In One Sentence: The book club will be pivoting to focus on banned books, both reading them and working against book banning.
In Several Paragraphs: In a little over a week, I'll celebrate the 1-year anniversary of posting silly videos of my face on the internet. Believe it or not, the very first video I ever posted was just a shout into the void encouraging people to start a book club (and lauding the always-excellent Glorious Exploits).
In the 12 months since then, my collective channels have racked up ~36K followers and tens of millions of views, which is chump change on the internet, but has manifestly changed my life for the better, and I'm truly grateful for everyone who made it possible.
Unfortunately, in the mad scramble of an internet newbie to say yes to opportunities, I've handled some things better than others, and a constant source of personal shame for me has been how poorly I've handled this book club.
Part of the problem is being spread a little too thin, but I think a greater issue has been loving the idea of having a book club, but never really knowing what to do with it. Book clubs seem to work best when they organize around some point of commonality, either in the members or in the genre read. Well, we're on the internet, and I don't want to exclude anyone from the group on the basis of identity. My reading habits are also too haphazard to easily focus on a single genre — in the last week alone, I've read literary fiction, self-improvement, and two (!!) Warhammer 40K books. I don't know how to neatly package that other than say "hey, it's me."
Not to mention, I share my book content on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, where the vast majority of my audience is. I'd be shocked if any of you found me through any other source. So what's special about the community on Bindery?
BUT! After some reflection, I've realized there is one area of my reading that can 1) include everyone, 2) serve as a framework for a common reading list, and 3) involve collaboration and discussion that doesn't easily happen on the short form video channels.
I'm talking, of course, about my near-fanatical opposition to book banning, wherever it happens to exist. I've made several videos on the subject in the last year, and for years before I posted a single picture, made a habit of reading at least a few banned books every year.
So, in the coming weeks I'm going to pivot what little I have here towards banned books. There will be more to come on what that looks like, and I'm targeting an official launch of 9/1 (in time for back to school, anyone?) but if you want to join along with an August read, I just picked up Last Night at the Telegraph Club, a much-lauded book I'd never heard of until it showed up on the "Most Banned Books of 2025" lists a few months ago.
More to come as I update the copy on this website, restructure the Discord, and otherwise get organized...
