What Is BookTube? Learn More About YouTube’s Reading Community – And See Its First Official Reading List! (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Cindy Pham and Jack Edwards.Photo:youtube

youtube

In an exclusive video shared with PEOPLE, two BookTube content creators, Cindy Pham (@withcindy) and Jack Edwards (@jack_edwards), revealed the titles as well as insight into how the BookTube community has evolved.Edwards originally began his YouTube channel to document his life as a first-generation university student. He tells PEOPLE that he wanted to talk about the books that he wasn’t reading for his literature degree, and that he incorporated those videos into his channel.

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!“Now online creators can be somewhere in between book fan and book critic, which kind of democratizes the whole thing,” he says. Edwards is now known online for his niche BookTube content, such asrating all of the books that Lisa Simpson readsonThe Simpsonsand ranking how appropriate they are for an 8-year-old, or readingdecorative books he purchased on Etsy(where Edwards subsequently found a new favorite book).

“I think the weirder, the better,” he says. His YouTube channel, which currently has more than 1.3 million subscribers, has earned him the nickname of “the Internet’s Resident Librarian” and led to opportunities like interviewingDua Lipa, herself an avid reader, and hosting the livestream for the prestigiousBooker Prize.

A still from the video of YouTube’s Ultimated BookTube Community Reading List.youtube

“To get to be a digital creator and have access to those rooms…I feel so lucky to get to do that because I’m not a book journalist or trained in that way,” Edwards says. “It’s just from raw passion that I’ve been sharing online.”Pham launched her YouTube channel in 2018. After reading Melissa Meyer’s young adult sci-fi seriesThe Lunar Chronicles, Pham wanted a place to share her thoughts. YouTube, she says, not only became a platform for her to review what she was reading, but also to get to know a larger bookish community.

“I really liked how all kinds of people were super creative with the type of video that they were making, whether that was book reviews or doing other genres of BookTube videos,” she says. Pham’s channel has also evolved alongside her interests, and features everything from vlogs to her thoughts on book-to-screen adaptations and longer-form videos about publishing-industry scandals. Through the online book community, she’s been invited into Netflix’s writers room to pitch marketing ideas for the screen adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’sShadow and Boneseries, interviewed David Sedaris and even met her girlfriend.

“That was a big thing for me,” Pham says. “I wasn’t even conscious of queerness until I joined the book community because they’re so socially conscious and progressive.” BookTube as a whole, she adds, is in a new era where creators are becoming more intentional and inclusive with their content.

Cindy Pham and Jack Edwards.youtube

“I feel like we are going to continue going that direction,” she says, adding that, “Today, people are much more conscious of who is creating the work that we’re reading, who [we are] choosing to amplify and boost."

Though the BookTube reading list ends at 2023, there are already new kinds of BookTube content on the rise. Silent book reviews, in which readers share their thoughts on books using only their emotions, and more personalized reading recommendations are popular, Buxton says. Creators are also tyingbook recommendations to pop culture moments, like theCharli xcx-inspired trend “Brat Summer.”

“I think we’re seeing that BookTubers are reading a broader variety of books than ever before,” Buxton says. “It might’ve had its origins in YA literature, but now you can find pretty much anything and so many targeted videos that are really honed towards specific interests.”“The beauty with books is that there will always be new books to read and there will always be new books coming out,” Edwards says. “So there’s always something fresh to make content about.”And for those curious about starting a BookTube channel of their own? Pham has some words of advice.

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.See below for BookTube’s Ultimate Reading List Through the Years:

Source: YouTube Data, Global, 2012-2014

source: people.com