Tag: This Week in Books

This Week in Books: Men and Their Book Clubs

John Guillen5 Comments

I’m sitting here reading an article about men being a part of male-only book clubs. I’m thinking a few things as I read on, but I’m just surprised that we even need to point this out. Women have had their own book clubs since forever, and no one is writing up articles about those. But the reasoning for the original article referenced appears to attempt to dispel this myth that reading is somehow not manly or masculine.

Wait, what?

This is stupid. But the sad thing is that I’m not even surprised by this. I know some of you are really interested in BookTube and similar Instagram accounts, but I want to ask you something. When you think of your favorite book accounts on any social platform, who’s running it? Is it a man or woman.

In my experience I’ve found that girls are far more likely to be running these types of accounts. I’ve also found that they’re far more likely to gain a following through them. Maybe men are expected to be talking about sports or politics or something more manly, but some things I just don’t understand.

I do understand when girls gain larger followings on any social platform than the typical guy does because guys are stupid online. I know because I have a girlfriend with 22k followers on Instagram and I’ve seen the comments and DMs.

But I’d just like to ask why it’s so odd for a guy to enjoy reading. Should he be reading comics instead? Or should he be in the gym working to improve his overall health? Reading is one of many forms of entertainment (and much more to many) that people enjoy. I don’t know why it needs to be for one sex over another.

My question today is about stereotypes and perceptions. Why do you think a big deal is made when guys enjoy reading?

This Week in Books: Tennessee’s State Book

John Guillen2 Comments

Welcome back to This Week in Books. Today’s topic is not to be taken lightly. I know most people couldn’t care less about any state’s official state book, but what if that book also happens to be the Bible? Would you raise your eyebrows at that? I would. Which is how today’s video came about.

Seeing a state even consider naming the Bible as its official state book in 2016 should be a head scratcher, but it’s isn’t. Not when you take a minute to think about all these so-called “religious freedom” bills that are constantly popping up all over the country.

Now watch, please! And don’t forget to tell me what you think!

This Week in Books #8: On Johnny Reads

John Guillen5 Comments

No video this week. Y’all don’t hardly watch them anyway. It’s become increasingly difficult to maintain the blog. It isn’t really that I’m working, it’s that I’m bored. I used to have so many people to interact with on here and that number has just fallen off a cliff. And it’s my fault.

So I’m going to take a long hiatus to focus on other things. I’m not sure when I’ll post here or when I’ll upload new videos. I’ll see you when I see you.

This Week in Books #6: The Great Literary Tournament

John GuillenLeave a comment

Welcome back to Johnny Reads and This Week in Books. I had every intention of doing a new video, but I bought a new light and the light was not as useful as I’d expected. Which meant I was left with no time to record, upload, and edit last night.

But this week in books is the week of tournaments. Mostly because everyone wants to get in on the popularity of the NCAA basketball tournaments.

Yesterday I told you about the Half Price Books Tournament of Fictional Places. Today I’m teling you about Amazon’s Great Literary Tournament. It’s even better.

This one pits 64 different literary characters against each other in another bracket style tournament. With each character given a ranking between 1-16. And voting is on social media. I’ve noticed that most of the tweets from the Amazon Books account over the last two days has been for the tournament. I’ve voted a couple of times already. BUT there is something I have an issue with. Katniss is an 11-seed. Which means she’s facing off against a 6-seed. And it’s Tris Prior from Divergent. Spoiler alert: Tris dies. So no. NO. I haven’t seen that matchup tweeted just yet. But you can bet I’ll be voting as soon as I can for the girl on fire.

You can view the bracket here.

Who do you think will take the tourney? I honestly have no earthly idea. But it better be Katniss. Ha.

This Week in Books #4: World Book Day and Hachette gets bigger

John Guillen2 Comments

No video this week because I’m still sniffling and coughing. Which makes it difficult to record. But I do have two more topics to discuss today. I’ll dive right in.

The first is that Hachette, already one of the largest publishers in the US, acquired Perseus Books. Which means a huge publisher just got even bigger and one of the largest independent publishers is no longer independent. The deal adds several imprints to Hachette and probably more than $100M in revenue each year. How great it is for publishing, right?

The other topic is World Book Day. It was yesterday. The day celebrates all things books. Writers. Illustrators. Readers. Everything. And I think the founding organization also donates books or gives out book vouchers to kids. That’s nice, but there are way too many people who don’t take it seriously. What I mean is they tweet out stuff or post pictures on Instagram strictly to get likes or maybe new followers. They don’t care about actually promoting books. They don’t care about people who have no access to books while they consistently read the latest YA bestseller. And they don’t care about literacy. All they care about is their stupid social media accounts that amount to shit. If you want to be about promoting books and literacy, then be about promoting books and literacy. It’s actually really simple.

What do you think of a huge publisher getting bigger? Have any thoughts on World Book Day?

This Week in Books #3: Authors and their freedom of expression

John Guillen7 Comments

Today’s video discusses two specific cases regarding authors’ freedom of expression. Both cases are current and involve Salman Rushdie and Ahmed Naji. Maybe you know one or both of them, but maybe you don’t. Regardless of what you might think of either one of them as a person or their work, these two men are unfairly being targeted and singled out for their work. I’d rather talk about them and bring a little bit of awareness to their cases than just sit back and say nothing.

Take a few minutes to watch and let me know what you think of authors’ freedom of expression in the 21st century.

This Week in Books #2: Apple, Khloe Kardashian, and more

John GuillenLeave a comment

Welcome to the second post in my new “This Week in Books” series here on the blog and YouTube channel. Today I’m discussing three interesting topics. Khloe Kardashian. Apple. And a new development about A Birthday Cake for George Washington. I know it’s a pretty random assortment of topics, but that’s what makes it fun! At least I’m doing something different, right? I mean, I could just grab the latest YA bestseller and review it like everyone else seems to do. But that’d be boring and not very original.

Anyway, now watch!

PS: I forgot to wear my hat this time. I’m sorry you have to see my hair. I’m embarrassed.