookTube Experience - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!

Marian H Mrs Bridge A Great American Novel

Steve Donoghue Epic Comic Book Wednesday: Superman - The Triangle Era!

Michael K. Vaughan Superman: The Triangle Era

William's Library The Apocrypha (part 4)

William's Library The Apocrypha (part 3)

Steve Donoghue Another Solo Vacation Book-Haul!

jim's books reading & stuff What are YOU Reading Wednesday (52)?

Joseph Francis Burton JFB does The BOOKTUBE NUMBER TAG CHALLENGE..!!

Bucky749 Booktube: Astro City : vol: 2 issue 3 review

Joseph Francis Burton A God Strolling in the Cool of the Evening, Mario de Carvalho - Book Review

Reading is a Skill I'm not sure I get Sapiens

This Week in Booktube: May 10, 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

Randy Ray How to Read Every Day (Even if You're Busy)

Bucky749 American samurai review 1

Bucky749 Book tag book number tag

Abby Reads The BookTube Number Tag

jim's books reading & stuff The Booktube Numbers Tag (origìnal).... un booktag muy chulo

William's Library The Apocrypha (part 2)

Abby Reads "Onion John" by Joseph Krumgold | A 5P Review

Bucky749 Thrifting : my library used books picked up.

The newest of the Oldest Stories Podcast is out now.  (For my review of the whole series, see here.)

Sennacherib vs Hezekiah in 701 BCE: Isaiah and the Battle of Eltekeh

William over at William's Library made another video on The Apocrypha for me.

The Apocrypha (part 2)

And just like last time, I discuss the issue further with him in the comments of the video.  But unlike last time, I'm not going to copy all those comments over to this blog.  (It's too much work.)  So if you want to follow our discussion, check out the comments section on William's video.

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 I was 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.