It’s Friday, so it’s time for the Book Blogger Hop again, hosted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer. I’ve made my own image from a stock photo (credit: Anna Shvets) to avoid adding images created via generative AI to my blog. Feel free to use it too if you would like!
This week’s prompt is about whether you follow trends or not:
Do you follow book trends and bestsellers, or do you prefer hunting down lesser-known titles?
I don’t specifically try to follow what’s trending; I don’t pick up a book because it’s a hit on BookTok or Bookstagram (I probably wouldn’t even know that it is!), or read something just because it’s a bestseller… but I don’t refuse to read such books, either. A lot of the time they aren’t the sort of book I’m interested in, but e.g. the trend for cosy fantasy and romantasy has been a fun one, and I have read some of those, and sometimes popular books have worked well for me even if they aren’t a genre I normally read. Sometimes then I’ll seek out other similar books (as with romantasy, cosy fantasy, my deep-dive into danmei, etc)… so I guess in that sense I follow trends, since that can be a good way to find other similar books.
Because I don’t actually use stuff like TikTok or Instagram, I mostly come across books through blogging or through just exploring in bookshops, or occasionally via The London Review of Books or The New York Review of Books, so I’m usually well behind on the trends either way. I don’t think that’s a particular virtue, though; there’s value in popular fiction, even if it’s just people enjoying it. Some of what I read is lesser-known just because it’s old, but it was popular fiction of its day even if it’s sometimes treated as “classic” now: my addiction to golden age crime novels is no secret.
All in all, I guess my answer is a bit of a shrug. I don’t particularly do either, I just pick up whatever pings my interest, which may or may not be a bestseller or a less-known book, and might sometimes mean picking up books because they fit the same description as something else I liked, which might happen to be “trendy” (do people still use that word?).
I’m much the same—I tend to choose whatever catches my interest rather than worrying about whether it’s trending. I especially like discovering books through other bloggers because that’s often where the unexpected finds come from. Happy Reading!
Kat ~ Forever Book Lover recently posted…Book Blogger Hop: Trends, Bestsellers, or Hidden Gems?
I definitely find a lot of books through other bloggers, but my favourite thing is browsing a good, well-curated bookshop and finding things that people haven’t been posting about.
I’m pretty much the same! I will read whatever calls to me and if it happens to be a bestseller or “trending” then it is what it is. If no one knows what book I am talking about, well that happens too. Hopefully my talking about helps gain their interest though! Lol.
Thanks for visiting my BBH!
Yup! I often end up reading books no one’s ever heard of, but I figure that’s pretty cool for all involved.
Yeah, I don’t usually follow anything that’s “trending.”
Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer recently posted…Book Blogger Hop: ‘Book Trends and Bestsellers’
Mostly, I wouldn’t even know, ahaha.
I am not part of the demographic groups that are targeted for trends. I’m not sure I ever was. I did have a wonderful pair of bell-bottomed pants in 1968 that I remember fondly.
Deb Nance at Readerbuzz recently posted…The Sunday Salon: The Joy of Blue Polka-Dotted Piggy Squeak Toys
Me neither, haha.
I miss being able to stroll a book store or book fair (it’s a book activity desert where I am) and just discover books…but I suppose bookstagram etc is kind of like browsing though you can tend to see the same books over and over, and true finds are rare.
Yeah, I find that even blogs can get a bit echo chambery, with people reviewing the same books, and then I go to a bookshop and there are books I’ve never heard of at all that are fairly new but just didn’t get into my circle’s stacks.
In a nutshell, you do your own thing, and sometimes that may overlap trends and sometimes it doesn’t.
Olivia recently posted…Weekly Reading Update 8-22-2026
Yup, pretty much!