We Need New Book Discourse

If you’ve been on the bookish internet long enough, you’ve seen the same arguments cycle endlessly, most of which boil down to nitpicking what counts as “real” reading. It’s mind-numbingly boring, especially the 20th time around.

That’s where BookTokker Bailey (@GreekChoir) comes in. She made a video where she recommends new book discourse to argue about, including:

@greekchoir Some suggestions for new fresh booktok discourses #booktok #bookish #greekchoir

♬ original sound, Greekchoir| Bailey

At what point can you DNF and say you read the book? At the 80% mark?

If you reread the book without paying the author again, that counts as stealing.

How many sex scenes does a book need to have to count as spicy? Three?

I heard about this thanks to Graciella (@grapies_bookstagram), who offered these suggestions for more book discourse:

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Genres are spoilers and the signs should be covered up in bookstores.

Does listening to the book as you’re reading it physically count as reading it twice at the same time?

We should call physical books p-books to match e-books.

I would love to see some fresh discourse in bookish spaces, so I humbly offer a few of my own:

Bookish influencers should record themselves reading every book in real time to prove they aren’t lying about how many they’ve finished.

Romance novels should be at least 50% dialogue.

Scenery descriptions are unfair to those of us with aphantasia and should be replaced with illustrations.

I look forward to seeing these get taken out of context and enter the discourse in earnest. (It’s already happening in Bailey’s comments section.) Hopefully adding them to the mix will prevent me from hearing “audiobooks don’t count as reading” for at least a few weeks.

What new book discourse do you think we should argue about? Let me know in the comments!

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