Take a look, it's in a book!

We're Stin and Taylor, and this is the BookCases! We make videos about books sometimes, watch them if you feel like it!

[thebookcases]

New Year, New Video! Let's sit down and chat about 2026 reading goals

[longseasons]

[gwydionmisha]

Bonus: If I buy a book I get to keep it! The publisher can't turn up at my house at random and confiscate all the books I bought.

[thebookcases]

HOT TAKES NEEDED

Hey y'all, we're doing "Bookish Hot Takes" video for the 100 subscriber special, so we need your help!

Comment on this post your piping hot bookish takes and opinions, whether that be takes on stories, publishing, the online book community, whatever you have a hot take on! We'll react to and discuss all of them, so if you want to participate then please comment here or on the youtube community post!

Thank you again for all your support, we're having so much fun with the channel and we're so grateful for each of you who watch <3

[thebookcases]

Thank you all for 100 subscribers!!! We definitely want to do something fun to celebrate, so stay tuned for that. Maybe a Q&A? Maybe a bookish hot takes? Maybe something else? If you have ideas, let us know, but either way, thank you so much for the support! <3

[thebookcases]

Wow, posting a quarter 2 reading wrap up on time, and not a month and a half into quarter 3? Who is she!

[thebookcases]

Everyone who rates books does it in a way that's specific to them...what does a five star book mean to you? What about three stars? Do you use decimals? Today, we're talking all things ratings, from our personal rating scale to the very concept of what a "review" is even for.

[isuggestusingyourlocallibrary]

This is your reminder that Queer Liberation Library is ONLINE, FREE and DOESN'T require a preexisting library card and needs only MINIMAL INFORMATION to sign up for. And they have titles in both EBOOK and AUDIOBOOK and in both ENGLISH and SPANISH.

[queerliblib]

FUCK YEAH WE DO

queer books, for free! (anyone, anywhere in the USA can sign up for a membership)

[thebookcases]

An only slightly overdue reading wrap up! Full of a surprising amount of five star reads, which I am not complaining about.

[thebookcases]

I just turned 30! So let's talk about 30 books that have made me who I am today, as a reader and as a person <3

[thebookcases]

@mug-of-beans told @ironwoman359 to read Food Wars...was this a mistake, or their next great shonen read?

[ironwoman359]

Book asks: 3, 10 and 15?

3: What were your top five books of the year?

Oh I hate choosing favorites, it's so hard! Ummmm ok in no particular order, here:

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

A Power Unbound by Freya Marske

Chainsaw Man (Public Safety Arc) by Tatsuki Fujimoto

10: What was your favorite new release of the year?

I didn't read a ton of new releases this year, nearly everything I read was from my backlist. However, a few of the library books I read this year were new releases, and two I really liked were The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso (cold war time travel fantasy) and The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas (possession horror).

15: Did you read any books that were nominated for or won awards this year (Booker, Women’s Prize, National Book Award, Pulitzer, Hugo, etc.)? What did you think of them?

So I read James by Percival Everett, which came out last year and won the 2025 Pulitzer for fiction, and I highly recommend it. It's a retelling of Huck Finn from Jim's point of view, and it's both so poignant and also very accessible and readable. It was honestly "easier" to read from a pure prose/language perspective than actual Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, if for no other reason than Everett doesn't do the the phonetic spelling of accents that Mark Twain did. I read a few older books that I think won Hugos, but that's the most recent award winner that I read, and I really loved it. Everyone should read!

Book Ask Game

[ironwoman359]

1, 18, and 22 for the book asks!

1: How many books did you read this year?

If you count a volume of manga as a book (Which i went back and forth on so much that I made a whole ass youtube video about it) then I'm currently sitting at 107. If you don't, then I've read 51 books and 6 manga (3 of which I've read about 10 volumes of and one of which I read 20 volumes)

18: How many books did you buy?

Ummm, I'm not sure the exact amount, but it was definitely Several. I buy a lot of books on Pango, and I discovered a really cool used bookstore not far from where I lived this year, not to mention I do two or three barnes and noble trips a year as well for birthdays and anniversary dates and stuff. I'm going with at least a dozen, but it's probably more than that.

22: What’s the longest book you read?

Either The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez or The Poppy War by RF Kuang. The Poppy War technically has more pages, but I have the special edition which has illustrations and I think larger text and wider spacing than Spear, so I'm not sure which is longer. Spear feels longer, but idk precisely which it really is.

Book Ask Game

[thebookcases]

I had such a hard time figuring out how I was going to put the manga I read this year into my reading stats that I made a whole video about it!

[thebookcases]

*emerges nearly six months later covered in dust* We made another video!

[bethanyactually]

have I ever shown you guys my rainbow bookcase?

[thunderstruck9]

Ralph Fleck (German, 1951), Stapel 27/VII [Stack 27/VII], 2013. Oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm.

[thebookcases]

Why do reading wrap ups one month at a time when you can do THREE months of books in one hour long video?